Reliving My Youth

Today, I had the chance to relive my youth.  No, I didn't swing on a swing, I didn't go out with a net and collect butterflies.  I did something that I am sure many will want to do sometimes in their adult lives.....that is to do Grade 9 Science.  My nephew Mathew was a good boy this past school year... his marks in science were so outstanding, that the instructors asked him to do a summer course so he could be the master of science.  Now, I am one of those individuals who as a kid, loved school -I remember working ahead in my phonics books, my book reports were longer than the books themselves, I loved writing stories, math was fun, - and getting anything less than an A on a report card was a disappointment for me .  During summer holidays we would play school, and library....and to prove we weren't total geeks-we had the occasional game of cops and robbers (sorry brother Gary, I know the steel bins were hot, but they made a perfect jail cell -I guess that may explain his claustrophobic ways).  Yes, we were eggheads.  But you can call be Dr. Egghead now.  Call me a fuddy duddy (Dr. Fuddy Duddy to you), but school is important and I know some kids who think school is a time to relax, and give their teachers a hard time.  And some parents think school is a holiday from parenting.   What is the school system teaching these days?  This hole language crap is KRAP!  I am amazed how many kids can't read -getting bumped to the next grade so that don't leave their friends behind. The idea of looking something in the dictionary to check spelling is foreign -or is it foriegn (i before e except after c doesn't work here).  I guess that is why spellcheck exists.  I am sure there are many young people who don't know multiplication tables - why should they, they get calculators in grade 3!  Of course, you can't blame everything on the school system - parents play a huge role, and there are some that are dropping the ball - and in doing so they are not doing society any favors.  So today, I was out to save society when I laid down the law and said that there was to be some work done today by Mathew - school was starting in a week, and one module out of five to be done was not acceptable by me.  Wholly crap though, periodic tables, atomic mass, neutrons, protons, Dalton Theory-the cobwebs had to be dusted off, but as soon as they were, I do believe I saw some exothermic activity in Mathew as the lightbulb went on in his head when I helped explained things.  However, it is kind of hard to convince a young person that these science classes can allow one to take physics, biology and chemistry, and organic chemistry with hours of lab work - and if you work really hard, get good marks, spend tens of thousands of dollars in tuition - you too can go and cut off the head off of a dead cow, scoop the brain out and send it for BSE testing.  But then if you want your career to be a Walmart Greeter - follow your dreams.
And never say you can't learn something new every day - I learned that if a 20 kg coyote eats 100 mg of strychnine, he has a 50% chance of being dead.  I know though that a 10 gram bullet through the head of a coyote has a 100% chance of being dead - time to update those Grade 9 Science textbooks.