School starts tomorrow, ha, ha!

For Sunday, August 17, 2008


Well, well, well, boys and girls. You went and did it, didn’t you? You went and used up the whole summer vacation. You couldn’t save just a little bit to use now. No. You had to burn right through it, every day. Now it’s payback time. You have to go back to school, back to the classrooms, back to the homework and the tests and quizzes, and all that hard thinking.
Classes start in less than 24 hours. Think about that. Today is the last day of summer vacation. What do we do? Where can we hide? Do you have the jitters? Are you anxious, excited, frightened, dreadful, sad to see summer end? Are you restless? Is that why you’re reading the newspaper?
Take heart. You know deep down that going to school is a good thing, Knowing this gives us the courage to face the first day, instead of diving under our beds.
We know that filling our heads with language and life skills will make us better, happier, healthier people. Knowledge is a no-brainer. It is what drives people to continue to go to school all their lives, even old people. Learning is earning.
Wouldn’t it be great to just lounge about your house, travel at random, sleep in, sleep out, goof on your eyebrows? Well, boys and girls, we have words for that. We call it “early retirement.”
You know how you earn early retirement? You get smart. Getting rich is good, but you still need smarts. You need to evaluate always, at every stage of life. Weigh and adjust. Analyze the world. Synthesize your place in it. Search for society’s greatest needs, and fill them. That what’s makes millionaires and good friends. That’s what makes the world go around.
You think you have it hard. Consider poor, old Mr. Gibbs. You are on your first dozen first days of school. Ha. You’re babies, beginners, amateurs. I just did the math in my head. This will be my 43rd first day of school since I passed kindergarten. I still get the heebie-jeebies.
Here’s what I can tell you from experience. The heebies wear off about 8:15 a.m. and the jeebies are gone by the end of lunch. Once you see all your friends, meet your teachers, hear what’s cooking in the classroom, you’ll fall right back into the pattern. Come Tuesday you’ll be relaxed. By Wednesday you’ll be making year-long plans. Thursday you’ll be smarter than you are today. Friday you’ll realize it still feels good knowing that the next day is Saturday.
Let’s be serious for a moment, my young co-learners. Look around you. You’re living in a world where competition for the good life comes from around the globe. We’ve woven our planet together in glass fiber and binary strings. Any work that can be sent across the Internet can be done by anyone on the Internet.
Imagine applying for an opening at the local hospital as an x-ray technician and finding that 387,000 other people have applied for the same job from 43 countries, offering to do it remotely, for less.
“Bit torrent the x-rays to me at my igloo on the outskirts of Dead Horse, Alaska, Dr. Jenson, and I’ll email you my findings in ten minutes. And I’ll do it for less, because my igloo is built with green technology, and I eat a lot of frozen food. I’m well insulated.”
Mrs. Gibbs has a favorite Youtube video she intends to show her classes. It’s called Shift Happens. Did you know that schools in China have more honor students than we have students. China will soon be the number one English speaking country in the world. Last year, more Chinese students took the English AP Exam than American students.
According to the Dept of Labor, today’s learner may change jobs up to 14 times by age 38. According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. This means you must prepare yourselves now for 14 jobs that don’t exist. Be adamant about flexibility.
Last year a retired teacher from India became the first millionaire to earn her fortune selling virtual real-estate in Second Life. Up ahead, third-generation fiber optics will carry 10 trillion bits per second down one strand. That's like downloading 1,900 CDs a second.
What I’m saying is that school is fun, serious business. Learn to balance. Hang with friends. Weave yourself into the social fabric. Do your homework. Learn your lessons. Don’t think about grades. That’s like thinking about tomatoes without watering them. Grades are your shadow. You lead, they follow. Do not study for tests. Do not study for quizzes. Study forever. Actively put all the information you can fit into your long-term memory. You’re not learning vocabulary words for the sake of some silly English test you took back in high school 25 years ago with Mr. Gibbs. You’re learning so you can give an eloquent speech when you run for president.