Education or Adult Relations, Which Is More Important

On a rerun of the Oprah show last week, the talk show host highlighted Time magazine article on pathetic state of our nation's schools. Who didn't know that? I'm guessing the people who would rather spend time and money on persecuting legal, adult pornography and consensual adult relations under guise of 'protecting' children. Or it's more that they don't care that their precious children are getting the major shaft, especially if they are Hispanic/Latino or African-American (twice the screw over if you're a minority female). Which hurts children more? Porn pictures of adults and kinky fanfiction or shoddy education?

What really pissed me off about the episode is that Oprah and producers decided to do a 'cross cultural exchange', having students from a wealthy, predominantly WASPy high school in Winnetka, IL named New Trier attend a poor, underfunded predominantly African-American high school in a rather...oh, ghetto area of Chicago named Harper and vice versa. Needless to say, the point was to walk a mile in the other person's shoes but I doubt it changes anything. In fact, this experience probably made the Harper students feel even MORE resentful of their lot in life. Why? Because NOTHING changed for them after this. They had to go back to the school that, after you pass the metal detectors, is falling down around their ears. The Harper students probably had some clue that they were getting the shaft and now they know just HOW MUCH they are being totally screwed over and how behind they are in...everything academic, artistic and athletic. How many of them are going to say, "Fuck it. Why should I try at all?" Not that this should ever be an option, but such a cruel reality check can be crushing for many.

And sure, while the New Trier students got a backhand of reality in their visit to Harper, they knew at the end of the day they got to return to their privilege, their cushy, safe life in a suburb where the cheapest house is probably a little more than half-million dollars. I've driven through Winnetka and it's frakin' gorgeous. I've also been around Harper and wished I had a flak vest. I went to Whitney Young and it is one of the better public high schools in Chicago. There are separate buildings, connected by covered bridges, for the students' academic, artistic and athletic classes, it is safe, has a nationally recognized Academic Decathalon team and athletes, dancers and musicians that go on to be recruited by the best in the world. Prospective students test for entry on top of having excellent grades from seventh and eighth grade. Despite all that, New Trier is still more modern. The gap is sickening.

Anyway...Children are not the actual group being protected, of course. It is usually the childlike minds and immaturity and inability to accept reality of the adults making the charges and causing the hysteria. After all, if Americans actually gave two shits about children, they'd have the best education (including sex education) in the world (we have the resources to provide that, we just don't want to), parental leave would be the rule not the exception, healthcare would be provided, living on welfare would not be a multigenerational reality and we wouldn't infantilize young adults but actually guide them to adulthood. Not call them or treat them as children one day then adults the next simply because of a birthday.

In Against Love, Laura Kipnis sums it up perfectly, "Though needless to say, 'for the sake of the children' is rather a selective enterprise, holding sway far more frequently when it comes to guilty matters like divorce than when it comes to pocketbook issues like education spending," and "Sentimentality about children's welfare comes and goes apparently: highest when there's the chance to moralize about adult behavior, lowest when it comes to resource allocation."

And ain't that the truth. Against Love by Laura Kipnis is an excellent book all sex radicals should read. You can purchase it via my Amazon Associates book list link located on the sidebar near the bottom.