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There's a man who more often then not takes the train at the same time as I do. He's the kind of man your mother would tell you not to stare at when you were litte.

"Stop that. It's not polite to stare."

The man is short, between 4' 5" and five feet. On his face are lots of different sized bumps.

The problem is that everytime I see him, I look away as if to say "I'm not staring at you. Seriously, look at me, my gaze didn't even hesitate, nevermind linger. Hell, I don't even know you're there. In that seat. Right across from me."

To me, this seems almost worse than staring. In my attempt to make him feel ok, like he's just like everyone else, I alienate him. It would be easy to interpret my actions in the wrong way; it would be very easy to think that I thought he was so "ugly" and such a "freak" that I couldn't even look at him for a second.

What's the point of all this? Life is always more complicated than it seems. You may think you've found the answer, but if you look a little closer, you kight find that things aren't quite what they seemed, and your answer isn't as good as you thought it was. Man. I hate when that happens.

Selling newspapers in a Jimmy Eat World
I've always enjoyed Dave Barry. His dry, sarcastic, educated humor is funny, to me at least (even when he doesn't explain who Stalin is in his column).

I found this piece entertaining as well as disturbing. Dealing with my sister each day, who happens to be in eleventh grade and not eigth has taught me that even if he is making this stuff up, its not far from the truth. In Massachusetts, students now have to pass a standardized test representing the body of knowledge they should have learned and mastered throughout their education before they are awarded their high school diploma. In my town they celebrate going from 35 percent failure to 33 percent failure. And that's good, compared to the rest of the state.

What can you do? I think the answer lies in technology. Today's kids have brains that operate much differently than their parents' because of MTV, the internet, video games, and the general explosion of technology throughout the world. Education should take advnatage of that, creating multimedia based curricula that allow students to progress at their own pace, to learn about concrete exmples and applications, and to follow educational paths that interest them.

I'm not saying we should do away with the basics such as English, Math, and Reading. I'm saying these should be taught in the framework of an education that is built for each individual student, which is now possible through appropriate use of technology. Teachers then become more like reference librarians, guiding students to information sources that interest them and encouraging them as they pursue their own educational goals. Maybe that would help get their attention, helping them to enthusiastically explore and experience the huge body of human knowledge in new and exciting ways.