generation everyone's a winner

if everyone's a winner then no one's special anymore

Welcome to generation
lower your expectation
where everyone's a winner,
and even less better
than the one
that came before.

an 18th place ribbon?
thanks for keeping
the trophy makers
employed
with all the awards
to be deployed;

haven't you realized,
I am too delicate to be criticized,
you'll stifle my creativity,
heighten my sensitivity,
with all your talk of grammar
and rules --

don't you know the NEW way
of all the latest schools?
As long you try, you will get by
A B or C --
it's all the same to me
hurray for mediocrity!

Author's Note

Reviews

[Rene Salinas]

This subject at the moment over here is a big thing. Teaching and the value of knowledge has been reduced to nothingness and it is just a test moment. After the test the celebration and after that the stark realasation that employers do not employ as people do not seem well equipped for the job. The part about the sensitivity and lack of inner strength so well put. Yet another moment that serves as an example and in desperate need of correction.

Thankyou

[Lyn Anderson]

I agree. I have spoken to people who were interviewing LAW students for an internship, and their mothers accompanied them on the interview. REALLY?

[Fran Marie]

The schools have lowered the standards so much it's a darn shame..I agree with what you say this poem..well done

[Lyn Anderson]

Thank you, I appreciate it. It's an epidemic, I fear, with our young people expecting less and less of themselves as time goes by.

[Fran Marie]

You're welcome, yes , so true...

[Delmar Cooper]

So you aren't on the short list for Miss Congeniality?

[Lyn Anderson]

Whatever things I lost, I lost fair and square, and everything I won I won the same way. Now our kids get awards for "trying"

[Lydia Shutter]

Another one I want to stand up and applaud.....it does seem that we are told no one can be the best anymore. Everyone has to win. No child can feel left out of the game. Well, I still remember being chosen last for all teams, but I think it made me stronger. What good is an 18th place ribbon? It's silly really. Everyone is NOT a star....and some reality shows prove that! :) Lydi**

[Lyn Anderson]

Bingo. My kids are smart, and talented, and I get a teacher telling me, "We'll let the rest of the class catch up"

[Lydia Shutter]

Aggravating! Your kids are basically punished for being smart. I know how it goes.

[NoelHC]

That poem could well inspire a diatribe from me. Unfortunately the kids get it drilled into their heads that they are all special, and do not recognize the mediocrity. Everybody is a star, until cold hard reality kicks them in the junk.
You said it well here, good one.

[Lyn Anderson]

Thanks, you would get where I am coming from

[NoelHC]

No doubt. They have soccer and hockey leagues where score is not kept so as to not harm any pschyes. I ask my grandson the score from his hockey games, he rattles off the stats, who scored, who passed it, what the final score was. He is six.

[NoelHC]

I take perverse delight in handing the cashiers extra coins so I get a paper note back instead of a handful of $1 and $2 coins back, and watch the puzzlement on their faces, as the cash register display doesn't show them how to deal with that. Yeah, I am that guy at McD's!

[Lyn Anderson]

I do exactly the same thing. One time, while standing in a long line, I added my groceries in my head (all the stuff was non taxable) the cashier nearly fell over when I handed her the total in advance of the bill. I could have told her I was psychic, but instead I wowed her with my amazing mathematical abilities, lol.

[NoelHC]

My dad worked in a bank for 40 years, he could add pages of numbers in a ledger book faster than the staff could punch them in with the old manual adding machines. He did the whole numbers, not the right column first, carry the balance to the next column. My grandmother could figure out what your monthly mortgage payment would be, if she knew the term, the % and the principal, in her head!

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Oh no someone has offended the queen of grammar and here in lies her vengeful teeth of words ready to tear out the throat of the offfender! Gosh woman you and April are writing machines!

[Lyn Anderson]

Thanks, I think. Nah, seriously, it's a little more than that. It's this whole stinking mess. My kid comes home with her school work tattered and crumpled, and she thinks that's suitable for handing in, because no one tells her it is not. It's hard to learn, to excel, to create, in an environment where all young people are taught anything but back pats is unfair.