Old School

I hate kids. Well, not hate; despise. Well, not despise; I just don't like them. Kids are annoying, they're always dirty, they're always trying to do something beyond stupid, and they're always loud. Generally when I'm confronted with a kid, they can sense this; and so the little gears in their undeveloped brains go clickety-clack, and tell the rest of the body to stay away from that tall dark mean looking person (me). Maybe they're not so dumb after all.

I believe that kids need to go through school before they can attempt to have a conversation with me. I just don't have the patience to discuss things like why the world is round and whether a tyrannosaurus rex could defeat a woolly mammoth in single combat. Come back when you graduate from high school please.

However, the way things are going in school these days, they may not come out of it as mature or intelligent as I would hope. The last time I stepped into school was 7 years ago, and while things weren't exactly ship-shape back then, there was always a level of sanity that existed amidst all the madness. Today, that level of sanity has dropped off the charts so to speak, and I kid you not (no pun intended), some of the stories I hear from my younger brother now just boggle the mind. No, I'm not talking about gun violence; thank God, that is reserved for the Yanks.

My brother plays basketball, and the school takes the basketball team as well as the girls netball team together to the university courts for their weekly practice. Now, the netball court is adjacent to the basketball court, and in between these two courts there is a tap for drinking water. Last week, during a break in the training, the boys from the basketball team went over to get a drink from the tap, at the same time that the girls from the netball practice were doing so. While they were all standing around the tap, suddenly from the distance one of the teachers in charge for netball comes running and starts yelling at the boys.

"Go away! Can't you see there are GIRLS here?!?"

Now, just to be clear - this is an open field we're talking about, with two concrete courts set in. The above mentioned tap is in plain view to one and all, and it's not some cordoned off ladies toilet. It's a tap, for crap's sake! Yet this 30 year old primary teacher went into a panic, almost as if the boys had somehow invaded the ladies locker room and were involved in 'vulgar' behaviour. And I've met my bro's friends - even if they did invade a girls changing room, the most outlandish act they'd accomplish would be to stick their tongue out at someone and run laughing from the room. They probably still believe in 'cooties' for crying out loud.

When my bro told me this story, I almost didn't believe him. These guys are in 10th grade! The girls were their classmates! They were standing in line at a tap to drink water! Did she think there was a chance of a spur-of-the-moment wet t-shirt competition breaking out?? Are we still living in the 17th century?! Are these the values our teachers are preaching to the kids?!

Further evidence that our teachers are still in the dark ages - recently I went for a school choir festival, in which our school was taking part. There were 16 items in the programme, with choirs from both primary and secondary schools taking part. They were all of varying talent, but one thing united them all, and that was their songs - only two schools performed songs that were less than 50 years old. The rest were smiling and singing "Home on the range" and "Old black Joe" and other such 'classics'. Later my Mom told me that she sang "Old black Joe" when she was 12 - and even THEN it was considered old!

I love the classics, but why are we teaching songs that my parents sang when they were in primary school? Surely there are better choices from the modern contemporary scene they could choose from! Instead our schools are sticking to their old tried and tested practises, refusing to attempt something new. Why can't school at least be relevant to the students in the music department?

There was a time when we used to curse our educators for not having an open mind towards sex and alcohol, but now we have a new and darker evil; teachers that are preparing our kids for the 'real world'. The world their grandparents lived in.