Disturbing

I don't know if I have just been out of school for far too long and these are the signs of the times or there is just something seriously wrong with the educational system that my cousin is under.

I got a call again yesterday from my aunt double checking if she got the spelling of the word "tranquilize" right. Yes, I am not only my family's resident editor of written works but the spell checker, dictionary, encyclopedia and thesaurus as well. Anyway, I spelled it for her and she got it right then she asked what the proper use of the word would be - if its present or past tense. I told her depends on the sentence. She gave me the sentence - "Next is to tranquilize the elephant". I told her it was "tranquilize". Then as it sunk in, it bothered me what my 2nd grader cousin's homework was about. It turned that they were told to write a step-by-step direction on "how to capture a wild elephant". I was shocked. Why the heck would the teacher assign such a thing? Instead of a direction on how to capture an elephant, shouldn't it be about preserving them especially now that a lot of animals are going extinct. I told my aunt to end it at "putting the elephant into a truck to be taken to the zoo" after that horrific step. It bothered me so much that I had trouble sleeping.

Granted that it has been ages ago since I was a 2nd grader myself but I certainly do not remember having such an assignment. If for anything it was about how life came about with that monggo seed that we had to plant in a tiny plastic cup and see its progress on a daily basis. We were not taught on how to"capture animals". We were taught on how to take care of animals and other living things. Sometimes, I wonder what lessons children nowadays are being exposed to. Its bad enough that the world is already chaotic and violent, why teach them almost the same thing in school? And we wonder why children nowadays are the way they are. Blame has been put on movies, tv shows and video games with the proliferation of violence among the youth and little did we know that it started in school...at such a young age.

I am just wondering what it would be like when my own kids go to school. What would teachers be teaching them by then? I used to think that maybe the educational system in the Philippines can be better but looking back now maybe I had it good than what my cousins are exposed to in what is supposed to be a rich country. If due to circumstances, my future children will be exposed to these types of lessons I think I would be the loudest one there to decry such teachings. Teachers may hate me but I don't think its right to be paying as much tuition as parents already are for our kids to be taught to be violent to animals. Animals now, who's next?