![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I just didn't want to be a loser anymore.
Nov. 1st, 2007 05:07 pmAt the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At 15% unemployment, 10 million were out of work. 800,000 students boycotted the school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the ''Millennium Educational Reform Act'' AKA: The BR Act...
- Battle Royale
Paul Richards, the principal of Needham High School, wants his kids to be less stressed out. As part of the S.O.S. - Stressed Out Students nationwide campaign, he has them do yoga. He stopped publishing the honor roll in the newspaper. He's instituted homework-free weekends. He wants the kids to have better coping skills. Better social skills. "So they don't fall apart if they get a B-minus." President of the PTA Connie Barr says constant stress makes it difficult to learn - but on the other hand, parents will likely stop supporting Principal Richards if the suburban affluent high school's high-achievers stop being so high-achieving. Richards himself admits he'd be run out of town without "the results". But this seems to run somewhat counter to the logic of a Needham High English teacher, David Smokler, who tells his students, "When you graduate from college, no one is going to care where you went [to college]... If they do care, you don't want to work for that boss."
I can see why Paul Richards gets hate mail. He's clearly one of the dumbest principals in the country. It's complete b.s. that your employer won't care where you went to college. And if you don't want to work for an employer that does care, then cross out the best law firms, medical residencies, Fortune 500 companies, think tanks, fast-track government jobs. Sure, you'll get a mediocre law firm, in your hometown. If that's all you want, then fine. Feel free to take it. But let's put it this way. Don't complain when India and China not only steal the low-wage low-skill jobs, but the high-wage high-skill ones (here, it's already begun: Hello, India? I Need Help With My Math). Hope you're happy with becoming technologically dependent on Japan and South Korea. And good luck with Russia - they're building nuclear capacity. It's alright. Go to your job around the corner. Help your neighbors through their divorce. Here's a hint (I know economics is too stressful for your slender, tender sensibilities): when the dollar plummets in value, things get more expensive for you, not cheaper. You don't get a raise - you get fired.
I was talking to Dipa the other week about America's "culture of complacency". We are the anti-Asia in that sense. Americans don't want to be hard on their kids academically. They don't want to push. High achievement and monetary or bureaucratic success is demonized in pulp fiction (the small-town girl who makes it big in New York always gets corrupted by the city and has to go home and marry a carpenter to heal herself and repent for her sins). And complacency - contentment with what you have - correlates directly with ignorance. If you're content, why should you care about anyone else? If you're satisfied, then go to sleep "to the rhythm of the war drums".
Do I think the U.S. should go the Japan route, then, and become a Battle Royale that really does encourage suicide due to school stress? (the S.O.S. administrators cite high suicide rates in their rich little neighborhoods... then say that those suicides had nothing to do with stress - no kidding?) No, obviously not. In fact, I say, let Paul Richards run his experiment. Let all suburban affluent high schools partake in it. Let their kids become fitter, happier, and more productive pigs in cages. The rest of us - the "subaltern" teenagers, the poor teenagers, the minority teenagers - we're going to keep doing homework. And we're going to take over, not just the U.S., but the world. We already know that nothing comes out of being with normal people - Toonami taught us that. For us, academic achievement is all we have. We don't have the resources and connections the Needham High kids do. Our parents aren't even on the P.T.A. Bringing home straight As is life because we don't have athletics or student government or popularity. And yeah, we do hate it when kids who have had it all handed to them with private tutors and accelerated programs compete with us for colleges, for internships, for jobs, for life.
So, if all the "hegemonic" kids take themselves out of the competition, awesome. More room at the top.
- Battle Royale
Paul Richards, the principal of Needham High School, wants his kids to be less stressed out. As part of the S.O.S. - Stressed Out Students nationwide campaign, he has them do yoga. He stopped publishing the honor roll in the newspaper. He's instituted homework-free weekends. He wants the kids to have better coping skills. Better social skills. "So they don't fall apart if they get a B-minus." President of the PTA Connie Barr says constant stress makes it difficult to learn - but on the other hand, parents will likely stop supporting Principal Richards if the suburban affluent high school's high-achievers stop being so high-achieving. Richards himself admits he'd be run out of town without "the results". But this seems to run somewhat counter to the logic of a Needham High English teacher, David Smokler, who tells his students, "When you graduate from college, no one is going to care where you went [to college]... If they do care, you don't want to work for that boss."
I can see why Paul Richards gets hate mail. He's clearly one of the dumbest principals in the country. It's complete b.s. that your employer won't care where you went to college. And if you don't want to work for an employer that does care, then cross out the best law firms, medical residencies, Fortune 500 companies, think tanks, fast-track government jobs. Sure, you'll get a mediocre law firm, in your hometown. If that's all you want, then fine. Feel free to take it. But let's put it this way. Don't complain when India and China not only steal the low-wage low-skill jobs, but the high-wage high-skill ones (here, it's already begun: Hello, India? I Need Help With My Math). Hope you're happy with becoming technologically dependent on Japan and South Korea. And good luck with Russia - they're building nuclear capacity. It's alright. Go to your job around the corner. Help your neighbors through their divorce. Here's a hint (I know economics is too stressful for your slender, tender sensibilities): when the dollar plummets in value, things get more expensive for you, not cheaper. You don't get a raise - you get fired.
I was talking to Dipa the other week about America's "culture of complacency". We are the anti-Asia in that sense. Americans don't want to be hard on their kids academically. They don't want to push. High achievement and monetary or bureaucratic success is demonized in pulp fiction (the small-town girl who makes it big in New York always gets corrupted by the city and has to go home and marry a carpenter to heal herself and repent for her sins). And complacency - contentment with what you have - correlates directly with ignorance. If you're content, why should you care about anyone else? If you're satisfied, then go to sleep "to the rhythm of the war drums".
Do I think the U.S. should go the Japan route, then, and become a Battle Royale that really does encourage suicide due to school stress? (the S.O.S. administrators cite high suicide rates in their rich little neighborhoods... then say that those suicides had nothing to do with stress - no kidding?) No, obviously not. In fact, I say, let Paul Richards run his experiment. Let all suburban affluent high schools partake in it. Let their kids become fitter, happier, and more productive pigs in cages. The rest of us - the "subaltern" teenagers, the poor teenagers, the minority teenagers - we're going to keep doing homework. And we're going to take over, not just the U.S., but the world. We already know that nothing comes out of being with normal people - Toonami taught us that. For us, academic achievement is all we have. We don't have the resources and connections the Needham High kids do. Our parents aren't even on the P.T.A. Bringing home straight As is life because we don't have athletics or student government or popularity. And yeah, we do hate it when kids who have had it all handed to them with private tutors and accelerated programs compete with us for colleges, for internships, for jobs, for life.
So, if all the "hegemonic" kids take themselves out of the competition, awesome. More room at the top.
