Sykes’ 50 Rules Preview Party!

Charlie’s previewing a few of the rules! Okay, people, let’s parse:

RULE (9): Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to real life, which still rewards excellence and delivers a sharp poke in the eye to failure.

Despite the wishful thinking of the therapists, counselors, and moon-rock peddlers, life does involves competition, with winners and losers. Some people get hired. Some don’t. Some get promoted. Some don’t. Some pass the bar exam. Some don’t. Some get admitted to the college of their first choice. Some don’t.

There’s an Alice in Wonderland quality to much of public education these days: “Everyone wins, and all must have prizes!” Or at least trophies for participation. In the movie Meet the Fockers, the "Wall of Gaylord" celebrates one character’s lifetime achievements in mediocrity, prompting the character played by Robert De Niro to muse, “I didn't know they made ninth-place ribbons."

Of course they do.

Ouch! Who just poked me in the eye? Was it Charlie again? Christ! Will you stop doing that?

I don’t know what the first eight rules are like, but if this hackneyed point about the schools shows up at number nine, it’s a safe bet this puppy is going to be one hard slog. Plus, and I know I’m not important enough to have my own radio show, I kind of think that quoting a line from Meet the Fockers might undercut your point’s broader intellectual context. Just me.

Still, since I am stooping to address these points, I’ll start with a very serious question: What the hell is Sykes talking about? Kids hear about what failures they are all the time. Not to mention how fat, lazy, and stupid they are.

And, God, yes, we know they’re stupid. Thanks to the nation’s anti-education lobby, all children do in school these days is take one state-mandated test, drill, or pop quiz after another, providing us all with plenty of cross-tabs to chew over. Then, to make matters worse, some prima donna home-schooled punk always manages to waltz away with the national spelling bee every year, giving Sykes even more opportunities to discuss what God-awful failures kids are.

I would estimate that a full 75% of Sykes’ show is dedicated to his documentation of failure at all levels of society, particularly in the schools. Charlie, the kids get it. They’re failures Where’s the stick?

RULE (10): Life is actually more like dodgeball than your gym teacher thinks.
It comes at you quickly; it requires alertness and skill; the outcome is unpredictable; the weak can sometimes overcome the strong; it involves elimination and has both winners and losers…

First, Charlie pokes you in the eye with a stick, then—WHAMMO! he hits you in the head with a dodgeball. I knew kids like Charlie when I was in elementary school. They sucked.

RULE (11): After you graduate, you won’t be competing against rivals who were raised to be wimps on the playground.

The Duke of Wellington once said that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton” – reflecting his view that competitive sports shape a nation’s character. We sure as hell should hope that’s not true about America unless, that is, we plan on going to war against an enemy who also values non-competitive, risk-free, self-esteem building play activities for its young…

If conservatives keep vacuuming all the money out of the education system, no one is going to be left who knows who the Duke of Wellington was—a rabid colonialist who helped crush the Indian people for the cause of enriching the British nobility. Prince Charles probably has a couple of dozen jewel-encrusted dinner services lying about in one of his summer homes that can be traced directly back to the Duke’s efforts on behalf of English imperialism.

Perhaps the most revealing part of Rule 11, however, is Sykes’ contention that our education system exists for the sole purpose of preparing our nation’s youth to conquer foreign enemies abroad.

In summary:

Rule 9: If you make a mistake, someone is going to poke you in the eye with a stick.

Rule 10: WHAMMO! Ha-ha-ha. I really got you, didn’t I?

Rule 11: Prepare to defeat the overseas infidels.

I can see why America needs this book. Of course, I’m probably just jealous.

Soglin has more.

So does Blogging Blue.