One of the dumbest ideas ever

I can’t believe that someone posted this as an actual solution to the problem of violence in schools – here, take a gander at this: http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/564901/view. What’s even more unsettling is the number of people who are in agreement. The gist of the argument is this: we should give kids the “right” to drop out of school if they’re not interested or motivated or (as one of these dorks put it) “bookworm material”.

First off, let’s all remember how we felt about school when we were kids…we hated it. We hated having to get up early in the morning, we hated having to take the bus or walk or wait for our ride, we hated having to do homework…but most of all, we hated having to be there every frickin’ day from 8 until 3:30 when it was just so much more fun to go hang out with our friends and seeing what kinds of mischief we could get into.
And if any of you come back and say “well, I didn’t hate school” then you’re not being honest with yourself.

All of us know that if we give them the option, kids would rather sleep in late and screw around at home than go to school. Children do not have the maturity and discipline to do this voluntarily which is why school attendance is mandatory. They do not understand the importance of learning yet, learning which they will need later in life and will sorely miss if they drop out of school by the ninth grade. Can you imagine a United States of America where a generation of school children doesn’t understand basic geometry, can’t calculate a tip because they don’t understand percentages, can’t read the Constitution because they can’t read past the 9th grade level?

Our world and our civilization are going thru massive changes caused by the conflict between knowledge acquired thru scientific inquiry and traditional belief maintained thru religious fundamentalism. It’s the same conflict that men like Galileo and Copernicus went thru a few centuries ago, a conflict that most of us had considered over and done with…until you start talking to people who believe in ghosts or UFO’s or intelligent design or any number of similar fairy tales and realize that they’re not a small segment of the population.

How do we solve the problem of violence in schools? I don’t know, but I’m damn sure that giving kids the option to stay dumb should not be considered.