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An excerpt from the just released:
"THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO CRAP!!!...
A Baby Boomer's Inspired Rantings of Ultimate Outrage!"

by

Karl Hosch

Let's Not Get Testy!

“we don’t need no education….” Pink Floyd

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." To immortalize the opening line of a classic novel that I never read, seems an appropriate way to begin this chapter. "A Tale of Two Cities" is the presumed source of this quote, but I'm not sure who the dickens wrote it. The book must have been pretty good because they made a movie of it, which I have seen only parts of several times... mainly because it was an old black and white film and seemed a bit depressing. And besides, the French Revolution wasn't as exciting as a first run "Mr. Ed" show, and by today's standards, couldn't begin to compete with MTV.

Anyway, growing up as a Baby Boomer put me in the situation with my grammar school years mostly in the 50's, my junior and senior high school years in the 60's, and my college years overlapping into the early 70's. This was a time of incredible change in our society that has only accelerated in speed and intensity over the last several decades. My early years in school were like most of the years I spent in kindergarten through twelve. I hated it. Not all the time mind you, but really have to think hard to remember any outstanding moments when I thought that I was actually enjoying myself.

One of the main reasons that I feel that grammar school wasn't what it could have been, was the intense pressure to excel that was heaped onto anyone who had an above average I. Q. I am not bragging here, but I was tracked into the smart section of my grade and therefore got a full helping of teachers expecting you to produce and produce; to the point that it all became quite absurd.

Teachers throughout the ages, have been portrayed as hard taskmasters that had to rule the class with an iron hand in order to drum the basics into students that were a bit less than motivated. Well, to add to that, after WW II, the Cold War put us at odds with the Russians. It seemed a national priority to produce as many rocket scientists as possible out of an unsuspecting and innocent group of young people such as myself. To this end, we were constantly chided, cajoled and brain washed into thinking this made sense. We were then constantly tested and re-tested to see how much information we had absorbed and what new insights we may havedeveloped on Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Those years were almost entirely ridiculous. We weren't taught how to be young people and how to develop skills that would enable us to better cope and make sense of the world we were to inherit. No. We had to know every darn mathematical formula, every date in history, and everything and anything that could be crammed down our throats. We, after all, were representing the "super youth" of a country that was now a world leader in all areas.

If it seems like I sound somewhat bitter about what went on, you are right. And this asinine approach wasn't just limited to my upper-middle class community. It was nationwide. Granted, there were places that had schools that were still counting on their toes. But for the most part, the rapidly expanding suburbia that was taking over America's consciousness, was almost uniformly guilty of this scholastic debacle.

Okay. I am more calm now. Let's talk about junior and senior high.

What the hell, I'm getting mad again. Junior and senior high was to be a continuation of the educational madness to succeed. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Why? Especially since the whole focus of it was in the wrong direction. They weren't creating rational human beings that could relate to each other. They were fostering little monsters that would eventually rebel and explode into the "hippie" generation, and later into the greedy, self-centered, divorce-ridden, frustrated "me" generation. Which by the way, seems as if its influences are playing a large part in the rather speedy decay of the moral and ethical fabric of our present day society.

It wasn't until twelfth grade that I finally got a good perspective on what was happening to us. We had guidance counselors that guided us into careers such as math, English, history, etc. What? Those things don't especially sound like careers. Do they? At the time, most of us thought so. You could ask any bespectacled young lass who could put a decent sentence together, what she wanted to do in life, and she might be most likely to give you an earnest look and say that she was going to be an English major. An English major? What is she going to do? Sell dictionaries? Perhaps, she merely wanted to propagate her kind and become an English teacher? That's okay, I guess. But hey, there were dozens of these girls and/or boys in school. And they all had ideas of majoring in a basic subject in college and then getting some sort of mystical job with that degree. Teaching it, most likely. It was amazing. They all had the same narrow ideas of what was really out there after twelfth grade graduation.

Now I am talking about how things were in general. There were, and still probably are the "slower" kids who don't care about anything and will probably end up with real jobs in politics, plumbing or owning a multi-store retail chain. Maybe they were the lucky ones. No pressure. All things being equal, they probably had a more fun time in school and have a more healthy and relaxed attitude in general. The only problem is that they are now probably having to read their news from a paper written by bespectacled young women who have become frustrated "journalists." Yes. I'll admit that there are things you can "eventually" do for a living, even if you started with a basic degree in English.

In short, I made it out of public school mainly because I was lucky.

Lucky in that I could remember things very easily and never had to take a lot of notes. And also with tests. In this area, I was an animal created for the educational system. I could almost always do well on a test. I didn't even study much and still did well. My specialty was achievement tests; I. Q., and SAT's included. Thank God for small miracles. It made my life as a student at least bearable.

Okay. Now, college. A time when all the "brains" and the "not much brains" fought for a chance to stay out of Vietnam with the cherished 2-S military draft deferment. This seemed like an inappropriate motivator for a good portion of the male population to attend higher learning institutions, but why not. Everyone has the right to protect his rear end from a Viet Cong mortar round.

Our high school graduating class was I feel, the last "straight" class.

By that I mean we were the last class that had some resemblance to what school was supposed to be. Drugs were done by the wild few. Sex was barely creeping into the average student's life, and a general feeling of conservatism was the rule of the day. But as I said, we were the last straight class to graduate high school. High school from then on was to share, albeit to a lesser degree at times, the same wild, promiscuous and rebellious life style as college.

To say college was predictable or even slightly calm would be a total misstatement. To be in college, starting in 69 was to enter a world that seemed to have suddenly gone mad overnight. When you walked onto my college campus, you were entering a different world. A world that was uncertain, undirected, misdirected and highly subject to the mood of the moment.

Somehow, some learning went on. The English majors studied English; for at least a semester. They then switched logically to journalism, or perhaps a more speculative change to art history, or one of the favorite majors of the time... psychology. The most daring and usually largest illicit drug consumers were the philosophy majors. Catch them smoking a joint or snorting a line and ask them, "Why?" They would always retort with the ever potent, "Why not?"

College for me at least, was pretty good. I lived at home and commuted, so I could keep in touch with my local friends. I also had a car. A cheap one, but a car nonetheless. I picked my classes carefully and ended up with good teachers in fairly stimulating classes, and managed to get a film making minor in addition to a major in finance. Two very closely related fields, I have now since found out.

Again, I didn't take many notes. My decent memory and careful course choices didn't require heavy documentation. Due to my high SAT's, high school grades and Regent's Scholarship Test score, I was invited into the highly touted Honors Program. I spent my first semester in it. But, my high school experience served me well, and I dumped the Honors Program and made up my mind that I was going to enjoy my college days. "No pressure" was now my rule of the day.

I don't want to make school and/or the learning process look as if it were not to be liked. Since I have graduated from college, I have taught myself more skills and developed more abilities than I ever thought possible. However, this was done at my own pace and I was the only judge of how much was to be accomplished and when. An attitude that only served to make me more receptive to the sometimes very involved subjects I was studying.

This has led me to a very deep respect for the concept of learning.

Learning that is motivated by the individual's quest for knowledge is very productive and is extremely rewarding. The pressures of my earlier school days are now past and I have reconciled them as an unfortunate turn in society's path. If I were in the educational field now myself, I would use my experience to make it a better time for present students.

Agreed, students need knowledge and constructive discipline. Yes.

But, they also, and foremost, need to be loved, respected, understood, and encouraged. They do not need to be pressured (I can't over use that word), intimidated, and manipulated into performing to any given level. Along with all the other changes that need be done to this society, the school experience should be one of first learning the skills of living, coping, sharing, giving and relating (among others); so that you do not produce a generation of "lost" souls who have no identity or comprehension of the complexity and vulnerability of the human potential. We should nourish the soul of the student, stimulate his curiosity, give him meaning, instill in him confidence, and help him focus. Once these things have been tackled, the formulas, dates, grammar, numbers and whatever, will find a place in beings that will have a constructive and well-motivated use for them in their existence.

©Copyright 2004-2005 Karl Hosch-All Rights Reserved

The above is an excerpt from "THE WHOLE WORLD ISGOING TO CRAP!!!... A Baby Boomer's Inspired Rantings of Ultimate Outrage!" By Karl Hosch. It is available through: TRAFFORD PUBLISHING. CALL TOLL FREE 1 888 232-4444 to purchase a copy.

Karl Hosch is a genuine Baby Boomer. Born in 1951, he grew up in the midst of immense and growing national prosperity, air raid drills in school, several political catastrophes and assassinations and, all the while, being supposedly honed into part of a powerful generation that was shaped and even misshaped by an ever increasing presence of Madison Avenue, government policies and seemingly endless interest groups. However, he has kept his balanced perspective and sense of humor. He writes screenplays that are mostly "feel good" in some way and always seem to manage to bring some positive thinking and fun aspects to the forefront whenever possible. He has won numerous national and international awards for his film making and is now in the process of developing several important film production packages, based on his screenplay writings... in addition to keeping up the writing of stimulating and entertaining books!

“Every educator – and I use the term in its widest sense – should constantly ask himself whether he is actually fulfilling his teachings in his own person and in his own life, to the best of his knowledge and with a clear conscience. Psychotherapy has taught us that in the final reckoning it is not knowledge or technical skill, that has a curative effect but the personality of the doctor. And it is the same with education: it presupposes self-education.”

-Carl Gustav Jung