(Written 6 May 1998. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 28 July 2006.)
We are taught when we are children
that in the United States, any person can make it. Rags to riches stories are the norm, not the exception. We are taught about the Andrew Carnegies,
the Lee Iacoccas, those who started out with nothing and who became movers and
shakers.
Those days are gone. They are history. That America no longer exists.
We now live in an America that is
so concerned with stupid pieces of paper to tell us that we are educated or
uneducated, qualified or unqualified, that initiative is meaningless. Initiative will get you nothing but in the
poorhouse.
I, for example, would love to
teach. I taught for two years at the
university level while I was getting my Master's degree, fell in love with the
profession, and would like to return. I
would especially like to teach history at the high school level. I have had this dream for over a decade now,
and yet it still remains a dream. And
do you want to know something? It
probably always will. Why? Let's just say that some bureaucrat somewhere
decided that I just am not smart enough to teach. It doesn't matter that I taught before. It doesn't matter that I have one and a half Master's degrees. I am just not smart enough to teach.
You see, despite the fact that I
read history books, law books, theology books, and other such social science
books for leisure, and have an extensive library, and have taken several rather
difficult graduate level history classes, I do not have a little piece a paper
that says that I am smart. Yes, I do not
have a teaching certificate. So, that
means that I am stupid.
Theology? Well, despite the fact that I have read the
Bible from cover to cover as leisure reading, despite the fact that I read
other theological books, such as the Book of Mormon, as leisure reading,
despite the fact that I have a pretty good collection of theological books, and
have taken a few theology and philosophy classes, I am not qualified to speak
out on matters of faith because I did not go to the seminary or to divinity
school or whatever the place is called where theologians are trained.
The saddest thing is, despite the
fact that I have already taught engineering students at the college level, the
only way that I can ever teach at that level again is to get a piece of paper
called a Ph.D. Despite my experience in
both teaching and the profession, I am not considered to be qualified enough to
teach. Go figure.
I am not alone in this paper
entrapment. I know of many intelligent
people that could be contributing a wealth of knowledge to society except that
they have been deemed unworthy by society to contribute due to a lack of a
piece of paper. However, instead of
reducing the paper need, we are increasing it.
My friend in Tennessee was telling
me that in our profession, Civil Engineering, there is a movement asunder to
certify specialties, and if you don't have a certificate, you are not
qualified. Period. Regardless of your knowledge and expertise. Basically, what this means to me is that
despite the fact that I have spent most of my professional career as a
practicing traffic engineer, unless I take some stupid test to get some stupid
piece of paper that says I am a qualified traffic engineer, I will no longer be
able to practice my trade. This is, of
course, extremely moronic. Suddenly,
because I did not take a test, I am no longer qualified to do what I have spent
the better part of a decade doing? Give
me a break!
But this is the way it is now, in
the land of the formerly free. We are
so convinced that a piece of paper makes us smart, that we are relegating a big
chunk of population to a life of virtual slavery. We ask ourselves why the next generation seems to have lost its
hope, why the next generation is not motivated. What is there to hope for?
Mere survival?
If survival is the best one can
hope for, then why bother? Why work
hard, if hard work, in the end, gets you absolutely nothing? We will end up with a nation of workers who
don't care, don't try. (Sounds like
Communist Russia, doesn't it?)