Technology and the Truant
# 1 Son, who never gets sick mind you, was home today with one NASTY stomach virus. I will save you gentle readers the gory details, but you parents out there know exactly what I am talking about. As he missed a day of classes, I certainly expected some type of communication from the school administration.
When I was a student and was absent from class, some poor old secretary had to make live phone calls to notify a parent that little Johnny was not in school that day. I'll have to add that to the list of jobs I would hate.
Now in MODERN times, as my kids love to say, the school administration has a computer call each house to announce Little john's truancy. I can only imagine that some old woman now just types a list of student ID numbers into some program and off the auto-dialer goes.
You would think that this modern system is much more efficient than good old Ms. Finklepickle using her arthritic hands to dial all those numbers and talk to all those parents, wouldn't you? Aha! That kind of thinking is flawed.
The purpose of these notifications is to make the parent aware that Little Johnny wasn't at school today and was probably out snatching purses, breaking into houses and getting all cracked up. We got our call from the school computer (with the eerie "humanistic" voice) at about 8pm this evening.
Efficient and successful, yes? Well I ask you. Just WHO do you think answers the telephone in the evenings in every house in America that contains a teenager?
And you don't even actually have to own a teenager to answer that one.
I think old blue-haired Ms. Finklepickle deserves her job back.
When I was a student and was absent from class, some poor old secretary had to make live phone calls to notify a parent that little Johnny was not in school that day. I'll have to add that to the list of jobs I would hate.
Now in MODERN times, as my kids love to say, the school administration has a computer call each house to announce Little john's truancy. I can only imagine that some old woman now just types a list of student ID numbers into some program and off the auto-dialer goes.
You would think that this modern system is much more efficient than good old Ms. Finklepickle using her arthritic hands to dial all those numbers and talk to all those parents, wouldn't you? Aha! That kind of thinking is flawed.
The purpose of these notifications is to make the parent aware that Little Johnny wasn't at school today and was probably out snatching purses, breaking into houses and getting all cracked up. We got our call from the school computer (with the eerie "humanistic" voice) at about 8pm this evening.
Efficient and successful, yes? Well I ask you. Just WHO do you think answers the telephone in the evenings in every house in America that contains a teenager?
And you don't even actually have to own a teenager to answer that one.
I think old blue-haired Ms. Finklepickle deserves her job back.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home