Day before yesterday I wrote about a pool game played while attending CCNY. In reading it back I realized that I displayed a rather distasteful attitude toward “formal” education. And, if I did that, I want to be certain that I make myself clear. I really don’t have a distasteful attitude toward formal education, I simply have no use for it at all.
Now, my attitude isn’t just some random comment that rolls off my tongue, or in this case, fingers. It comes from long-time, day in-day out, experience. Because you see, I was a troublesome student, but for very good reason. While I can document my IQ and it’s sufficient as educable, I have a low tolerance for tedium and bore extremely quickly.
So, while school curricula are geared to the lowest denominator to be sure to be understood and remembered by all, especially the teachers, I generally need only one quick read and want to either move out or move on. Consequently, while classes droned on repeating the same drivel again and again, my mind had a tendency to wander or sleep. Bad combination when dealing with “teachers.”
Throughout my so-called formal education, a continual problem cropped up, confounding educators as well as administrators. I turned in almost no homework, never participated in class, and the only interface I had with teachers was when they had some kind of disciplinary fault with me. So, they all wondered, how can someone who seems to be on some other planet when in class do so well on exams?
The answer was, the pap they were spouting was so simple it took little or no time or effort to memorize or grasp it –provided I listened at all.
The oddest part of my educational travails was that I didn’t attend lesser schools. In fact, to some they're not only outstanding, but arguably the best around. First, PS 6 in Manhattan, on 85th and Madison perhaps the finest public school in not only the city, but everywhere else as well. Then on to Stuyvesant -one of the three top-rated public high schools in New York City. To this day, people pay specialist tutors to try to give their offspring an edge in getting in. Of course, if that fails, there’s always the option of bribes.
Then it was Baruch School at CCNY where I was accepted without question, but then did myself in the lounge on a very bad day for my pool game. And that reminded me of my pool-playing friend Mike F, whom I met attending college the first time around, and then again later on. Resulting in my attending college again, but that's a future story.
But, why bring this up now? Because day after day, week after week, month after month and so on, we keep throwing good money after bad in an attempt to “fix" the educational system in the U.S. but our aim’s a bit off. The “system” so to speak is probably fine, and the curricula, though quite watered down, can probably be improved rather soon. What needs to be totally replaced, however, are all the current administrators and so-called “teachers” top to bottom.
And a good first step toward replacement, without which we’re wasting our time, is the removal of tenure. Because, just like civil servants and government employees, when jobs are protected no matter –no one gives a damn about how they’re performed.
So, using the forgoing as a foundation, I'll continue these thoughts later on. Because, as I wrote beforehand, I think I can use myself to prove my point. And, if not, I guess I'll have to go back to school, where if somone reads this to them, they can tell me where I went wrong.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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