UbernerkleRuminations of a Renaissance Geek

‘Tis Summer Break and I hear the yells of jubilation from parents everywhere! Yes dear readers, today is the eve of the “Big Beathe Easy”. Tomorrow the Minions will commence their Summer Break.

This manifests a simplicity of life for me in many ways:

I shall not need to rouse them in the mornings. I can sleep in or roll out of bed and slip into work early. I will not have to prod, poke, tickle and physically drag the unconscious drooling bodies from their knotted blankets.

I shall not need to make them breakfast, snacks and lunch for the day. No navigating the mine field of picky eating habits and balanced meal equality so that no one child feels the other is being given preference over the other.

I shall not have to drop them off at their early morning program.
We shall not have to race to pick them up from their afternoon program.

My schedule becomes my own again.  I can work early, I can work late, I can go grab a beer or a glass of wine before heading home. Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!

I do not have to care if they shower every night or go to bed by 8 p.m. They can fall asleep to movies in their rooms or playing Xbox until their eyes crust over.

There will be a reprieve from the mental water boarding of helping them with their homework. It’s not that they are incapable of doing homework or that it is too complex, but if I could harness the energy it takes to keep them focused, we could power the world for four centuries on clean energy with plenty left over.

Traffic will largely die down during the morning and afternoon commutes. No more suicidal SUV-mounted death squads with their quad Chai Latte grenades in one hand and mascara bayonets in the other, navigating streets and freeways at twenty miles over the speed limit while screaming at their spawn in a way that drill instructors can only wish to achieve. No more risking life, limb and child in the school parking lot as they crash their SUV’s over the shrubbery like landing craft at D-Day, battling to get the one spot not in the range of the machine gun nests.

Of course two weeks from now, I will be cursing the whole thing and begging for a return to the time-occupying educational institution to just stave off that blood-rage inducing comment, “I’m bored.”

While I applaud your efforts to keep children up-to-speed with modern technologies while dealing with a strong need to balance the budget, I do have to question your logic on this one.

BBC.co.uk, a highly-trusted source of news in my household (unlike your American “fact-optional” journalism), has reported you as saying you wish to do away with textbooks for math and science for high school students starting in August of the next school year.

I would like to point out a couple of potential pot holes in this radically executed swerve to avoid the budgetary deer-on-the-education-highway.

First off, good job on knee capping the educational publishing sector! Thank goodness they can handle loosing the need for that revenue.

Secondly, has someone come forward to supply all high school students with laptops  and all schools with fat internet pipes for free? Did they throw in the the content oversight for the publication management of said materials? Does all of this equate to being less than what is spent on physical books?

Thirdly, your Predator-slaying dudeliness, how can you use Twitter and Facebook in the same conversation about education? I mean…really?

Respectfully-ish,

Ubernerkle.

Today is Teacher Appreciation Day. Ubernerkle knows this because the Minions brought home notes informing us about Teacher Appreciation Week. Moms, Dads, Veterans, Administrators and you as an individual, Ubernerkle is sorry to have to tell you that you are all less significant than teachers.

Teachers do have a very tough job to get up there and educate your children, equipping them with the tools they will need to function in society and possibly have careers. They are intellectual fire fighters, just less ash-covered and sweaty. It must be like doing a stand up routine every day for a bunch of people who have had their senses of humor surgically removed. Your average teacher these days is also trying to achieve this with students who are disrespectful and encouraged by their parents to challange and be abusive.

Most teachers do just enough to meet their needs, not the needs of their students. Ubernerkle has had the privilege to know a handful of teachers who break that mould. They deserve the day of appreciation, but nobody deserves a week.

The Minion’s school has decreed the wee folk show their appreciation in the following ways; Monday bring an apple, Tuesday bring a flower, Wednesday bring teachers favorite desert, Thursday bring teaching supplies and Friday write your teacher a letter.

Let’s take a closer look at Thursday there for a moment. Teaching Supplies. Yes, students show your teacher appreciation by giving them the supplies and equipment they need to do their jobs because the schools can’t afford to. Elephant in the room much?

The Teacher Appreciation Week is a thinly disgused attempt by schools to try and butter up their teaching staff by guilting children into bringing in a token of their appreciation for their teacher every day of the week. Let’s be honest – do you know of a single teacher whose ego needs to be propped up by an entire week of their students trying to make up for a year of being anarchistic tyrants?

You want to know what would really make teachers feel appreciated? Ubernerkle is going to go out on a limb here:

• The respect of your child to listen and pay attention.
• The respect of you as a parent to educate your child, care for your child and support your child in getting homework done and discussing with them what they learn.
• The respect of the School District in empowering teachers to do the best they can instead of treating them like infantry landing on the beaches of Normandy.
• Tequila. Teacher Appreciation Day is May 5th which is also Cinco De Mayo. Yes friends, that means teachers would really appreciate some booze.