The Things we Truly Need

Recently I was sitting in class when the topic of education was brought up. One of the biggest concerns among my other classmates was technology over powering the roots of education. I completely understand that...now days with the i-phone, i-pad, calculators, and advancements in computer software have made pencil and paper seem completely useless. All these reason's I get, I really do. I mean hell, it seems every time I write something down not only has my penmanship dropped immensely, but my hand starts cramping after I write my name and date on the paper. With that understanding, my fellow class mates (98% whom are older, and most have kids already) are deeply concerned with what their children and other students will be learning because they claim that with technology now kids aren't understanding how to properly write, or do fundamental math. For this argument I kind of get.

My plea against this is, as I reflect on the information I have obtained through my grade school years...Almost none of the material has been useful in my life. Never once did I say, "Thank God I knew what the 10th element was on the periodic table (its neon by the way) or I would have never known what to when I was trying to get jobs, or get into college." Or "good thing I did D.A.R.E when I was in elementary, of God only knows where I would have been right now..." 

In math, as a high school student you learn what a proof is. Basically a proof is something you use in geometry or something (I didn't do well in math) that you spend more time drawing little branches to get to the end of the problem, only to find out that your answer was on the page from the beginning, and all you did was make it look like a tree. Or why do I need to know about the colonization of China during the Ming dynasty? Am I being quizzed for jeopardy later this evening? Or is that question frequently asked under emergency contacts when your filling out job application forms? 

If you ask me I say let the kids be technologically gifted! who the fuck writes hand-written paper's anymore? Not to mention, when is the last time you heard someone getting rich for being a great historian? probably never..those arrogant know-it-all's are just pricks who sucked at sports, so they plunged their face into a book to learn about something that no one really cares about. Instead you got guys like Mark Zuckerberg who are filthy rich, why? Because instead of reading Great Expectation's by Charles Dickens (who is probably one of the most boring writer's God has accidentally put on this earth), which was written in the 1860's and discussing why Pip was constantly masturbating at the thought of Estella and how Ms. Havisham was secretly a pedophile, he was on his computer writing code for one of today's most exposed websites in the world! He became successful because he said fuck school, color-coding maps of pre world war I Europe will not do shit for me. Other recent successors Steve Jobs (R.I.P dude), Mark Cuban, Steven Spielberg, the Star Wars guy, and Bill Gates are all extremely wealthy because they know that we live in a technology based world, and understanding the in's and out's of it all is what has become most important.    

Let's face it, our education system is incredibly flawed...we teach so that kid's do well on the TAKS test so teachers and school look "good". But as mentioned, the information that we have learned and continue to learn are only beneficial on a game show or on a high school test. Don't get me wrong, yes, things like how to spell, speak, add, subtract, a few of the basics, but after that we need to teach for what is important. Actual decent information that kids can carry with them. Like how to use a computer properly, type faster, how to properly format a paper, and for God's sake, teach a child how to read. Nothing is worse than sitting in 11th grade English class with all your friends and some stuttering Stanley gets called to read and his reading turns into a group effort because he spelled words like 'February', 'Febewary" and no one said anything, so now every time that dipshit reads not only is embarrassing for him, but its annoying and boring for everyone else. So please, don't let our faulty education system create people like I just mentioned. And please, let's figure this education system thing so America doesn't continue to become less and less intelligent. 

p.s thanks to technology I was able to write on this stupid blog. If this would have been hand-written, my paper would have read...title: educational flaws. body: Fuck our education system!...the end.