Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

You left out: "Even employers are fooled into thinking we are learning
something useful by requiring us to waste all this time and hiring us
off of test scores that show how good we were at wasting it!"


It is why the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans are all whippin' our asses. A
kid has to WORK HARD to get into a Japanese high school. It isn't handed
him on a platter, he works for it, so he appreciates what it does for him
in their culture. We, on the other hand, treat all kids the same, to our
detriment. We are NOT all the same, neither are our children. How stupid
it is to treat them so. The really smart ones are bored to tears. The
ones in the middle who are motivated work hard. The lesser of them flunk,
over and over and noone cares. We blame them for flunking. We beat them
up. However, if our liberal arts education system were run by INTELLEGENT
people, instead of those who can't put batteries in a flashlight (it's
true, I used to teach electronics and knew many who couldn't), we would try
to recognize HOW the children are different, how their wants are in
different directions, and stop trying to shove them into the liberal arts
holes in the pegboard. A kid who is dying to fix complex automobile
engines....or (on topic) a marine diesel...has no opportunity until
released from his 12-year prison sentence to acquire his skills. Very few
schools have apprenticeship programs like the young boy taken under the
wings at Orange County Choppers on American Chopper is doing. We closed up
the vocational schools teaching children real skills because we don't want
them TOO INDEPENDENT or TOO SKILLED that our corporations can't turn them
into cheap slave labor (or labour if you like).

So, the geniuses running Asian schools in these three countries simply take
over the world, quietly, unendingly....while the Americans can't find a
skilled boat mechanic, plumber, brick layer, carpenter, electrician,
outboard motor mechanic, electronic technician, etc....the skilled labor
that keeps the world pumping....



--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and you're outlined in
chalk.