Freddogg Off The Chain

“Line up by height. Not so fast you “No Children Left Behind” you just sit and watch fifth grade graduation and those cries of “dummies” coming from your insensitive classmates you should just ignore and Clarence if you call one more student a “mother fucker” your getting a “time out.” Look at the bright side next year you may graduate with more skills plus you’ll be taller.”I’ve been saying this from the beginning that No Child Left Behind is designed to persecute those who need the most help, to sift out the dummies and keep them out of fifth grade graduation ceremonies, and to send their sorry asses to summer school to give bogusly certified teachers summer jobs for too much money. I should know I was left behind 45 years ago and thrust into homogenized alternative placement where I could glean the best material from peers designated as most likely to go nowhere.The very first day of ninth grade at Bishop Egan Catholic High School I was sitting in the bleachers with other Grammar school graduates waiting for my name to be called for homeroom assignment. Freshman were designated letter D and the boys were the odd numbers with section D1 being the smartest going all the way down to D11. My older brother was a junior and in section B3 so I figured because I was an incoming behavior problem perhaps I’d slip to D5 but my overriding intelligence wouldn’t allow me to slip any further down the evolutionary Darwinian high school adaptation scale.I was scanning the crowd looking for ‘persecutorial de peer group’ material when I heard my name called for section D1. I immediately figured I was “outted” as an intellect and these priests were going to push my talents rather than allow me to be the set up combination puncher of the hopelessly defenseless I had been in Grammar School. I must admit I felt pretty special long before being Special was cool.We filed out into the hallway hearing a barrage of physical threats from our teacher heading to our new ‘Homo habilis Habitat’ by the way the first of the genus homo hence the D1 phylum. The older students were laughing as we walked by. I saw my 6’5” brother up against a locker.“What the heck group is this, ”he asked? “It’s section D1,”I said. Tom commenced to laugh like he had just heard the funniest joke in the history of the genus homo.I sat up front turned around and scanned the crowd. Trust me you can read most books by the cover and it’s not cool to say that but this was a reading primer “see spot run” crew with harmful chemicals in their backyard wells. Most of these “Philly Kids” would quickly earn unflattering nicknames that likened them to various low level four legged beasts, creatures of the night and pieces of heavy machinery.The teacher was the “lay catholic mechanical drawing end of career attitude teacher guy.” “Turn around Meathead” he directed at me in a tone of complete disgust.“This group looks like a convention of werewolf barbers and you’re calling me names, ”I said cleverly. “Shut up and never talk again, he retaliated, not cleverly but nonetheless effectively.I know all about culling the herd for the overall benefit of the species and No Child Left Behind is simply Federally Formalized let’s round up all the misfits and misfortunates and put them in Section D1 isolation all over again.Education is structured to protect the unimaginative, those who enjoy the lock step progression and predictability and the reliability of playing by the necessary rules. But survival in the real world is an art learned on the lunatic fringes of society.Thank God for, Hank The Tank, The Werewolf of Croydon Acres, Congruent Head, Eel, Blub and the rest of my Freshman posse. We all enjoyed a prosperous and peaceful life of laughter and underachievement. The road to Nirvana begins with Homo habilis and runs through the D1 homeroom. That is inarguable.Peace Freddogg