edumachation issues

I've been sort of a recluse lately, but the one tie I have to the outside worls is to my tobacconist.  Who is about ten years younger than me.  AAnd nd she's a nice lady, loves to cook, I can go ON about recipes, and be the best sort of male fishwife you could think of when I go in in the morning, and get my daily 'fix'.    Ahhh...  sniggarettes.  Half the food I wanna eat I'm suddenly allergic to, but hey...  sniggarettes are gonna kill me, but so far, no signs.  Might dodge the bullet there... 

Now I've gone all old geehzer about kids in the supermarket in the mornings at seven, and how parents don't make their kids their school lunch any more...  which in times of austerity would be cheaper in the long run, and the little imps buy LOTS of sugar, which is gonna do them so much good, and make them so hyperactive, their parents will reconsider if it was worth having them in the first place.

But this past year...   I've been sorta surprised.  If I go in there at nine, or ten, or eleven, there are STILL kids hanging out in the supermarket, and I kept wondering, 'did they change the school hours?  What gives?' 

They're playing hookey!

And it became such a national problem, the parliament it it's vast 'wisdom', decided to implement a new law.  But let's take a closer look at this.  Most of the kids are from immigrant families.   Unless I've gone senile, it seems that the schools are failing these kids in very basic ways.  So it would be obvious, how to change that?  And there are programms in place which try.

However....   the new law has markers in place.  First beginning with a certain number of days missed, the parents get called in for a talk.  Social services are brought in.  If the little renitents still skip school, warnings are placed, and if the little buggers still won't go...   the parents get fined over four hundred euros, and most of those are the ones who can hardly afford it.

Bravo.

And there is the discipline problem, and some guy on the way right was for a good old-fashioned slap in the face.  Which caused the left to call for the guy's resignation.  It was fun.

The school year here ends friday, so it's been a burner of a debate, and 'the people on the street', have been hotly debating it all.

So...  to put this in perspective, kids nowadays are savvier, fresher, think they know alllll  about the world and can be insufferable little plagues.  And if a teacher is unable to gain their respect, he or she is in for a miserable time.  And since little kids are sadistic by nature, they go for the jugular.  It's how they are.

So I've been privy to conversations in the morning about topic A.

'Listen, my kids have really gone over the line sometimes, and I gave them a healthy slap in the face.'

Me:  'errm, I took care of small kids, but I never had to raise a hand or threaten.  I did get hit by my grandma, but I knew I was in the wrong and deserved it because I went too far.  But just to hit a kid for no reason?  Don't buy it.  It begins with the parents, and if they don't have the time, they shouldn't have had them.  Or expect teachers to do what is basically THEIR job.  I've heard of kindergarten teachers having to teach kids to tie thier shoes, because they don't know how.  That shouldabeen  the parents.'  (shocked reaction)

And I know, I go all over the place.

Sometimes it pays to be older, you remember things.  And yesterday I said, 'Well, where I grew up, if the kids played hookey, they ended up in juvenile prisons.'  And boy did my tobacconists' eyes light up like two christmas trees over THAT.  Wooo---hoo and boy howdy.  Except she had the wrong idea...  she thought they got into some sort of juvie prison and had classes, and drilled in edumacation.

Mighta worked, come to think of it.  Except the reality was, they became incorrigible felons.  And got buggered, and no one gave a shit about them, so they came out way the worse for wear, and dumber than a giraffe wearing a bonnet.

And then, the first lightning bolt hit twelve hours before the worst thunderstorm we've had in years.

'My mother always says it.  What Hitler did to the Jews was wrong.  But god damn it, he created oder, he gave people jobs, and everyone had to do what is RIGHT.'.

This from the lady who is so progressive, and with whom I can laugh heartily?  I was fucking spitless.

And I went quiet, which is when I'm most deadly:  'NOTHING he did was right, and I understand the historical context.  What is WRONG is that parents don't have any fucking time to really take care of the kids they spawn.  And you have to begin at the beginning, verdammt noch mal.'

Well, it ended in a deadlock, as most things tend to do. 

But it was polite.  Maybe a point was made from my side, there was much more to it.  Don't know.

But I hate the term 'gesunde watschen'.  Which means a 'healthy slap in the face'.  Nothing healthy about it.  I witnessed one once, my friend G.  Was at his family's for dinner, and he got fresh with his mother, who was a basically lovely lady.  And she shot one off at him so hard, it was totally embarrassing.  but he really was asking for it.

Just as an aside, she really waa a lovely lady.  All the more shock when she one day said 'Hitler had the right idea.  They should gas the gays.'  I never went back. 

I know that must have hurt her, and she died not long after, but, I wasn't up for confrontation in those days, and her husband was a state police officer, could have been expelled.  I felt sorry for her.

At the moment, would like to put on crosby stills and nash, and listen to 'teach your children well'...  or the incomprable Sondheim from Into the Woods...  Children Will Listen.

So that's the 'concern' of  the man-woman on the street.  What friggin KILLS me is that that bastard ADI keeps fucking up the conversation.  It's like a zombie you can't kill, hey.  And saddens me. So much for edumacation.