Making Shit out of Construction Paper
I remember visiting a paper mill some years ago, and seeing pink construction paper being made. Tons and tons of it, rolling off the machine. And I remember thinking: That’s gotta supply every kindergarten class in North America for the next 10 years.
Because really, what good is construction paper? Other than prevent tantrums and/or kids from killing each other?
Because what better way to distract the little urchins than to give them lame-ass “Arts and Craps” projects that they bring home to Mommy? (Who then puts them on the fridge, and discards a week later).
We should give our kids paints, paper, and pencils, instead. Let’s teach them REAL art.
In the mean time, let’s find a better use for our limited supply of trees.
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Venn Diagrams
Okay, those were fun in Grade Four. We took plastic triangles and squares, and divided them up inside circles.
Yay.
But when, outside school, have we EVER used Venn diagrams in real life?
To this day, I still don’t understand what the point of those God-damned things were.
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Learning to Play the Recorder
Okay, let’s set things straight: there is only ONE decent recorder tune ever made, and that’s the theme from the Friendly Giant.
Aside from that, the recorder is the Lamest. Musical Instrument. Ever.
Nothing like a class full of thirty 12-year-old kids, trying to learn how to play “Hot Cross Buns” at the same time.
Things like that make me want to puncture my eardrums with a pencil to end my misery.
I dont’ know what the point of it is, because outside Grade 7, you will NEVER play the recorder again.
This is no good recorder sheet-music. There are no hot recorder concerts. There are no decent recorder CD’s to download onto your I-pod.
Nope. There is just NO use for the recorder in our society.
(Except to play the theme song for the Friendly Giant).
And that show is off the air now.
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Shakespeare
Okay, I know you English Lit majors out there will scream for my blood for saying this…but seriously, what was the POINT of Shakespeare?
The last time I read Ol’ Bill was in 1982. When I was in English class…when I had to.
And I don’t miss him ONE bit.
I remember the stories were adequate, at best. But certainly not good enough to make me run screaming to the bookstore, and ask: “Oooh! Oooh! Do you have the latest copy of King Henry the IV, Part II? ”
Call me a heretic, but to be honest, I much prefer to read Stephen King.
Shakespeare has been analyzed, and re-analyzed, over and over. He’s had his time. Let’s stop beating this dead horse into bone dust.
Surely, in the past 500 years, there is some OTHER literature we can force-feed to our kids.
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Advanced Geometry
In my senior year of High School, I took this course called “Functions and Relations”. We learned how to sketch parabolas. We learned what hyperbolas (hyperbolae?) were, and we could flip-flop them around the x-axis. It was quite tricky, actually.
And we NEVER used it again.
At the time, I thought I was mature enough to realize that this course was just covering the basics, and in University, I’d soon see what all these silly equations were for.
But like I said…we NEVER used it again.
And I have a PhD in Engineering.
So you can only imagine how useful this was to the kids who went on to study Liberal Arts or Business Admin.
The Deep Friar 