It is middle of June. Today’s edition marks the middle of the month and we are in the midst of that annual rite of passage, graduation. All area colleges had commencement ceremonies last month, while many area high schools, both regional and otherwise have graduated their 2017 charges.
Graduation is more than a rite of passage, however. It is the crossing of a threshold from childhood and adolescence into adulthood. Most high school graduates these days have hit the age of majority and are legally adults. The graduation ceremony puts its own special mark on that adulthood, casting off the last vestiges of childishness and less-than-adult rules.
Today’s graduates are probably more technically savvy, more politically aware, and certainly are astute when it comes to certain subjects of study, such as science or technology. However, we wonder if they are truly “educated.” The evidence seems to indicate they are not.
Every year employers are asked a key question: Are graduates of high schools or colleges ready to enter the workforce and have the skills necessary for that entry. In the past several years, the answer has been an astounding No!
Their inability to get along in the work-a-day world goes beyond poor reading or arithmetic skills, it carries over into interpersonal relationships. It is no secret that high schools and college campuses have become influence heavily by Marxist thought and the Politically Correct Culture. The last five years have been especially evident of education going off the rails with the emergence of “safe spaces,” and trigger warnings.
Kept in a bubble where teachers and administrators are allowed to have complete control, there are more and more instances where those with political agendas have used their situations as bully pulpits. Most teachers do their job, but a quick perusal of the daily news lets one know that there are instructors, particularly in the social sciences, though the trend has gone beyond those spheres, who use the classroom as a means of disseminating their own brand of social justice.
Those graduates coming out of high schools and colleges know little about people who think differently than they were taught, and, more importantly, were taught to hate those who think differently. So, a person who has a religious objection to same-sex marriage is not considered wrong or uninformed, he is considered evil.
This “learning” has stunted the emotional growth of teens and young adults as well as college graduates to the point they are not able to function in a world that doesn’t care what you are feeling on any given day, only that you do the job for which you were hired. You might have had an exam cancelled because of some perceived setback, like the election of Donald Trump, but that was then and this is now.
We fear those coming out of colleges and high schools are ill-equipped to handle the stresses of everyday life because adults in their lives have shielded them from the growth that comes from not being the best or, dare we say it, failing.
Getting a trophy just for participating is not a good. People win and people lose. It is the mark of an adult to handle adversity.
We are convinced most of the riots happening today on college campuses or elsewhere is the fact that young people were never allowed to handle adversity. They were told whatever they did had value.
So, when they get into the workforce and their writing has to have Standard English or their communication skills have to have verbal exactness they are unable to do it. Unlike those in academe who will say proper grammar is a symptom of racism (though how we are unable to comprehend), those in business don’t have time for such esoteric pursuits.
Many of our graduates in both colleges and high schools will be able to find their way in the real world because they never succumbed to the silliness of the PC culture or its purveyors. They will succeed, many, we are sorry to say, will not, or will have to find out the hard way that they were given a bill of goods.
Graduation is supposed to be a happy time. It is a time to transition to another phase of one’s life with the ultimate goal of getting into a life situation that is fulfilling.
We find little to be happy about seeing the confusion and bad information given our young people. And the biggest sorrow we have is it wasn’t their fault.