What I think is missing in education

I find that in this crazy world today, something is missing in schools. I think they should have a psychiatrist go into schools about four times a week for about half hour. They should go into each and every classroom. After the students have been taught how to read and write, after they've studied history and science and math, instead of teaching them about sex they should be taught how to communicate, and how to listen and how to interact. Are psychiatrists the ones to do this? I don't know but somebody needs to do it because the parents aren't and teachers clearly aren't either. So you have kids, with minds not fully developed, acting crazy, indecent, violent, and just plain stupid because they just don't know any better.

What we have now are students who have become educated fools. They do not learn how to use their intelligence. They do not know how to communicate with other people, how to listen to other people from the time they start talking until they are finished what they have to say. I find that a lot of people that I’ve spoken to don’t have the ability to do that. I mean A LOT of people. As they seem to have an answer already in their mind because of a lack of listening to what is being said to them. They pretend to listen and instead think of an answer based on what they think that the other person had said. They form their own opinion without listening to the whole point. The results are that they didn’t quite get what the other had said and misunderstandings arise. And the same often happens in return from the other person and the situation escalates. Before you know it someone is bringing a weapon to school to 'solve' the problem. Everyone seems too busy in their own mind thinking to pay attention to what's really going on around them. So maybe a psychiatrist is the right person to teach kids this stuff. I don't know, but it seems like a lot of common sense built up over hundreds of years is being forgotten or lost along the way.

That's my opinion, and I listened closely to a lot of people before stating it. So there.

Call center rant

This is Canada and in this country there are two official languages: English and French. My beef is with some of these big businesses, that have people in their call centers that answer the telephones who are not fluent enough in either language to be in that position.

I know a lot of these businesses hire immigrants and I have nothing against that.  They need jobs too.  It’s just that when you have to call a company to deal with something or get a new product or service, your interaction with the company is the person at the other end of the call. If that person that answers the telephone can’t understand what you are calling about, or can’t give you an answer that you can understand because of the communication then it complicates things. 

 Here is what I mean. This was either on Friday or Saturday of last week. The telephone started ringing so I answered it.  When I did, the person started talking, but all I could make out it was a person from Bell Canada asking me to accept a long distance call.  Unfortunately, she could not tell me where the call was from, or pronounce the name of the person who was calling. I just hung up on her. I know it’s not too polite to do that, but I figured that it would not hurt her feelings so much as me getting mad at her and giving her hell for doing the work that she was not prepared (language wise), to do.

I don’t blame that person for that, her abilities are her own.  But the person that hired her and put her in that position is responsible for getting the most out of the position. Perhaps Bell does not care whether people understand their phone operators.  That is a bad business model, but it is also their choice.  As it was my choice not to take the long distance call, and deny Bell the money from that call.  

Most immigrants are hard workers and for them to be put in that kind of position shows a disregard for those people’s feelings, because the one responsible for putting that person in that position, must have known darn well the problems that this person would encounter from the customers, especially a customer of a telephone company.

Just remember people, if you call a business and an immigrant answers and has problems explaining or understanding you, it’s not their fault. These people are working at whatever they can get and are doing their best to do the job that they have been given.

That’s my beef for today.