RECENTLY there’s a not a day gone by that I haven’t been stopped by friends and relatives and asked, “Do you know how much my child scored?” “No,” I reply, thinking they have mistaken me for the examiner. “Ninety per cent!” “Ninety per cent!” I exclaim. A little farther a lady who I hardly know and who generally favours me with a morning scowl, is all beaming, “John got eighty-seven per cent!” she says. “You don’t say!” I exclaim, “And who is John?” Her scowl comes back in place.
All I ask of all these ninety and eighty per centres is that they don’t ever ask me how much I scored in school. I have this sneaky feeling I could be thrown out of my city, state and country for being intellectually different. I thought I’d spend this morning cocking a snook at education, school children and teachers for making me feel so inadequate: “Education” says Kenneth Johnson, “is proceeding from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty!” Way to go Kenneth, way to go!
Says Thoreau, “What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch out of a friendly meandering river!” Very thorough, Mr Thoreau! And says Dr Samuel Johnson, “There is now less flogging in our schools than formerly—but then less is learned there, so that what the boys get at one end, they lose at the other!” You’ve hit the nail on the butt Doctor.
So now all you children, don’t come near me, I’ve got ammunition, ha, ha! And if you still don’t go away, I’ve got some jokes I’ll throw at you: A young girl came home from school and was heard reciting her homework: “Two plus two, the son of a bitch is four; four plus four, the son of a bitch is eight, eight plus eight, the son of a bitch….”
“Judy,” shouted her mother. “Watch your language! You’re not allowed to use swear words like ‘son of a bitch!” “But mom,” replied Judy, “that’s what the teacher taught us, and she said to recite it out loud till we learned it.” Next day Judy’s angry mother went to school with her daughter and strode into class to complain. “Oh heavens!” said the teacher. “That’s not what I taught them. They’re supposed to say, “Two plus two, the sum of which is four!”
And I heard this one about John’s mother, you know the one with the scowl. At a parent-teacher meeting she is supposed to have told the teacher, “My son John is a very sensitive boy.” “Yes,” said the teacher, “I’ve noticed that. Is there anything we should do about it?” “Well,” says Rajesh’s mother, “If Rajesh behaves badly, please spank the boy next to him!”
Yeah I’ve got a lot more jokes for all you ninety and eighty per centres and I’ll throw them at you if you dare come and make snide comments about the marks I got in school; they were not eighty, nor where they seventy, don’t ask me farther, or I’ll have another dig! Teacher: We have eyes for? Children: Seeing! Teacher: And a nose for?” Children: Smelling! Teacher: Ears for?” John: Earrings..!
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