Back to School Shock

BACK TO SCHOOL SHOCK

We’ve all been traumatized in one way or another by the back to school season—or more appropriately, the back to school shock. For us educators and our students, the unstructured days of summer are gone for two semesters or approximately 180 days. Now it’s up early, out the door only to multi-task our way through today’s episode of “beat the clock.”

But we are not the only ones experiencing shock. George W. Bush has also shown some quasi back-to-school trauma. Because as all of his fellow cheerleaders continue to jump off his Titantic better known as Iraq, George continues to steer his ship down the abyss of no return. Stunned by the fact that they don’t sell Sparknotes for his…ah…David Petraeus’s anticipated report on Iraq due to Congress by September 15th, George still believes that photo-ops, empty words, and recycled spin can save him from his pending failing grades. Sorry—but dispatching Scary Mary Matalin to Meet the Press on Sunday to begin spinning his failures doesn’t help. Poor Mary—she does fit the bill for the dreaded “helicopter” Mom, hovering over her pathetic child, making any failure of his seem not that bad.

But the sad fact of the matter is that George never prepared for his Iraq project; “project-based” assignments are all the rage in public education nowadays. He never did study enough; he and his tutor—Mr. Cheney—never did make the right preparations before, during, and after their invasion; and instead of just ponying-up to the fact that he was in desperate need of remedial help in the Geopolitics of the Middle East, arrogant George simply took the attitude that many apathetic students take when they “imagine” they have finished their work. Like the student who says, "at least it's over," George simply said: "mission accomplished. "