I believe the children are the future

And we’re screwed.

I have remarkably normal blood pressure considering that I have a tendency toward high blood pressure and the amount of stress I’ve been under this past week. There are students that I work with who are behaving like they were raised in a barn. And in some cases a barn would be an improvement. The stir up drama for no reason and then wonder why the administration has no patience for their antics. Why is no one taking me seriously when I’ve created all this chaos, haven’t done my work and am seeking to blame everyone except myself. Look, not all of them are like this. Not even most of them. Let’s say 25%. Maybe 25% of the population is generally a mess. Does that track in your experience? Higher, lower?

What I find is that maybe 90% of people are kind of checked out. It’s not that they’re stupid or anything like that but they care about weird and unimportant stuff, ignore real problems and don’t go out of their way to improve their knowledge. In education they talk about “life long learners.” I don’t think many people are life long learners. They learn only what they need for the basics and then coast from there. I could be wrong. It’s just that when I talk to people, pop culture dominates the time and space that could be used for learning. I remember pre-internet when people had hobbies. People would learn new skills, build things. Is social media a hobby? I’d rather have a hideous hook rug or one of those awful 1970s afghans. I don’t see folks doing that but then again, it’s not like I’m omniscient – I just see my little corner of the world.

Maybe I’m just feeling pessimistic at this particular moment because it’s been a shit-storm of a week. Really I came out of it far better than my colleagues. I saw one guy get fired, I was part of academic hearing, my boss is on the dean’s shit list (again), I watched the faculty union negotiators flub a math problem in an important contract negotiation, and then there’s the student who handed in 12 of 30 pages due while simultaneously creating drama and chaos (as a distraction? How does that work?) that reignited long dormant conflicts.

However, the dog who has been very skeptical of me, rolled over on his back for me to pet his belly yesterday. That’s a good sign.