Tag: coddled

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.

Continue reading “Give those graduates a needed dose of reality”

On Campus at U.PE: The University of Practically Everywhere

Guest Post by

In the fall of the year, as leaves turned red and gold on the campus of U.PE, an aging professor stood on the podium to give the welcoming address to the new class of freshmen. His hair was white, his mien one of resignation and cynicism. He looked as though he would rather be almost anywhere else. He spoke as follows:

“Welcome to this…place. I trust, or fear, that you have settled in.

You are now officially in college.  You need to know several things about this condition. You will not like knowing them, which is part of why they are important. I will elucidate.

To begin, you do not belong here. You are spoiled, self-important, narcissistic, infantile brats, unprepared for college work, in which you likely have little interest. In the past, students of your age were almost adult and trying to learn how to be adults. You are different, alas. Your chief interest for four years will be in avoiding adulthood. This will be easy because you are less mature than earlier students, less prepared academically, and less ready for university.

In all likelihood you will waste these four years of your time and mine in this institution, which once was a university—during which you will take absurd courses of your own devising, courses having nothing to do with the purposes of education, of which you know nothing. You may already have discovered English 205, Batman and the Legacy of Patriarchy, and Sociology 202, Subliminal Oppression and the Frontiers of Resistance. You will study such nonsense in a spirit of tiresome self-adulation. I will have to babysit you during this sorry process. I do not know who is getting the worse of the deal.

Continue reading “On Campus at U.PE: The University of Practically Everywhere”