Monday, January 08, 2007

I Have Friends

Recently things have become confusing. The Great State of Maryland, in its infinite wisdom (and I remember the days when infinite wisdom meant something, like never ending wisdom) decided to regulate Massage Therapists. Because the field is so complicated and requires a professional school, it was decided that they should be put under the Chiropractors, who would certainly know exactly how to regulate Massage Therapists.

Naturally, a college education was required. And so on and so forth. And, being a typical Legislative body, the entire Regulatory package passed intact and became law. And everyone was happy except the Massage Therapists. They didn't think a college education was necessary. And, they are upset. It seems that Maryland is the only state that requires them to have a college degree. It was described to me as "unconstitutional, illegal...." and somewhere in there I stopped listening. I already knew the answer to the real problem. All I had to do was to wait for my turn to talk, after they had vented sufficiently. They weren't going to like the answer either.

They needed to organize and go to the Legislature, and represent themself, and get the law changed. Plain and simple. I was thinking about some of the other things I had recently been told. Like the fact that kids no longer learned to write in cursive, except to sign their name. They learned to print and that was it. No wonder they thought it was unconstitutional that a state would regulate commerce within its borders, they had never read the Constitution. I read it the first time in the 7th grade in my Civics Class. The whole thing.

I was also 'clued in' that a college education is now what a high school education was because of something called 'grade inflation'. The normal curve is gone and 80% of the class gets an 'A', while the next 10% gets a 'B', and everyone else gets a 'C'. Evidently no one fails. And the old pink is the new grey. 'They' ought to rethink letting me blog.

I never really understood why people would want to home school their kids. Now, I know. My friends have two autistic kids. The school systems want their kids because they do so well on the standardized tests. They do well, because they get a lot of work at home. The parents are more than just proactive, they got educated on their kids illness and are probably better teachers than the ones that they run into in the school systems.

She's still laughing at me because I thought that getting a college education meant you learned to think. Ha. Fooled me.

10 comments:

Claudia said...

"college education meant you learned to think." Many classes I took actually encouraged a student to memorize the crap in order to pass. Somehow, whoever came up with that concept figured that if a student "knows" facts and figures and how to regurgitate info, then the student is then educated. However, I also had some classes and teachers that encouraged a student to think and come up with his/her own interpretation and understanding.
While the esteemed (cough, cough, choke) MD legislative has the authority to regulate commerce, I don't think that they necessarily use common sense.

mist1 said...

I think you have a typo. Wheat you probably meant was that getting a college education means that you learned how to drink.

Wicked H said...

Drink! Not think!

Whew, I was about to contact U of MD and ask for a full refund.

Where is my martini?

The CEO said...

Claudia, there is nothing common about common sense.

Mist- you know I can't type.

Wicked- I see you and Mist left comments almost precisely at the same time. You're the slower typist.

Pickled Olives said...

I considered home schooling at one point - then remembered I liked my kids and didn't want to end up on the cover of People Magazine for slaying them.

Seriously, You raise a great point. And although Marylands legislature maybe skewed, it's still a good public school system, on the curve.

Crankster said...

I'm afraid that, these days, some kids leave college knowing less than they did on arrival. Damned political correctness...grumble, grumble...

Itsnopicknick said...

it probably just indicates intention or inclination to work for it. i also only learned to drink in uni! all the same, I think homeschooling is not the socially responsible thing to do for your kids.

Cindy said...

In Wisconsin, massage therapists need a license and have to take a $10,000 class to get said certification. My co-worker's stepdaughter took the course but hasn't passed her certification test yet. Believe me, I've heard about it.

M@ said...

G*ddamnit, Mist1 stole my comment word for f-ing word. I guess it was the obvious punchline there. LOL.

I love it when people start talking about their constitutional rights like that. In the public mind, we have all sorts of constitutional rights: parking, clean air, etc.

Glamourpuss said...

Shoot me down in flames if I'm out of order here, but my personal experience of the US education system is that it does not encourage independent thought, more the learning of an accepted point of view, and the repeating of it to attain a pass grade. Coming from a system where I was expected to debate the accepted point of view and formulate my own argument, I found this very difficult. I also got crap grades. When I found out why, I was shocked. But keep telling myself 'Different is just different, not better or worse.'

Puss