Kids These Days

[Griff]

I read Elspodes saga after having had a lovely little confrontation with a particularly diseased mind at school last week. Few folks value contempt for authority as much as I do. There is an expectation by many that we respect authority whether or not its legitamit, reasonable, or arbitrary. Growing up where and when I did I received an education in arbitrary authority as the PA gov kept raising the drinking age pushing us over the border to NY State for our boozing. It was comedic and occasionally tragic.

So I find myself teaching in a coercive system which gets more arbitrary with each passing legislative cycle. Normally you can reason with kids, explaining what they can get out of the system, appealing to their desire for success, convincing them to play "The Man's" game to their own benefit. This gets less and less convincing as courses are taught with the state exams in mind rather than the development of the individual. Its unfortunate that we force kids to follow specific routes through the education system which to paraphrase John Gatto, "Forces the kid who wants to be an auto mechanic to read poetry, while forcing the poet to put down his book when the bell rings." The public school system was originally built in part to assert and build respect for authority. The system, if it ain't broke, is badly bent. Often the outcome is just the opposite of what was intended.

I can almost respect the kid who refuses to cooperate with a system he feels is unjust, unfortunately his response isn't the result of some great intellectual awakening but is rather symtomatic of a human being backsliding to the animal. I suppose the theme of my rambling here is simply that when we assert authority we should always have a clear idea as to whether or not we are being arbitrary because when we are, we are contributing to Patrick's nightmare.