I've got a stepdaughter, now 20, and well on her way to a good career.
When I first saw her she was 14, quiet, hid in the background.
At 16 she left school. a local school in a fairly rural area, no urban decay here, and a school that has reasonable ratings nationally.
She could draw.
She could write her own name, barely, and read at a similar level.
She had not even heard of long division, much less being able to do it, nor had she heard of algebra.
She knew nothing of history except an opinion piece of a small slice of very recent history, WW2, no tolpuddle martyrs, no 1966, no reformation, no nothing.
She knew nothing of maths or physics or chemistry or biology, the last three being bundled as "science", and consisting of cartoons in a book that, apart from the factual errors littered throughout, appeared to be aimed at six year olds.
She was, in short, fit for a paper round or any job requiring here to say "do you want fries with that", and of course crying when the point of sale machine / till failed to go "beep" or crashed.
I utterly fail to understand what she was doing at school all day every day since the age of five. Certainly her reports and grades lulled her mother into thinking there was not a problem.
At that point I took her under my wing, instead of playstation games for her birthday I bought here a *proper* dictionary and told her to read it, and never ask what a word meant, but look it up and learn it.
The first thing I said to her was "You are not stupid, you are ignorant." look up the definitions.
Now four years later she has worked her way up to being a senior receptionist at a 4 star hotel, part of a privately run chain, her work ethic and attitude has been commended so many times even the MD has written her letters thanking her, after clients had written to him about the levels of service they received at the hotel. The hotel has their eye on her for management, and in her spare time she is studying a degree course BSc in Management and Accounting.
She has learned to cook (no domestic science lessons in school) and learned the value and character of various fresh fruits and vegetanles, and proper butcher meat from a man who can tell you whch fields any particular cut of meat was going "moo" in last week.
She has learned the importance of honesty, especially when it comes to mistakes you have made, diligence, worth ethic, integrity, respectability and much more.
She is a fine young woman and I am secretly very proud of her.
Quite what a score of teachers actually did in 11 years of scholastic (sic) endeavour is quite completely and utterly beyond me.
I can put my hand on my heart and say in all honesty that the only way I can describe it is to label it "child abuse".
Statistically speaking, the probability that she is the one in a million that nobody spotted goes right out the window, because I know many many young people, and they are all similarly crippled for life, while believing the line of bullshit that they have been fed, that they are in fact intelligent and productive members of society.
The girls we are turning out are female, and thus have a use sexually and for breeding the next generation.
The boys we are turning out are male, and thus have a use as cannon fodder or as very very cheap substitutes for high tech factory robots, remembering that the word "robot" actually means (human) worker, and not the mechanical contraption we think of today.
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I could tell you LOTS of stories about teaching, from my lecturer days, that would make your hair curl.
Like the chief of the engineering department (who used to run a small tool hire company and could fix a lawnmower) taking the piss, eg laughing out loud at a "natural" talented lad from a farm who asked if a diesel engine could be a two stroke as well as the petrol engines being used in the example.
I allowed the laughter to die down, and said, to the Head of Department, in front of the entire class.
"Perhaps you would like to give General Motors a call when this lecture is over."
"Errrr, why" was his response
"well, detroit diesels have been making two strokes since long before world war two, they aren't the only one, but they must be one of the biggest, certainly having made millions of two stroke diesel engines for everything from sherman tanks to modern trucks and boats and almost anything else you can shake a stick at, so I am sure they would appreciate an expert like you telling them their products don't exist."
he blustered of course and did the well I didn't know that etc, I insisted he offered the kid an apology, didn't gibe him a choice.
3 days later the dean told me they were overstaffed and didn't need me any more, that asshole is still there, still wrecking minds and careers.