A recent article at the Toronto Star had me thinking of the youth these days.  Now, I don’t want to sound like a 70 year-old man complaining about the loud music and funny clothes; rather I feel as if this coming generation of teens have things way too easy because of the increased pressure for parents, teachers, and authorities in general, to be politically correct. 

The article states that teachers and principals in public schools are required to keep the failure rate at a minimum, inflating grades wherever possible.  What does this mean?  Well, basically they’re handing out Highschool Diplomas to just any idiot who will show up to class.  How drastic does it get?  Well, an example in the article is about a girl who received a failing grade of 30% by her teacher, but the principal felt it was necessary to bump that to 50%, to allow a pass.  Another girl skipped 30 classes straight, and never handed in an assignment, but was given a chance to hand everything in at once, without penalty.

Now, one thing that just gets to me is, what about all of the kids who worked damn hard to get that 90% average, and walk down that stage to get their rightfully earned diploma?  Where’s the fairness in this?  Why does Joe fucking Schmoe who can’t even pass Grade 9 Math (apparently the class with the highest failure rate), get to walk next to everybody else, who worked their asses off to get where they are, only to find out that they didn’t really need to work that hard to begin with. 

Well, the answer’s simple: we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.  We’re too worried about Joe’s self-esteem when he turns 17 and still has to take classes with 13 year olds.  Well you know what?  Joe should’ve thought about that before he started slacking.  This world is too full of unrealistically optimistic people who continually tell students/their children/friends or whatever, that they can be whatever they want to be, and that they just have to work hard.  Well, half of that is right, you DO have to work hard.  But you can’t be whatever you want to be.  Some kids just don’t have it.  They’re not fit to be doctors, or astronauts, or teachers.  They’re dumb.  Period.  Get over it.  Indulging them in this whirlwind of bullshit and fairytales only makes things worse.  People are not all equal, and you can’t always have your way.  Live with what you’re given and don’t lie to yourself or your children. 

We were taught at a young age (hopefully by parents, if not then by your kindergarten teacher, at least) that you have to work hard in life.  Somewhere along the way, the kids these days lost sight of all of this, and want the easy way out.  And now knowing that they can’t even fail if they try to, well, this is a whole new low.  The world gets a lot harder after highschool, and now it’s going to be even harder with all the pampering teachers and parents are doing, just to keep a child’s inflated self-image up.