Important notice from the GRAMMAR POLICE. Plz read. This means you.

[iHateyou]

So you are essentially admitting you can't do your job?

Sure I could do my job, if I devoted more time to it than there is hours in the day. So no, I cannot do my job. If you think you can, be my guest.

*by the way, that might not be relevant since I am not actually a teacher!

I was going to say, my job is cleaning up after the edumacational messes that teachers make, but then you said you aren't a teacher. So why are you bitching, again?

Since you asked so nicely... I am not a teacher. I know teachers, live with teachers, and I volunteer with teachers. The reason I have not been fired, is simply because they are grateful to have a little help, despite the fact that there is too much work for me to finish. My job includes grading mountains of papers for very overworked teachers. I see what they are up against with the enormous class sizes my teachers are saddled with now.  By the way a teacher's job description does not include any specific way they must grade papers. Their job is to teach, and most of them do the best they can with what they have.  In our current economic situation, teachers are not even allowed to make photo copies anymore (in my district) much less given any other type of supplies. Everything comes out of their pocket. They receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse. What I have seen has caused me to change my career choices completely, because there is no way I want to mess with any of that. The last thing I want is to spend all day trying to teach today's horrible children, just to have them mock you, destroy your materials, and then have their equally nasty parents come and scream at you for their own failures.

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

[GelatinousSubstance]

So you are essentially admitting you can't do your job?

Sure I could do my job, if I devoted more time to it than there is hours in the day. So no, I cannot do my job. If you think you can, be my guest.

*by the way, that might not be relevant since I am not actually a teacher!

I was going to say, my job is cleaning up after the edumacational messes that teachers make, but then you said you aren't a teacher. So why are you bitching, again?

Since you asked so nicely... I am not a teacher. I know teachers, live with teachers, and I volunteer with teachers. The reason I have not been fired, is simply because they are grateful to have a little help, despite the fact that there is too much work for me to finish. My job includes grading mountains of papers for very overworked teachers. I see what they are up against with the enormous class sizes my teachers are saddled with now.  By the way a teacher's job description does not include any specific way they must grade papers. Their job is to teach, and most of them do the best they can with what they have.  In our current economic situation, teachers are not even allowed to make photo copies anymore (in my district) much less given any other type of supplies. Everything comes out of their pocket. They receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse. What I have seen has caused me to change my career choices completely, because there is no way I want to mess with any of that. The last thing I want is to spend all day trying to teach today's horrible children, just to have them mock you, destroy your materials, and then have their equally nasty parents come and scream at you for their own failures.

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

That's pretty much the reason why I wouldn't be dumb enough to do it in the first place. I've had plenty of dog's jobs too. But instead of bitching about it, I find a different career.

[rohina]

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

Why do you automatically assume I am speaking from ignorance? Do you know what I do for a living?

[kiki]

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

Why do you automatically assume I am speaking from ignorance? Do you know what I do for a living?

Hey you DO look familiar! Did I see you working at Dairy Queen last night?

[rohina]

I would admit to being busted, but there is no DQ in Sydney, so sucks to you, Kiki. If only I had kept that tenure track job at UNSW, eh?

[psikfreak]

Since you asked so nicely... I am not a teacher. I know teachers, live with teachers, and I volunteer with teachers. The reason I have not been fired, is simply because they are grateful to have a little help, despite the fact that there is too much work for me to finish. My job includes grading mountains of papers for very overworked teachers. I see what they are up against with the enormous class sizes my teachers are saddled with now.  By the way a teacher's job description does not include any specific way they must grade papers. Their job is to teach, and most of them do the best they can with what they have.  In our current economic situation, teachers are not even allowed to make photo copies anymore (in my district) much less given any other type of supplies. Everything comes out of their pocket. They receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse. What I have seen has caused me to change my career choices completely, because there is no way I want to mess with any of that. The last thing I want is to spend all day trying to teach today's horrible children, just to have them mock you, destroy your materials, and then have their equally nasty parents come and scream at you for their own failures.

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

Oh, yay. Edited those extraneous quotes out correctly. Small things.

Now, I've had my MATY account dumped at least twice that I can recall. Why? I am not one of the Awesome people around here. I can see the site in full from guest view so virtually never log in. Why? Because, to reiterate, I am not one of the Awesome people around here. I come, I use search, I rarely attempt to post because I know I am not one of the Awesome people.

When I do post I exercise caution in what I say and how I say it. Why? It's MATY. For the same reason I warn people I meet in the Sims community to try all available remedies for their Sims ailment before coming here. And to humbly list said attempts before asking for help. Imbeciles are the favorite chum for the denizens whom lurk within MATY.

I skipped over the majority of the posts -for which I will stand still and take my lumps. I was not going to post, however seeing, well, what I would call verbal diarrhea if said to me in person, in your post I changed my mind.

Last time I checked part of teaching was checking to make sure your students are learning. That is done with homework and tests. Which, must be graded to ascertain if a student is learning. Therefore, grading papers is a part of their job. Whether stated in small words for individuals of dubious intelligence such as yourself or as an implied responsibility of their position.

If teachers in your district are not allowed to make copies take it up with the PTA, school board, superintendent, etc. It has no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Teachers in this day and age (in the USA) receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse because society and the government permit it/refuse to support them. Again, this has no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Further, today's children are 'horrible' because their parents are to self-absorbed and incompetent to raise a child. Society makes excuses for those children, e.g. they come from underprivileged homes, etc. And finally because people like you was their hands of them. It's so much easier than tackling a problem that you haven't created but could remedy.

You think teachers get the short end of the stick, try being a school bus driver for three years for everything from elementary kids from the local ghetto to spoiled high school brats. Try working in a teacher's assistant capacity in the most underprivileged elementary school in the city. Finally, try doing behavioral management with a therapy firm for an entire year with elementary students born premature, treated like animals, and sexually abused to high school kids who's only goal in life is to join a gang and die in a drive by.

Nobody goes into any of those for kudos, pats on the back, or warm fuzzies. After doing the required time as a student teacher any individual going into the field who doesn't grasp the thankless nature of the position is blind, ignorant, stupid, what have you. And they get what they deserve.

I personally go back every year to drive a bus because if, after all the abuse and nonsense, I've reached one child, gotten one child to think, made a difference, an impact then I have succeeded. And that's ALL the thanks I need, my warm fuzzies, etc.

Oh, and for the record -you can't teach anyone who doesn't want to learn. What you can do is try to motivate them to want to learn through various means. Somehow, I do not think you would be good at that, given the attitude you've displayed. And I am thankful you are not a teacher. Children need a firm hand. Limits and rules. They also need hope -something you are sadly lacking.

Now, as for egregious spelling and grammatical errors. I will run this through Word, it will tell me it has everything fixed, and I'll believe it because I don't see them. But you don't hear me whining about it. I attempt to remedy the problem. Have I failed, will I fail? Yes, and most likely. But I bloody well tried and here at MATY effort is noted and appreciated. Not whining, bitching, and making pathetic excuses.

[morriganrant]

It is also possible to be so stubbornly ungrammatical that you get an exemption in the form of Teflon or lifetime Teflon. Examples:  morriganrant, Tigerlilley and Bangelnuts.

Only popping in here to say that I do not mind the sporking, not that I needed to give permission. How else will I learn? In the years that I have been here, lurking or otherwise, my written presence has improved substantially. This should be an indication of how poorly I was doing before. It was quite frightening. Now writing such as that causes me to cringe, and my eyes glaze over in defense.

[kiki]

I would admit to being busted, but there is no DQ in Sydney, so sucks to you, Kiki. If only I had kept that tenure track job at UNSW, eh?

Oh but there is now It's near Chinatown and going there after 3pm will probably get you knifed, but it's totally worth it. We've got Coldstone now too, so yeyz! DOLLAR DOLLAR TIP, BITCHES.

[GelatinousSubstance]

After doing the required time as a student teacher any individual going into the field who doesn't grasp the thankless nature of the position is blind, ignorant, stupid, what have you. And they get what they deserve.

My sentiment exactly.

[Stitches]

Am I the only one that feels that any teacher that needs to outsource their grading is DOING IT WRONG?

*edit: I am not talking out of my ass here. I have several years of being a TA and am working on my credential concurrently with my degree.

[kiki]

Am I the only one that feels that any teacher that needs to outsource their grading is DOING IT WRONG?

*edit: I am not talking out of my ass here. I have several years of being a TA and am working on my credential concurrently with my degree.

When I was high-school teaching I never had a problem with doing my own marking and getting my work done - did it take a large chunk of my social life that I wished it hadn't? Sure...but I still managed to do my OWN work and what was required of me without having to pass it off on others. The salary I was on was the only reason I left teaching for a higher paid job,  I never had a problem with doing the work because I knew what I was in for...too many people think that teaching is what they see on TV, that it ends once you leave the classroom, which is why they get butthurt when they realise the work involved.

[femsuii]

Yes, and also, if we can manage to be coherent in a language that is not our first, those who grow up with it should be able to as well. Argh.

Agreed, it sometimes makes it hard to actually understand what a person is saying when they write it incorrect giving it a totally different definition.

Ah fuck up and die!

LMFAO! I just knew someone would fail to sense my sarcasm, yet I'm amazed by it all the same. I thought it was pretty obvious.

Obvious and painfull, yes.

'Lol...' seriously, that's all I have to say to both your replies. You are so closed-minded you can't see the grey (I assume you're a Brit?) in between. Well, I tried to put another point across but you're not having any of it, so I suppose it's just another shame. Oh gosh, I used wiggles to emphasize my name, that MUST mean I'm a pleb. And my attitude? It's a good one to have, I'm proud of it, I know I'm a fair person. Don't worry though, you can have your little obsession back, I can see you're never going to open your eyes. It would just be nice if you were nicer to people, even when you want to get a grammar point across.

I assume you're doing it on purpose now? At least someone is proud... :roll:

It's not as simple as that because they came back at me telling me i meant things that i had never written. Twisting ways i had worded things. Like some of the examples i brought up. The words i use are the words i mean, if i don't say things like 'i think you should all change for me' then thats what i meant to not put. But i've had people coming back to me with 'oh so you want us to change for you' type thing. Near the beginning i said how a spelling mistake is so bad, and i got things back saying that you basically have no intelligence if you don't capitalize something etc. So from asking an innocent enough question, people make it personal by stating what a person is if they don't spell the way THEY want. Then telling me how i don't get the way it works here even though more than once i had stated i understood. So if i took care to make it clear i understood, yet still got people repeating themselves that i didn't, just who has made the mistake there. Not me! Bottom line on the subject of this thread though, is that this site would still be good and non-n00bish even if people forgot the odd apostrophe or capital. The odd grammar drop isn't the same as people coming on going 'yo peepz, sims 3 iz da bomb (or not as the case may be) ^.^ w00t'. And it seems to be that people don't want THAT type on here?

I guess they just didn't teach you comprehensive reading when you were in school? 

And it's just a hopeless cause... I'm not going to correct all the errors, because it's time consuming. You just like being recalcitrant?

It's just that in this day its natural to not worry too much about grammar on the net. And we're not even talking about jumbled up words here, they're on about things like not capitalising an 'I'. While some people may be anal about spelling, this type of mishap won't in any way affect a post.

Actually, when (native) people start to spell things/use grammar incorrectly, it makes it harder for a foreigner to comprehend what it's saying since there really is a difference between (e.g.) "your" and "you're".

Thats just the way i type. I don't use silly n00b speak, or 'pmsl' everywhere, but yeah, i do cut corners with capital I's. And it's not riddled with errors. And 'in your opinion is annoying', yes. I also love the way you use 'we' to refer to yourselves. It's like your a cult or something. You seem to forget you don't own the site, even if you feel you are some type of minion. Pescado hasn't once really said anything himself about how to behave with grammar, this thread wasn't even created by him! I said i understood, now you are telling me AGAIN that i don't and telling me the reason why you think it. I'm careful that i type things to an 'alright' standard, but i know i just won't be able to keep to making sure every tiny thing is done 'the proper' way. And it has nothing to so with doing it 'intentionally'. It's my habit, but it gets me by. If the guy in charge asks me to try harder than perhaps it's more worth thinking about. 

I'm not trying to 'win' anything. Was just having a conversation

Apparently, it's very hard for you to type correct. Hint: typ your posts (interlarded with ignorance) in word before posting, and don't forget to adjust "i" with "I" in autocorrect. Yes, it is that simple

Oh crap, and now she got canned. That's what I get for almost always reading the entire thread... :roll:

It's sad, really.  I noticed that my son's teachers don't bother to correct his spelling or grammar on most of his assignments because it's "the substance that matters" to them.  Apparently, AOLspeak is changing the way papers are graded.  Why in the hell has it become commonplace?   

This probably also has something to do with overly PC public school teachers nowadays that are afraid to correct kids, fearing the wrath of child-centered parents.

Actually it probably has more to do with the fact that your kid's classes probably have 38+ students in each class. When you teach at least 200 students a day you cannot correct everything on each assignment. Next year in our district the classes are going up to 42. We save that kind of grading for the big important writing assignments and give everything else a few "pity points" for effort.

I don't see the problem? In both primary and high school most of my classes consisted of 30-40 students and they always corrected everything.

Since you asked so nicely... I am not a teacher. I know teachers, live with teachers, and I volunteer with teachers. The reason I have not been fired, is simply because they are grateful to have a little help, despite the fact that there is too much work for me to finish. My job includes grading mountains of papers for very overworked teachers. I see what they are up against with the enormous class sizes my teachers are saddled with now.  By the way a teacher's job description does not include any specific way they must grade papers. Their job is to teach, and most of them do the best they can with what they have.  In our current economic situation, teachers are not even allowed to make photo copies anymore (in my district) much less given any other type of supplies. Everything comes out of their pocket. They receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse. What I have seen has caused me to change my career choices completely, because there is no way I want to mess with any of that. The last thing I want is to spend all day trying to teach today's horrible children, just to have them mock you, destroy your materials, and then have their equally nasty parents come and scream at you for their own failures.

Why am I bitching? I wasn't bitching before, but now I am! The reason I replied is because I felt your comment showed the typical amount of ignorance of what it actually means to try to do this job, and I'm confident that I am right. I'd like to see what you look like after just one year of trying to keep 200 teenagers alive, much less teach them something that they don't want to learn.

If you're not a teacher, WTH are you doing grading papers? And by teaching I think they actually mean teaching correct *language*, so correcting grammar and/or spelling on papers is - IMO - teaching.

Oh, yay. Edited those extraneous quotes out correctly. Small things.

Now, I've had my MATY account dumped at least twice that I can recall. Why? I am not one of the Awesome people around here. I can see the site in full from guest view so virtually never log in. Why? Because, to reiterate, I am not one of the Awesome people around here. I come, I use search, I rarely attempt to post because I know I am not one of the Awesome people.

When I do post I exercise caution in what I say and how I say it. Why? It's MATY. For the same reason I warn people I meet in the Sims community to try all available remedies for their Sims ailment before coming here. And to humbly list said attempts before asking for help. Imbeciles are the favorite chum for the denizens whom lurk within MATY.

I skipped over the majority of the posts -for which I will stand still and take my lumps. I was not going to post, however seeing, well, what I would call verbal diarrhea if said to me in person, in your post I changed my mind.

Last time I checked part of teaching was checking to make sure your students are learning. That is done with homework and tests. Which, must be graded to ascertain if a student is learning. Therefore, grading papers is a part of their job. Whether stated in small words for individuals of dubious intelligence such as yourself or as an implied responsibility of their position.

If teachers in your district are not allowed to make copies take it up with the PTA, school board, superintendent, etc. It has no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Teachers in this day and age (in the USA) receive very little respect, no understanding, and far too much abuse because society and the government permit it/refuse to support them. Again, this has no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Further, today's children are 'horrible' because their parents are to self-absorbed and incompetent to raise a child. Society makes excuses for those children, e.g. they come from underprivileged homes, etc. And finally because people like you wash their hands of them. It's so much easier than tackling a problem that you haven't created but could remedy.

You think teachers get the short end of the stick, try being a school bus driver for three years for everything from elementary kids from the local ghetto to spoiled high school brats. Try working in a teacher's assistant capacity in the most underprivileged elementary school in the city. Finally, try doing behavioral management with a therapy firm for an entire year with elementary students born premature, treated like animals, and sexually abused to high school kids who's only goal in life is to join a gang and die in a drive by.

Nobody goes into any of those for kudos, pats on the back, or warm fuzzies. After doing the required time as a student teacher any individual going into the field who doesn't grasp the thankless nature of the position is blind, ignorant, stupid, what have you. And they get what they deserve.

I personally go back every year to drive a bus because if, after all the abuse and nonsense, I've reached one child, gotten one child to think, made a difference, an impact then I have succeeded. And that's ALL the thanks I need, my warm fuzzies, etc.

Oh, and for the record -you can't teach anyone who doesn't want to learn. What you can do is try to motivate them to want to learn through various means. Somehow, I do not think you would be good at that, given the attitude you've displayed. And I am thankful you are not a teacher. Children need a firm hand. Limits and rules. They also need hope -something you are sadly lacking.

Now, as for egregious spelling and grammatical errors. I will run this through Word, it will tell me it has everything fixed, and I'll believe it because I don't see them. But you don't hear me whining about it. I attempt to remedy the problem. Have I failed, will I fail? Yes, and most likely. But I bloody well tried and here at MATY effort is noted and appreciated. Not whining, bitching, and making pathetic excuses.

Look again.


* Going back to lurk mode*

[Roflganger]

Really?  Delurking to revive an argument that's been dead for over a week?  After you saw that she'd been canned, that seems like a good time to delete everything pertaining to it since you could clearly see it was no longer relevant. 

By the way, it really helps if you only quote the relevant parts of the post rather than the entire thing.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Actually it probably has more to do with the fact that your kid's classes probably have 38+ students in each class. When you teach at least 200 students a day you cannot correct everything on each assignment. Next year in our district the classes are going up to 42. We save that kind of grading for the big important writing assignments and give everything else a few "pity points" for effort.

Actually, no.  Thank you for assuming that my son attends a city public school where, yes, there's hardly any funding and teachers to go around in over-populated classrooms, but he doesn't.  He attends a township school that's small in a classroom where there's only 17 kids.  This is a classroom where the teacher even has two goddamn assistants to help her.

In my day, if you received quite a few Fs on your report card, you were held back, but that's no longer true.  It has more to do with schools trying to push kids ahead even though they're barely grasping what they're learning because of the No Child Left Behind Act.  For something that's supposed to help children succeed and reward corporations that are doing an excellent job of teaching, it's really just causing school boards and superintendents to get their panties in a collective twist over trying to make their kids look like they are exceptional geniuses, and that the teachers aren't just there to collect their paychecks and make tenure (hell, that happened in my day; teachers who didn't care anymore after they made tenure).

[timelycorruption]

We

So this is the opposite of the royal we, then?
Like... the peasant we?

[cassblonde]

In my day, if you received quite a few Fs on your report card, you were held back, but that's no longer true.  It has more to do with schools trying to push kids ahead even though they're barely grasping what they're learning because of the No Child Left Behind Act. 

I have to comment here as I think No Child Left Behind is American and I am in Canada. My son got all Rs(It's the new F ) on his first grade one report card. I met with my school's principal and my son's teacher about holding him back to let him have another stab at grade one since he just wasn't absorbing the information. I was told then that the main reason they push kids ahead(in Canada anyway) is due to social reasons rather than academic ones. I thought that was pretty lame but I would have had to fight my regional board of education to get them to hold him back so I let them put him up with his classmates.

In my school system if your child is identified as learning delayed they will set up an individual education plan so although he is in with his same age classmates he's being taught at his level and being given tools to learn how to learn and work with the faulting wiring in his head rather than trying to learn in a way he is failing at. Not the best solution but it works and he seems happy to go to school even though he is not quite as far along in some areas as his classmates.

[rohina]

This system works well for the kids who are average or "delayed", but sucks donkey balls for the bright ones.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

It sucks for all involved, truly.  The only program they had for "gifted" kids when I was a wee lass was something called PACE, and I was a part of it for only a short amount of time before I was kicked out due to my non-religious family (something about "being involved in the community" was included in the requirements for being a member).  The same thing happened to me with National Junior Honor Society and National Honor Society (couldn't even begin to join those because I wasn't "involved in the community").  Advanced classes at my high school were also a joke, and since we were a very small school of about 200, if a class in which you wanted to enroll had less than 2 kids in it, that class was canned.

I know all about IEPs.  We have them in America, too.  All three of my kids have one (my oldest has ADHD and a speech impediment, my middle child has a chromosome disorder which makes him moderately retarded, and my youngest also has ADHD and a speech impediment), and something I've noticed in this school corporation is that they don't even bother to follow the ones they write up and have you sign.  Example:  my oldest son's IEP states that because of his disorders, he must have an assistant help him with his regular classwork (and no one helps him at this school, but he received help at previous schools with the same IEP), and as requested by his doctor, he needs to complete his homework at school because his medication wears off around 4pm, and he starts to get too irritable and tired to concentrate (another thing they don't do).  I help him with what I can (I can't help him with this newfangled math; it was never my favorite subject in any case), but I can't control what those dimwits do with him at school.  Hell, he has asthma that's aggravated by the outdoors, so he's not supposed to go outside for recess, but they ignore the doctor's orders and still send him out anyway.

Eh, I know they push kids along because of social reasons (just like they don't tend to skip smarter kids ahead several grades anymore because they aren't "emotionally" ready), but the desire to look successful and receive funding also pushes kids along who shouldn't be (as was told to me by a friend of mine in the Minneapolis urban school corporation).

[Stitches]

The only program they had for "gifted" kids when I was a wee lass was something called PACE, and I was a part of it for only a short amount of time before I was kicked out due to my non-religious family (something about "being involved in the community" was included in the requirements for being a member).  The same thing happened to me with National Junior Honor Society and National Honor Society (couldn't even begin to join those because I wasn't "involved in the community").

I am confused as to why not being religious kept you from being involved in the community? While it is true that many societies are religious in nature, they do not require you to be religious to help.

[Jelenedra]

Sounds like some crazy Bible School "Special Program." Or Zaphod lived in some crazy Mormon commune.

Only GT class I've ever heard of endorsing community involvement was AP classes, and that was because they want you to get tons of scholarships. It wasn't enforced either, but they would help you if you were trying for something Camp Fire or Scouts related. Sister got her Wohelo thanks to her AP coach.

[Stitches]

It's true that a lot of schools force it on the brighter kids because they know that community participation is becoming a big issue with upper tier universities. As it should be. It's possible that if we had more high school students working in situations that force them to consider a larger world than their high school microcosm, they might not be entering universities as such entitled brats.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Actually, I grew up in a small farming community in southeastern Indiana where if you weren't Christian, you were some sort of freak, and since my father was a "loud and proud atheist," our family was not liked by many.  Also, "being involved with the community" is all fine and dandy when it means actually doing community work, but what our school board meant by "being involved" was "going to church".  Yes, I was discriminated against, and I suppose my family could have fought to get me included, but I had no backbone in those days (hence, I didn't want to be even more ostracized by my peers), so I chose to remain silent on the matter.  Probably wouldn't have won against the school anyway considering that I went to school in the '80s, and atheism was still relatively a new concept in small town America.

Eh, even if the requirements were actually about community service instead of religious intolerance, I still wouldn't have been able to participate.  I lived 5 miles outside of town with no way to get to town (as in "not allowed") to even do any sort of community service.  In the end, someone always loses out no matter what.

In closing, Indiana (most parts of it) = armpit of Hell.  

[teebs]

It's more probable that if parents would take their entitled brats in hand before they became so, they wouldn't arrive at university as such. The idea that one is going to change the entitled mindset is ludicrous. The entitled brat who attends university will in nearly every case remain an entitled brat, "community participation" or no. In fact, it has been my experience that many of the most active community participants in the the many places I've lived are the most self-important, self-absorbed, entitled fucksticks I've ever had the displeasure to meet.

A requirement by an university to "participate in the community" is nothing more than forced indoctrination. A large part of the problem with the distinct downturn in the quality of American education is that more time is spent with socialization than academic and vocational knowledge, from grade school through university. It is the right of the individual to choose their level of community involvement, even if that means as little participation as possible. Then, this comes from a pirate and misanthrope of the "take what you can, give nothing back" variety.

It is the responsibility of the parent to teach their children to play well with others, and the academic institution to impart knowledge.

[lemmiwinks]

teebs, I would have to say that was nothing short of an outstanding first post. It seems the educational system is  working somewhere.
Welcome to MATY.

[teebs]

Thank you very much, lemmiwinks. My blue collar, high school drop out parents' efforts paid off. Five children; five college graduates. My public school experience had little to do with it.

I appreciate the welcome. I read through this thread with more than a little amusement. I am a convicted Grammar Nazi, and this site always provides good, satisfying entertainment. I've been lurking here for years, not finding a need to post. I either find answers to my queries through a little searching, or (my preference) I find my own solution.

The baiting and ridicule tossed about among the cohort of more articulate members reminds me of my family's rather voluble barbecues. I love it.