THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501250189
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
When I saw the bumper sticker, I thought, ``How stupid!'' Here we are telling our kids they have to be smart to achieve any measure of success in this complicated world, and this jerk is touting brawn over brain.
Wait a minute, I thought; aren't you over-reacting a bit? I mean, if this is the way the idiot - oops, I mean driver - feels, why can't he say so? He's as free to make his point as anyone, even if he does make a fool of himself in the process.
If an asinine bumper sticker lets him thumb his nose at the ``intellectual elitists'' who think it's smart to spend all that time and money on education, let him have it.
Even after the chill-out lecture to myself, I still drove along, fuming at his notion.
I'd not forgotten the episode, but time at least extinguished some of the flames of temper. Then a co-worker was talking the other day about spotting a bumper sticker that had made her see red.
You know how people have those bumper stickers that say, `I'm the proud parent of an honor roll student at Such and Such School'? Well, she'd seen one the other day, ``My kid just . . . ''
And together we recited the rest of the message: ``. . . beat up on your honor roll student.'' She couldn't believe someone would actually display such a message.
Maybe it is more than some people can take when parents announce for all the world to see that their kids are achievers. Maybe it is a way for parents who never saw their kids achieve academically to say:
Look, I don't care what your kid does. I'm sick of hearing about the science-fair award, the advanced poetry and how every teacher thinks your kid is Mr./Ms. Perfect.
No matter. It's the wrong message to be given kids nowadays, when being ``beat up on'' can mean a heck of a lot more than a bloody nose. With all the action-packed violence children see on television and in movies and videos - with no emphasis on consequences - it makes little sense to be disparaging good grades.
The mistaken message is that making the honor roll is somehow hoity-toity and weak. Rather, it indicates discipline, commitment and determination to do one's best.
If those are signs of weakness, let's implore the schools to turn out more weaklings. I'll wager that students who get the message that sacrifice to learn brings lifetime rewards will fare far better than their critics.
These achievers aren't driven by the idea that Mom and Dad will display an effusive bumper sticker.
It's recognition that those who don't do their best now will have a real fight on their hands if they enter the world unprepared. The unprepared will be the ones ``beat up on,'' and that's hardly the stuff of bumper stickers.
I'll take one of those ``I'm the proud parent . . . '' any time. MEMO: Comment? Call 446-2494
by CNB