Give those graduates a needed dose of reality

Guest Post by Ron Hart

In yet another bad decision, an education administrator asked me to give a high school commencement speech. He must know that I write a column; he obviously hasn’t read it.

When I questioned his judgment, the principal said, “Just give the kids some sound graduation advice.”

I asked, “Should I tell them I hear the Monsanto plant is hiring?”

“No,” said the educrat. “Encourage them. Tell them they can do anything.”

“So I should lie? Have you seen most of these kids? They can’t do anything. Most think Shariah law is a daytime TV show hosted by a no-nonsense judge.”

That’s the problem. Kids are getting pie-in-the-sky advice and, judging by obesity rates, they are also eating the pie.

Should I turn into Maya Angelou and tell entitled kids — who graduated because of grade inflation, who think Mao Zedong is the Asian equivalent of French kissing, who don’t read newspapers and who can’t find Syria on a map — that they can do anything? Or would a healthy dose of reality be preferable?

Guess which one I am going with?

Students should prepare for a job. Maybe, instead of taking a fifth field trip to the Trail of Tears site, take one to learn about real jobs in an area they might want. Let them attend more Take Your Children to Work days — unless their parents work in the adult movie business. That’d just be awkward.

John Maloney is right about the misinformation we get as kids. Growing up, I really thought from watching cartoons that quicksand was going to be a bigger problem than it turned out to be. I was not prepared for real-life problems, such as relatives who want to borrow money.

The top 5 percent of students in that graduating class do not need me telling them they can do anything. They get it. The damage comes in pandering to the bottom half of the class, who are led to believe: “Just be yourselves and the world is your oyster.” They then might respond, “Why trade school? I’m told I’m the best white rapper in Calhoun County.”

That sort of coddling false confidence is why half of American workers are unhappy and disappointed when they have to work hard at something. They inevitably view themselves as “victims” (a.k.a. Democrats). Intuition tempts us to call this “compassion,” which is really feel-good lies fed to kids that take the onus off them and put the blame on others. It becomes a perpetual excuse.

Unrealistic expectations may be the reason suicide rates are up among middle-age Americans, now outnumbering deaths from automobile accidents. Suicides among whites rose a staggering 40 percent from 1999 to 2010. This is the generation of ninth-place “participation” ribbon recipients who post a picture of the sandwich they had for lunch on Facebook.

Students are victims of a giant fraud: the government-run education system that has molded them for 12 gullible years. Public schools are government-run; teachers are government-hired; and government determines standards, pay, curricula and graduation requirements. Government seeks to produce compliant citizens it can someday rule without much pushback. Smart, independent thinkers are not wanted.

The result is kids who are not prepared for life or for the workforce. Twenty million young “adults” ages 18-24 live with their parents. Most parents have child-proofed their homes, but millennials still get back in.

Members of the Greatest Generation at age 19 were saving Europe from the Nazis and asking nothing in return. Now kids stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 27. Kids are voting for socialist Bernie Sanders in droves, scared to death they may have to pay for something someday.

They have been conditioned to believe that hard work is for chumps. “Why work? The government or my parents will take care of me.” Kids watch reality TV shows like “The Deadliest Catch” and marvel at men who work hard every day.

Few schools teach about the value of hard work, ingenuity, gumption and entrepreneurship. Those lessons are as rare as Donald Trump bumper stickers in the faculty parking lot.

Teachers today spend more time helping students decide which bathroom they “most identify with” using, rather than which job they should prepare for to support a family. We need to start teaching the tenets of economics so kids will stop being tenants in their parents’ basements.