Okay, maybe I spoke too soon. I was in a classroom yesterday, and the students, frankly, didn't seem to give a rat's a*s about what was going on. I can't say as I blame them, in a way, the VCR (yes, there are still VCRs out there,) I had to work with didn't work in concert with the TV very well, and the video was about UFOs, and the information was nowhere even approaching up-to-date. Obvious busywork for when the sub was there. I did my friggin' best. But if the student's attitude was anything near the real deal, (and I realize things always change when the sub is in the room,) it's no wonder we're being eaten alive by the Chinese. I have this to say to my teacher friends, and the students they teach; not only is the American Industrial Revolution over, but as we're seeing at this point, the rise of the American middle class is over as well. The manufacturing economy is no longer in places like Detroit, or Grand Rapids, or Elkhart, Indiana or anyplace else in America; it's in places like Ghuangzhou, China, and Seoul, and Lord-only-knows where else. I know these students have to recognize, at least to some degree, that the fact that dad took the UAW buyout from Ford is, in essence, saying, "we know we (meaning the automakers,) owe you money by virtue of the contract we agreed to your union with, but we're not making enough money to be able to live up to it. So either take your cash now, or run the risk of getting nothing if we fold, because basically, you and all your coworkers are now dead-weight to the company." Think it's not true? Then why is General Motors down to Buick, Chevy, GMC and Cadillac? (Which leaves a lot of plants that are going to be empty.) The General is now also onto its third or fourth possible suitor to take over SAAB, and it looks as though its grand import-fighter experiment, Saturn, is headed for the drain soon as well, because noone seems to very inerested in it, either. Companies like Toyota, BMW and Mercedes Benz are propping up economies in the southern states, only because the plants are non-union. In short, as a people Americans are getting eaten alive by healthier, smarter foreign economies. Granted, even a lot of them aren't perfect, but there's a certain amount of blame in perpetuating the idea (through the media, at least,) that careers in the music industry or professional sports will save them, in much the same way that unskilled union labor jobs saved their parents from starvation. Well, it's over. Period. Those jobs, at least as fostered by U.S. companies, are gone, never to return. And, yes, I know I've blathered on about this before, but if I didn't see these students up close and personal in the classroom, I'm sure it would probably have no relation to me, either. Unfortunately, it does. Should we have to patrol the halls of high schools to make sure students aren't skipping class? Shouldn't these students just want it, and realize that their only fighting chance in the new age of America is to have a good education? And before anyone says anything, yes, I do recognize Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences; I know we're not all the same. But what I've seen my share of lately is NO intelligence; at least not any that's going to help Americans save themselves from the clutches of being intellectually out-gunned by everyone else in the universe. I have seen solidly creative, intelligent American students, and I give them all due credit for the efforts they have made to be better people. The problem is, they're the exception, not the rule. Even journalism, the field I went to college for, is now a dinosaur, stripped first of its relevance, by things like "social networking," (which I now realize, almost without exception, is the internet's version of road rage; the lowest-common-denominator element of it is simply appalling.) and now stripped of its universality, because even newspapers like the Boston Globe are dying like flies, and will continue to do so, because advertising revenue, the mother's-milk of professional journalism, simply isn't there. It's not there, because the companies who could concievably advertise are no longer there. They no longer exist, having been gobbled up by foreign conglomerates, or left to simply wither in the wind. So what are we destined to do? Either bow to this new age of American colonialism, where we're fostered like children by every other country in the world, (think about the colonial age of Africa, or the British in India,) or fight back by fostering intellingence and creativity in our students. The rest of the world can own us, or we can be smart enough to own them. I can see which way it's headed right now, and it scares the hell out of me. It's not my call, it is that of the minds who represent the future. And I can only hope they do the right thing.


Understand me, here, too, I wouldn't be so crass as to, say, bash on the Haitians; when you're battered continually by political upheaval and acts of God, the odds are simply not in your favor, and may never be. But let's face it; the Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians and others, have made massive inroads into America's greatness. At our expense, and by virtue of an attitude as a country that has been too lackadaisical for too long. If we had as much respect for our teachers as we do for our professional athletes, I doubt we'd be in this mess. Not to mention the idea, as we've seen in Michigan, of almost-bankrupt school districts. WHAT?! Could there be any larger measure of our mislaid priorities than the idea that we barely have enough money to see to it that children are properly educated? That's epic kinda "something's wrong with this picture," and reason enough, I think, for thinking that something has to be fixed in our society, and fast. But, of course, the way things are going generally, that doesn't look like it's gonna happen; certainly not as fast as it needs to. Malnourishment and social oppression, anyone?



Yeah, I've been at it again. I originally conceived this as an entry for an upcoming contest sponsored by the Henry Ford Museum, but it doesn't even start until early February, so I think I'll just come up with something else and show off with this one.