Reality Check

Yesterday on my old school network
one by one the students recalled
an action taken by a teacher

and for one act or severe word
they condemned their teachers
as been unworthy saying
they should never been allowed
to work with kids

but my experience with children,
and I’ve worked with many,
is that even the best students

make mistakes and need to be corrected
most are not destroyed in the process.

As a student, I didn’t like to be yelled at
or scolded and cried when we were kept
after school for the misbehavior of a few
but that was the practice in those days

spankings and discipline designed to make
us behave and to respond to authority
immediately and without a word.

Children were very much the responsibility
of the parent, whose authority came before the state.

Today the belief is it’s a parent’s duty
to make children happy
responding to every whim

and keeping their self-esteem elevated
so they don’t become burdened with self doubt

or should have to worry about how the world
will continue to respond to their every need.

Ironically we’re starting to live in that world
created on make-believe, jobs are lost,
budgets can’t be passed, our educational system,

with inflated grades, is producing students
who can’t even do the minimum requirements.

They expect everything to be handed to them
while they twitter away and engage in virtual play
unaware of the hungry masses who are actively
at work in taking their place in the world.
It’s only a matter of time

when protests and angry rants
won’t subdue the new leaders
in science, math, and economic power.

Disney had it wrong,
fantasy to lift us from misery
is just that… fantasy
it was never meant to be reality
even our Reality TV is fantasy.
How many truly believe they can win the lottery?

Hoping what is wrong with their lives
can be wiped out and they will become the center
of attention and everyone who they encounter
will be nice to them and everything they want
available. They won’t become drug addicts
and passed out drunks… or so depressed

when reality creeps in
and they realize
there has got to be more
to life than make-believe.