A passing thought on NYC school registration
posted by The Vidiot @ 1:21 PM Permalink So, there we were with Teen Vidiot, trying to enroll him in a school, knowing we were going to have to battle it out with some pretty aggressive soccer moms if we were going to get him placed in a school that didn't suck.We line up early at the Brooklyn registration headquarters, Brooklyn Tech High School, and we stand outside for 30 minutes before they let us in. Then, they finally let us in and multiple, inept people lead us to a huge auditorium, and as we file into the auditorium, they handed us little pieces of paper with numbers on them and told us to sit in order in the rows. We were #16. We were instructed to sit in the seats and watch the movie until our number was called. Keep in mind that this process is supposed to be relatively simple: wait until your number is called. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. The guy who was calling out the numbers started out OK. He called 1 through 5 and 1 through 5 stood up and walked out. Then, he came right back and said "5 through 25" and all hell broke loose. It was hysterical. It was like half the room and they practically bum rushed the door. Then HE got hysterical, and very panicky, said, "Line up in order please." And of course, nobody knew how to do that. (Mr. Vidiot ended up having to organize it.)
Anyway, such is the methodology of the NYC Department of Education. It's a bureaucracy on steroids. Which means that anybody functioning within it has turned off their brains a long, long time ago.
My reason for even mentioning this story is that the movie they chose to play was "Star Trek The Next Generation: First Contact" That was the movie where the Borg were trying to take over and the entire opening of the movie, you heard the Borg chanting "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
Once the irony of it hit me, I couldn't stop laughing. Once I pointed it out to Mr. Vidiot, he couldn't stop smiling.
Teen Vidiot just thought we were a couple of dorks.
Nobody else got it.
Oh, P.S. We got him into a great school. He'll be going on field trips to the Planetarium! Damned lucky kid if you ask me.
Labels: irony, nyc schools
4 Comments:
>"going to get him placed in a school that didn't suck"
More of a question than a comment. You had a choice of public schools?
yeah, actually. We weren't zoned for a particular middle school so that meant we could choose, theoretically, from any middle school in the 5 boroughs. It's like that for high school too. Most of the schools were already filled. the best one wouldn't even take our calls. this was the second best one, which, as i now look at it, is really the best one any way. the other one is like for affluent white kids who started Mandarin lessons at age three and who have a nanny. this one is a bit more mixed and interesting.
Teen Vidiot seems to like it.
One of the best educations I've ever received was from Union Jr. High School in Shreveport La.
Back in 1970 for my second semester of first-year Jr. High when the state formally started integration, 'cause I lived just a tad too close to the railroad tracks, I was removed by order of the BOE from my nice "white" Jr. High and commanded (along with about 100 other poor white lab rats) to attend Union, which was a "Project"-adjacent, "formerly" negro Jr. High School.
Oh boy, did I get an education. I also learned that the bigotted heart of racism is much more economic than it is racial.
I also found out very quickly why most black kids did (more) poorly with intellectual test criteria than their "white" counterparts.
It was then that I rejected my metaphorical Klan membership card.
DanD
Rancho High, Las Vegas, Nevada was for me. My sister and I were forced to attend summer school right after enrollment. When our transcripts came in from the military school in Bitburg, Germany, it turned out that we had so many unaccounted for credits that I only had four morning classes in my junior year and three "do nothing" morning classes my senior year. Cool!
Stylin' it all the way in my '55 Buick Special with 32" Mitchell glass packs that had been in it for years and years. Vibrate windows half-a-mile away I could, and caused every other guy revving their engines in the school parking lot to quickly turn off their motors and slink away. Fastest tank i ever owned and quite typical of mid-50s Buicks. Six mpg in city, 14 hwy cruisin' at 110 mph. Course gas was less than 25¢/gallon. (Every Nevadan could recite the basic speed law from memory: You shall drive at a speed that is safe and prudent for the road and weather conditions prevailing. Sunny skies, long, straight roads, no speed limits, if ya couldn't cruise at 110, minimally, you had no business being on the highway. Ah, memories!)
Youth is wasted on the young!
Post a Comment
<< Home