I generally don’t buy into the notion that kids these days have it easier than in the old days. Are things different now? Certainly. But when people lament that "things ain’t like they used to be" they tend to employ a pretty selective memory. That said, this business of canceling school the day after Halloween ain’t the way things used to be.
I’m aware of at least a handful of districts in Southern California that cancelled elementary classes on Tuesday because the kids would be too hopped up on sugar to concentrate. Maybe this has gone on in the past, but this is the first I’ve heard of it. My reaction: What a load of bullshit.
I don’t doubt the candy rush makes these schools more like methadone clinics on Nov. 1. But I say that’s all the more reason to get these children to school, where they can get the help they need. If anything, the schools should bring in more drug counselors for all the kids who start crying, fighting or soiling themselves. If an addict is going to turn their life around, we need to keep them off the streets.
What kind of a precedent does it set for teachers to cancel school simply because the students may be less inclined to pay attention? The kids are never inclined to pay attention – that’s why it’s called "school" and not a "water slide park." By this logic, shouldn’t classes be cancelled the day before summer or Christmas break? The kids are bouncing off the walls on those days as well. Of course, if we cancel class the day before break, it actually makes the day before that the day before break, so maybe we should cancel class that day as well...
We need to prepare these kids for what they’ll face when they enter the workplace – a menial job with only a week of paid vacation ... if they’re lucky. If we want to encourage more of these kids to go to college, let’s make them close the school on Christmas Eve – stick around until midnight moping the floors. Welcome to your life without a high school diploma, or with a college degree if you go into the arts.
I’m not one to pile on teachers, who get often blamed for not achieving more with horribly inadequate resources. But isn’t this business of canceling class after Halloween what the self-help community refers to as "enabling"?
But as long as I’m on the subject of teachers, I can’t resist recounting a news item from my homeland.
In the little town of Boone, Iowa, the students have a tradition of TPing teachers’ homes the week of Homecoming. One teacher didn’t want this to happen, so he took matters into his own hands. When a pack of pimply teenagers arrived on his front lawn, he burst out the front door swinging a sword, cutting one student’s hand.
This wasn’t in the published reports, but I have it from a friend whose mother teaches in the district that the teacher was dressed as a ninja while he was wielding the sword. Awesome.
So perhaps today’s youths are more precocious than in the past, be they toilet paper vandals or Three Musketeers junkies. Teachers of America, you have two options. Will you bury your heads in the sand and cancel classes, or come at the problem head-on, dressed as a ninja and wielding a sword? The choice is yours.
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