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Health & Fitness

Why Is Jimmie Dumb?

It should be up to the teacher to inspire students beyond what they think is possible and not be forced to play puppeteer to state mandated tests like ELA, SAT and ACTs.

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: The following is in NO way a rant or critique of teachers, educators, coaches or administrators, but that of politicians and executives that look to dabble in areas that they should leave to those who "are more educated" in the ways they most effectively work.)

If you are able to read any newspaper or on line news blogs like this, you should be grateful for your education. It has been cited that the American education system has gone past the point where it is simply failing to educate our young properly, and is now moribund by actively reducing their intelligence by “Teaching To The Test.”

The angst is so high here on Long Island is that instead of stealing regents exams like in 1975 Brooklyn, some students cheated their way through these and will now go to maximum security prisons and become license plate manufacturing intern, who will room with drive-by shooters and drug dealers.

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The American Association of Citizens Who Really Worry About Stuff Like This (AACWRWASLT) reported this week that this year's graduating high-school seniors are potentially even dumber than last year's, some of whom are still stumbling around the back of the auditorium trying to get their commencement gowns off. All because Newsday reported that 33 percent of this year's middle school students failed a nationwide scholastic test (called the dreadful ELA exam) consisting of questions like, "What kind of tree does syrup come from?"

This is can be viewed as pretty low by some and comical by others, especially since the “No Student Left Astern” initiative was instituted. And I know that my editor is going to hear it from a bunch of David Copperfield book thumpers.

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When I was in high school, we Sweathogs were expected to know where maple syrup came from (and as I personally pointed out then in Mr. Carter’s class... the Mrs. Buttersworth bottle was not anatomically correct.) But we were taught the the R's too.

Oh, sure, I've forgotten a lot of this stuff, but at least I used to know excellent information like what ROY G BIV* stood for (*hint: the colors of the rainbow) and helpful information like Fidel Castro had a great curveball before the Cuban Missle Crisis and irregardless is NOT a word.

I have become especially concerned  about this when I compare American students with those being cranked out in countries like Japan and Canada where, as part of their final examination, each Canadian high-school senior must construct a working robotic maple sap to syrup melding apparatus.

Whereas American students these days need months of training just to learn to operate the little locks on the school bathroom stalls which have been the same in all the stalls in every high school in America since 1953.

Who is responsible for this situation? There are no easy answers, but I am going to point my crooked index finger directly at politicians and school executives like the "Bored of Regents" that are so old that they forgot what it was like to be a teacher on the front lines and/or a student.

The type of people who micromanage teachers to the point that they act more like Jeff Dunham and Jose Jalapeno (On A STICK!) than trained professionals. And soon, these same clueless generals of the education battlefield are going to be trying to evaluate a teacher solely on how well their students score on state tests.   

People these are educators, not PAL Basketball Coaches. The teachers that taught me the most (and the highly educated people I converse with) are the ones where the teacher did the lesson plans and covered the curriculum the way they thought best (which allows me to use words like moribund in the proper context) and not with some executive taskmaster constantly peering over their shoulder making a fuss over ever move.

Ask yourself this: If the young adults being educated today lack even the basic knowledge they need to compete in the current job market, what does this bode for the future of America as a nation? (My friend Mike will easily tell you what it bodes! It bodes that you and I won't have to worry about losing our jobs to some young, well-educated little snotnose who will work for half my pay, that's what.)

But seriously, what it also means is that future educators and school personnel have an unfair uphill battle ahead of them and they are at war, armed with only a feather and a rubber band.

Like any responsible parent, I wanted my offspring to get the best possible education, because I was sick to death of having to read his Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comic books to him.

And many of his teachers were so outstanding that he can now read them to HIS students. But if we tie their hands and only allow books like  Charlotte’s Web” in class  and "teach tricks to multiple choice question tests." Educators will not be able to teach words like quasar, turbo, light speed, cryogenically, overdrive, quark and Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

Think about that for a bit!

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