https://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2021/09/12
Lynn Johnston is a Canadian cartoonist who draws "For Better or For Worse", a cartoon about family life. Today's strip depicts a long phone conversation between school girls who are friends. The girl's mom says that her daughter has spent too long on the phone and has other things that she needs to do. The girl protests that "Mom, it is about SCHOOL!" We have read most of the conversation and it has been about what we should wear, some of the tastier male students, and other fundamental matters.
I am writing to emphasize that the talk has been about school, only not the curriculum, the liberal arts, or the sciences. Parents, grandparents and relatives can enrich their lives and their memories, as well as their respect for the entire trajectory of human life, if they keep in mind that we humans have biological and maturational forces working in us at all times. Just because Mr. Schultz is requiring us to take a test on the founding of the Jamestown colony doesn't mean that important biological and psychological forces have taken a break. Some of that early American history has its place, but it is not wise to expect it to replace clothes, boys and relationships between friends.
It may help to cast your mind back to your own high school years and estimate how much plane geometry you used this past week, how much you remember of Shakespeare's sonnets and what is the capital of Ohio. If you live in Ohio, substitute the capital of Tennessee. It can help to remember that school is never just about the curriculum, the subjects or even the grades. By the way, what grade did you get in 9th grade English, anyhow? (I don't know what grade I got, either.) When your greatgranddaughter gets hired by the US Justice department, you probably won't be thinking about her grades, either.
