Thank you Mr. Baines for giving me a lethal weapon.

In these past few months I have learned a lot from Mr. Baines and his “dictatorship” of Ms. Barley’s classroom. I have also learned, recently, that humor is not only the best medicine for the human soul, but also the best weapon in a writer’s arsenal to bring forth a message. With Ms. Barley’s new Blogspot question in relation to school budget cuts, I have decided to harness the majestic and limitless weapon that the English language dubs as “Satire”. Enjoy!

Budget cuts. School system budget cuts, to be exact. It’s the most popular topic on the minds of hormone raging adolescent teenagers today. The headlines of pop up ads on MSN yell, “NEW GOVERNMENT POLICY, SCHOOLS WILL HAVE LESS FUNDING” and are highlighted in every corner of the internet, whereas “tweets” saying “Usher is babysitting Justin Bieber tonight” are rarely even heard of. Indeed, the budget cut to student education is the one problem in life that keeps us teenagers up at night. We are constantly told of how the government is cutting funding to the art programs in schools and the community, of how many workers within the education system must be laid off, and of how all of this effects our own education. One hundred percent of the student populace knows exactly why, when, how, what, and where these budget cuts are happening. We even study entire encyclopedias on how the government is able to take away the much needed funding to support the public education system. Most importantly, though, we pride ourselves in not being able to do anything to change it. Sure, the budget cuts obviously affect us – as actual students who are actually learning—but we don’t have a need to vote at all. Psh, voting is for old people! Youth today don’t need our voices to be heard, we don’t need our opinions expressed, and we don’t need to know about what the government is planning to do with all the money that they cut from our education. Bah! Who needs education anyways? It’s just the vital process of which our juvenile brains are subjected to through long years of critical instruction, right? Right. And with the budget cuts come limited materials for students, limited programs, limited courses, limited exploration, and limited learning. All these budget cuts will touch almost every aspect of our educated lives, but we don’t need to worry about it. The government can worry about it. Students today, we don’t even need to know about it. But we do. Every single last one of us knows all about the budget cuts that are happening right under our noses. Every single last one of us pays more attention to our education than they do to Justin Bieber.

-Khu

Be observant!

In my opinion, it is definitely very important for students to be aware of the control the government has on their education, and also budget cuts on the school system. A real-life example is the extension on Spring Break. It won't be very nice if a student became oblivious to this too-good-to-be-true fact, right? Imagine waking up and rushing to school in morning just to discover that school is closed. By adding about 15 minutes to every school day, the school board can do away with 5 days of expenses. It's a win-win situation, more breaks for us and teachers, and the school board saves money. Here's another example, what if, and I mean what if, the government decides that all "A" students will have to take out the trash across Vancouver starting from after school till dinner time. Any hard-working "A" student oblivious to this new rule will be shocked to be submitted to this consequence after school. Any hard-working student who is wise enough to be aware of government control on their school system will make sure that their marks are no higher than a "B+". So, it is good to know the changes in our education and our school, just like how it is good to know what is going on around us in the world, that is, not be ignorant. Does it sometimes seem annoying when you want to converse about something and they give you the "confused" look?