The Last Day Of School?
By Ron Marr (11/23/03)
Frankly, I found my high school years to be something of a joke; I couldn't wait to get the heck out. For some - and judging by how many 40-somethings I hear reminiscing over their football heroics it's more than a few - high school was the pinnacle of existence. It was the time they recall most fondly. Sweet nostalgia of youth mixed with memories of stuff that never really happened.
Yeah right. What I recall most about my journey through the wonders of secondary education was sheer boredom. With a couple of notable exceptions - teachers who actually taught with care, skill and insight - I perceived it as little more than an attempt to indoctrinate me into a status quo lifestyle I would never embrace. Fit in. Don't fight the system or rock the boat. Always cheer for the home team. Behave appropriately. Go with the flow. Those seemed to be the most prevalent lessons in the rural Missouri high schools of the mid-70's.
Of course, as a result, I learned to not fit in. I learned to jump up and down in boats while rocking and rolling. I learned to root for the team without a home, to behave inappropriately and to go with the flow only if the flow in question was pouring from a bottle of 20 year old Scotch.
I truly hated high school, the boring conversations and pre-packaged "fun" with those whom I had little in common. I wasn't exactly a geek and I wasn't exactly a jock. I played tennis and lifted weights and shot hoops, but I did it for my own fun away from the schoolyard. Mostly I spent a lot of time fishing, reading, playing the drums and banging away at cans with my .22. The idea of being on a team - with all that false exuberance - left me cold. I think most kids joined up so they could enjoy a certain degree of status, a pattern many would follow throughout their lives. I didn't join up because I had no urge for status that I didn't acquire solely on my own.
Don't get me wrong; these weren't bad folks. But their goal was to stay in the safe and secure while I wanted to bop off to parts unknown. We were night and day - my fellow students and I - and a hefty percentage of my senior class of 28 was married or pregnant by graduation day. To them, that was the start of their adult lives. To me, that was the epitome of waste.
So, considering my less than inspiring high school career, I really don't find it reprehensible that Colorado is considering elimination of the 12th grade. I can't say I really learned very much in high school in general, and that last year was little more than a waiting room for what would come next. I knew that a real education could only be found on infinite further horizons.
I suspect such is the case with most students.
I sort of admire Colorado; they are the first state to discuss the elimination of the senior year. Florida does have a plan that will let seniors skip 12th grade (graduating with 18 credit hours instead of 24) but I don't think we can put any credence in what Florida does. Remember Palm Beach County? I just don't trust the motives of a state that doesn't provide the rudimentary reading skills required to decipher a ballot.
Colorado though, they want to can the senior year and replace it with a year of preschool. This strikes me as a dandy idea. After all, though many seem to have forgotten it, the point of our educational system is (gasp) education. Why not start a year earlier, before the young mind has been totally warped by the messages of an all pervasive media? After all, high school was not supposed to center around touchdowns or dances or diversity training or self-esteem classes. It was supposed to be about the acquisition of knowledge, about learning to use your head for something other than a hat rack.
Schools, if I recall, were originally geared toward teaching fundamentals that prepare one to function in everyday life, or as prep for higher education. The other stuff, learning not to cuss out the teacher or spit on the floor or take up a career in car-jacking, was supposed to come from parents and neighbors and other adult role models. What we really need is to re-vamp the entire educational system (get back to basics and trash the nonsense social lessons) but eliminating 12th grade is a good start.
Colorado is on the right track. The best selling book title was "Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarten."
For good reason there was never a sequel praising the 12th grade.
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