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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Edumacation

You know what's weird? AP Calculus.


I mean, fer reals! Last night my daughter was memorizing 92 formulas. Plus the trigonometric functions. And then she had to find the antiderivatives instead of the derivatives, plus the stupid U substitutions. (Her word, not mine.)


Am I on another planet? Or is edumacation these days just irrelevant to reality!? I personally have never used a single pre-algebraic equation in my real life.


You know what else is weird? People who sell their soul to the devil. According to my 14-year-old, everyone is doing it. At leaset everyone who is anyone. Somehow my son has gotten the inside scoop on the secret underground society that rules the world, and his worldview has been altered.


If we're chillin' around the t.v., watching the Grammy's or an NBA basketball game or CNN, he informs us, matter-of-factly, which musicians, athletes and politicians have sold their souls to the devil.


(Do you have any idea how much harder it is to enjoy music and sports and politics when you're wondering who has slipped over to the dark side?)


How does he know all this, you ask? He saw it on Youtube.


Youtube is an edumacation unto itself.


See this is why I worry so much about Seminary. Some kids hear information and filter it. Other kids believe it. And follow it. Word for word. And it messes with their heads.


My daughter came home yesterday with a seminary story that I can't even repeat, lest I cause an uproar the size of Vermont in the blogasphere. But she can filter. She can strip things down to their bare essentials and discard the mythology and the culturally imposed crapola.


My son, however . . .


The other day he announced to me that Shakespeare helped write the Bible.


Ahem!


"He really did!" He said more than once. "My seminary teacher told me so."


According to both his English and Seminary teachers, Shakespeare re-wrote Psalms 46, and, like all good Gangsta rappers, hid his name in secret code. The evidence is overwhelming, peeps--Shakespeare was 46 when he re-wrote psalms 46. The 46th word from the top is shake and the 46th word from the bottom is spear.


But who's counting?


No, seriously, who's counting. Because that's just weird. Who has that kind of time on their hands?


Any anyway, spear is the 47th word from the bottom.


I counted.


(I'm weird like that.)




14 comments:

Valerie said...

And I thought 4th grade math was hard!
Mythology & cultural crapola made me laugh! When I was a teen, I had a SS teacher that was really good at this sort of thing...And once in a while my kids will come home with something they've learned...and I just think REALLY???

Lisa said...

The only time I have ever used the math crap is helping my kids with their math crap. The computer and or calculator does everything for me now. He needs a math class?

Stephen said...

I wish I would have been able to filter the mythology at that young age. I believed everything I was told, which is probably why I was so shocked when I finally learned to filter and reason.

Stephen said...

There are a lot of historians that are not even sure Shakespeare wrote much of the works he gets credit for, let alone the Bible.

Vern said...

You lost me in the 2nd paragraph. We haven't hit Trig yet.

TisforTonya said...

ack - I had to start skimming when you used math terminology... luckily I tuned back in around "devil" and got all the good Shakespeare stuff. You're so funny I bet you've sold your soul in exchange for humor :)

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

I'm so glad I don't have kids in school anymore. I'd get an F.

Sorry about your kids being sold to the devil and all. I hope you got paid well.

Annette Lyon said...

You counted.

One more reason I lub you.

Anonymous said...

First off there is no ctrl+z on an iPad and the undo button is driving me crazy....

But I totally got the first few lines... Tell T U substitutions make everything easier... And if she figures out how to derive the trig functions then she doesn't need to memorize... And then tell her that I can't wait til she gets to multivariable calculus, it's waaaaay more fun! And way less memorization! In the name of....... Psyche.... Haha...

Your sons right! The whole world is going to pot and everyone is pure evil....... Hahahhahahah! The devil himself is now our governor... So know we know how to recognize evil!

After reading lulu's tribute yesterday, I dreamt about her... She was running on the beach and saved a monk seal.....

How's your gigi doing?

We lost another Laie person today, I was just thinking that we haven't had a death in a while... I won't ever think that again

The Songer said...

Oops wrong account...... The ipad isn't good for commenting....

Heidi said...

I agree, what they are teaching kids in school seems so advanced. Yet, we are still behind most countries in the world when it comes to what our kids know. Whazzup wi' that?

Jillybean said...

I totally would have counted too.

Unknown said...

I'd heard that about Shakespeare and King James, too. Only the version of the story that I heard was that Shakespeare's birthday was concealed somewhere in one of the scriptures. Here's a questions for the universe: Who? Cares?

And any one who commits a sin effectively "sells" their soul to the devil. Fortunately, when they repent, Christ buys it back for them.

I read that, somewhere in the Bible. Right next to Shakespeare's BMI and favorite reality show host.

Momza said...

Can I just say here, that I LOVE what DeNae wrote......"and anyone who commits sin effectively "sells" their soul to the devil. Fortunately, when they repent, Christ buys it back for them."
that. was. AWESOME.
I could careless about Shakespeare...he or someone close to him, like his therapist, wrote some good stuff back in the day, but that was before men went to the moon and back and indoor plumbing. Things like that keep Shakespeare in perspective for me.
I love indoor plumbing WAY MORE than I love Shakespeare.