These Kids Today 2

Earlier this week, I had a moment with today’s youth, and I came across like a crotchety, old fogy.  I stand behind the fact that kids still need to lift up their pants. I realized something.  There are plenty of adults who are also committing similar crimes against fashion.  If I see one more person serving me muffin top, under a pair of “skinny” jeans, I will scream, but I digress. 

Many folks in my generation, who liked going to school, might agree with me.  We all had teachers that in some way inspired us to do many of the things that we are doing now.  I have so many great ones, and I recently reconnected with one of my faves:  10^th grade English teacher, Miss Shaw.  She not only taught me how to write using correct grammar, she taught me some of the classics and how to look a little beyond what is in front of you, and just be a nice person.  She moved to NYC when I was in college, and I got to apartment and dog sit for her during Spring Break.  I was so grown.  She is still and always will be Miss Shaw to me, and after all these years, I do not even THINK about addressing her by her first name. 

Having said that, as I watched the news, two things caught my attention, and it made me rethink my attitude about our poor kids today.  It seems that in an elementary school in Georgia as part of a Social Studies/Math cross promotional teaching moment, lost the plot. Here is a sample question from the ACTUAL assignment.

"Each tree has 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

Are you gagging?  How about this one?

"If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"

I pitied the kid who answered THAT one incorrectly.  WTF? I do not want to get all irate, because I think that it is important that kids see the crossover potential of their education, but something is a tad off putting about this, right? The school’s principal issued a statement, and my favorite line

“While I encourage our teachers to create cross-curricular lessons, my expectation is that those lessons be appropriate and provide true connection between the subject areas. That did not occur in this case…”

We all agree. I do not want the state of Georgia to feel attacked, but it does have a dicey history with slavery and race relations. Elementary school is the place where we all start stretching our wings and fly into the people we are to become.  To think that some of our children are being subtly taken to the Whipping Man on something as innocuous as an alleged lapse of judgment in a math problem.  The conspiracy theorist in me could go on for hours, but then I got stopped in my tracks by Mona Lisa Tello.

Ms Tello was a Manhattan high school teacher who was busted after she allegedly submitted a fake jury duty letter filled with misspellings to get out of class for two weeks. She spelled “trial” as “trail,” wrote “sited” instead of “cited,” and “manger” instead of “manager.” Of course, I laughed because you would think that someone who goes so deep into her lie would at least proof read.  Spell check only does spelling, not word usage.  She has been charged with three forgery counts by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.  I know that Ms Shaw is either horrified or laughing at Ms.Tello’s sloppiness.

After reading those stories, I have decided to give our younger generation a break, because I now know that if these teachers are the majority of people educating our kids, then I cannot be surprised at their behavior, especially if their home lives are just as messed up.  I do know that Ms Shaw would agree that they should still pull up their pants.  Now go out and love yourselves.

Keep Laughing. Stay Fabulous.