A Brief Observation Outside the Grocery Store

I noted with interest a thin young man of about eighteen standing on the sidewalk outside of my local grocery store. This is a kid that grew up here, one year older than my son.

He stood there, doing nothing, as has been his wont since he reached adolescence, with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth.

There was no amount of anti-smoking propaganda that could dissuade this young punk from picking up a cigarette any more than any one of his teachers could ever persuade him to do anything with his homework, his ambition, his attitude or his life in general. He was a lost cause as far as school went. The teachers knew it, his fellow students knew it, and the taxpayers knew it.

You couldn't have driven motivation into this kid's skull if it was placed on the tip of a railroad spike.

It was the only goal of this undisciplined child to have fun in school while disrupting every classroom he ever entered. He did drop out for a semester a year ago, but he finished the year back inside the building, doing little other than laughing and making loud noises. From that standpoint, I suppose you could say that he met his goals of eduction, even if the state of Michigan would say the school had failed dismally in teaching him some basics that he had no interest in learning in the first place.

Of course, the best thing that could happen would be for this kid to decide he wanted to develop a skill other than blowing smoke rings and would buckle down and learn something. This is not likely to happen. Still, I hope he learns to work and can find a job somewhere that might allow him to lead a productive adult life. Besides, he's going to need money for smokes.

We enter another school year next week. It will be interesting to see if the kid is in the classroom making noise, or in town puffing his future away.

In the first case, the whole student body loses--having this punk in the school is bad news for anyone trying to teach or learn. In the second case, one of the school's ratings will drop under NCLB. What a great system we have in place.