The Pussification of Education


Printed on: Thu, May 10, 2007
Children can't win all the time
By Kelvin Wade

Even a stopped watch is right twice a day and some things are true even if conservatives say them. Just how did we end up in this marshmallow, namby-pamby world where we're afraid to crown winners, celebrate mediocrity and scorn causing children the least bit of discomfort? I'd like to think adversity forges character or in any case, reveals it. How does giving everyone a trophy help children?

I recently attended my 10-year-old granddaughter's school science fair. She'd done a fantastic exhibit on fingerprint collection. I was proud to see the big fat blue first-place ribbon on her exhibit. That is, until I looked around and saw many blue first-place ribbons dangling off of exhibits.

Now, in all fairness, not everyone received a blue ribbon. Some received red second-place ribbons. And some even received gold honorable mention ribbons.

My eye was caught by a truly horrendous project entitled, "POALAR BEAR SURVIVL." The project title was written on a torn piece of notebook paper glued to poster board. By the look of the penmanship, I suspected that it was written in a moving vehicle. The exhibit consisted of two tiny toy bears painted with WhiteOut and glued onto a piece of Styrofoam. As I examined the bears closer, I noticed that they had black around their eyes. Now either these bears got their butts kicked or these were Panda bears, not polar bears.

The paper indicated these bears were endangered but didn't say how. One of the second-place red ribbons dangled from the edge of the exhibit. Give me a break. It shouldn't have even received an honorable-mention ribbon. Now at least they did have different ribbons instead of everyone winning first prize but something is wrong in schools today. I attended Lauryn's winter choir concert last year and felt then that things were amiss. Some of these kids made American Idol's Sanjaya Malakar sound like Luciano Pavarotti. I know I'm channeling Simon Cowell here, but if I'm being honest it was like something you'd hear at some ghastly elementary school winter concert. Oh, wait, that's what it was. I was looking around at all of these applauding parents thinking "can you people hear? Aren't you concerned about what your child has been doing in choir practice all of this time? Why are you all encouraging them?"

When I was in school, if you wanted to be in choir, shock of all shocks, you actually had to be able to sing. If you were in a drama class and couldn't act, you were a stagehand. But today everyone gets to participate lest someone find out at an early age that they suck. This is how delusional individuals end up auditioning for the aforementioned "AI" without a clue as to how they really sound.

I've written before that my band teacher at Tolenas Elementary told me I was a terrible trumpet player and would probably never get better. He switched me to baritone, and I became first chair. At Armijo, my freshman football coach told me I'd probably not be good enough to start on the offensive line. Can today's kids handle criticism like that?

They helped point me in a better direction and helped me not waste my time. We do children no favors when we protect them from themselves.

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