Skip to main content
Good Morning North and South America, and Hello to all of you overseas! The topic I have picked for this week is: Kids spoilt but stupid? Nowhere else but here are kids capitalized. Everything, and I mean everything revolves around the educational upbringing and schooling of children.
With school budgets that are incomparably sky- rocketing and which for the main part consist of school taxes every home owner is obligated to pay regardless of whether they have kids or not, and with a giant coach network - almost like a yellow school bus epidemics - for students' transport to and from school, you might want to think, wow those kids must be doing absolutely fantastic, right? Wait, that's not all yet. Peers worldwide might indeed be googling so hard with envy here that their eyes would probably pop out if they only knew. So, what's more, US students attend schools that have fully functional canteens plus on average much better equipped sports facilities than I have ever seen elsewhere. Gee, those kids really must be outstandingly well- educated, well- nourished and above all athletic beyond anything alike. - Well, if it were like that, I would not bother wasting any of my time, for sure. Anyway, the mockery is indisputably on the American society which apparently still whole- heartedly enough supports all this luxury for their off- spring - but at what prize, I wonder. So, are American kids any smarter, fitter or skinnier that students in other countries? The answer is flat- out NO, not all all. Alright, where does all the money go to if not primarily into an education that is supposedly fit enough to stand international comparison? What do kids need a school canteen for if they end up being just as poorly nourished and/ or as obese as their parents? And seriously, do you really think that all those astronomous expenses for stadiums, tennis courts, athletic fields, swimming pools, etc. are necessary additions to a pupil's curriculum? US students are not any fitter or skinnier. On the contrary, most adolescents will gain more weight than the rest of the world. Again, my curiosity here on why all those theme- park like sports fields, courses, pits and pools are so much required if in the end US students are definitely knocked out of the ball park by basically every other nation on earth with way fewer privileges and much lower standards. American students are no match whatsoever for the rest of the world, I'm afraid because quite obviously detouring into sports is more of a thrill than acquiring a good and solidly profound education. My sincere sympathy! On a final note, let me give you a brief insight into what things are like in my country as far as schooling is concerned. We very much rely on public transport to begin with. There is no such thing like school buses swarming out of their terminals to pick our kids up at home and drop them off there again after school. Besides, the crime rate of minors being abducted or sexually molested is not even worth mentioning. Our schools don't usually own but rent sports facilities nearby their locations. Lots of schools still include small vendors where students get snacks and beverages.
And most importantly, the majority of schooling time is indeed spent indoors - in the class rooms that is. All together our students graduate smarter, skinnier and physically fitter than their peers here. Oh, I almost forgot. We do not pay school taxes. The state subsidizes our schools, and they must one way or another financially cope with what they get - which by the way is only a ridiculous fraction of US school budgets. Well, draw your own conclusions from this, and please weigh in.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ridiculous!

Ridiculous!   - A belated Hello back to my blog! - I was writing this a few days ago as we were sitting on the plane to Chisasibi in the far north east of Quebec, Canada. We flew out of Montreal which is definitely not a small town airport. Anyways, what we went through was the epitome of aggravation. Having been to many airports already, I'm kind of used to the generally time- consuming ordeals starting with the self- check- in counters, security check points, passport controls, mile- long jogs to the gates, baggage claim, customs, etc. I really thought I'd seen it all - until last Monday morning. After surprisingly having been checked in by an actual person, we were finally headed towards Departures. I could not believe my eyes once we turned around the corner and spotted hundreds of passengers waiting in line. What the heck?! First, we were funneled in what seemed half a mile away from the actual security check point and then driven in long snake lines just like cattle. I g...
Buy small and local   Hi everybody! - Coming from a tiny country like Austria, one might assume that globalisation is just a phenomenon tailored for larger nations, but no, it has also been affecting us all across Europe. Globalisation itself is of complex nature, and even though I'm not planning to write about globalisation per se today, it somehow dictates our overall shopping behavior by bringing in more and more big box chain stores worldwide which sets the general trend for methodically and eventually putting local small family- run as well as individualists' shops out of business. In the 70ies I remember mom and dad taking us along to a wide range of stores from the baker to the butcher, the grocer's, the florist, the hard ware place, the electrician, the tobacco store, etc. What great memories our weekly trips to the market created for us. There we would hand- pick fresh fruit, produce, and other delicacies. Sometimes we would even get a piece of fruit or a carrot fo...
Money Destroys The World   - This morning's news segment about a supposedly renowned US dog breeder corporation having neglected thousands of dogs has once more proven that quality is sacrificed for the sake of quantity which is linked to the sad fact that everything revolves around money only.  In order to increase and multiply profits, more volume of less quality has become the clearly chosen option everywhere. No doubt, we are dealing with a huge problem on a global scale, but still I feel that this country doesn't even bother masking the issue at times. That's just not fair towards the people here! Lies and false promises are the epitome of hypocrisy, all for the sake of making more money. Absolutely sickening! Just imagine, you would like to purchase a dog from a good breeding stock, and you are willing to pay more, but what you get is often not what you've been promised, no even worse guaranteed. The worst thing though, the paper work assures you that things are o...