What Did Your Second Grade Teacher Do to You?

THINGS YOUR 2ND GRADE TEACHER WAS WRONG ABOUT

I swear this is what my 7th grade math teacher looked like.

For years now, I've heard people espouse the teachings of their 2nd grade pedants as if they were indisputable facts. They use these poor women like Republicans use Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ, picking out things they heard years ago to make a point that puts all arguments to rest.

For example: "When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher taught us about life cycles and global warming and cooling cycles; therefore, humans don't cause global warming/climate change."

Yes, the planet has gone through periods of climactic change and even polar change(!), but the rate at which the planet is heating  coincides with the rise of the industrial age, the population of human beings, and the decline of other species and forests.

Another example: "My 2nd grade teacher pointed at her incisors and told us that our canine teeth are for ripping and tearing flesh."

Yes, we can rip a lot with those teeth of ours, but most predators have a whole face of conical teeth, and we only have these little guys. They're mostly for defense like gorilla's teeth. A gorilla can do a lot of damage with their teeth, and so can we, but try biting into a live cow and see how far you get.

He's pretty much vegan.

Here's one I like: "My 2nd grade teacher taught us we were all unique, special, and that our opinions matter."

Yes, we're unique. But you can look around and tell we're not special, there are billions of us. And we're getting to the point where we aren't that unique. There's probably someone out there with your identical DNA, and in an infinite universe, there's definitely someone who has experienced your identical life and is reading this right now. It's a mathematical certainty. Your opinion matters on election day, and that's about it. If your opinion isn't based on fact, experience, and logic, it's invalid.

2nd-grade teachers are not the ones to blame here; they're doing the best they can. My teacher taught me that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur, that Pluto was a real planet, and Jesus was a real guy watching my every move. She taught me Christopher Columbus was a real hero, that cow's milk was really good for me, and that my artistic talent was really a burden. She didn't know what to do with me; she probably just hoped she wouldn't screw me up too much and I'd figure it out as I got older—that I might evolve.

When you quote something from your 2nd grade teacher, you're saying "I'm tired of evolving. I stopped evolving a long time ago."

I've known people who said they hate other races because it was the way they were raised. You might as well be saying "I will neither learn new things nor grow as a human being."

I say EVOLVE! Take the time to learn about someone and end up loving them. 

And if you want to say something about your 2nd grade teacher, say "she was a nice lady who tried her best with a young mind."

In the Ghetto

Here's where I ruin that Elvis Presley song everyone likes.

Mac Davis wrote it back in 1969, and Elvis made it huge, and a ton of people have covered it. I did a punk rock cover of it with my band back in the day. Everyone has heard this song.

And we're still talking about generational poverty in a barbaric way at the highest levels of politics and governance.

People don't you understand, this child needs a helping hand?

When I hear songs like this I wonder what conservatives think if they think anything at all about words.

In a world where words are mattering less and less, maybe songs are mattering less, too. Perhaps they've always dismissed songs like this like they dismiss giant portions of their supposedly favorite book.

The message of this song is that nothing will change unless we do something. I don't want to get too preachy here, but if they weren't going to listen to the republican Elvis Presley, trying to talk sense or write parable-esque songs now isn't going to work.

Ugh, but I don't feel like giving up just yet. I was in Vegas on October 1. The worse shooting in history, and we've done nothing. It isn't apathy. . . people care, but what's with the inaction? Lethargy? Phlegmatism?

Take a look at you and me, are we too blind to see?

And the saddest thing about this song is that the cycle continues.

---

I do want to ask: what are the characters' races in your mind's eye when you hear this song?

---

What is it with conservatives standing behind books no one ever reads in their entirety?

No one has EVER read Atlas Shrugged from cover to cover. NO ONE! I read the Bible cover because someone forced me to, but not even priests or pastors do that. There is a mysterious power in quoting books and saying you stand by books no one else has read.

It isn't just conservatives. I read Ulysses only because I didn't want people wielding its power against me. I never took a class in which is was assigned and I've read it TWICE! Once as a young writer living abroad and again in college. Snobby pseudo-intellectuals like to use it as a kind of litmus test to see if you're in their club.

But I'm not reading Atlas Shrugged. I got maybe 100 pages in and put it down. I read The Fountainhead when I thought I wanted to be an architect, and that was enough Ayn Rand. I liked that one. Ayn Rand is all about replacing god with the dollar. It's incredible to me that no one holds Christian conservatives to task on this.

If there's someone out there quoting books in your life, either dismiss them altogether or read their book and crush them. You'll more than likely lose a friend/family member in the process, but who cares? We're all headed the same direction.