“You’re Not Here to Socialise!”

There was a time, when it was a simple phrase — one uttered by teachers that many garrulous students would roll their eyes at yet still comply.
   Yet along the way, some secret torch was passed, and pedagogical priorities were shifted away from the academic and towards the socio-behavioural. “Fix-it-up chappies” began to focus on across-the-board star-bellies du jour (divide et impera?), pushing intelligence-insulting utopian fantasies alien to actual human nature, and pejorative shamecasting aimed at incorrect castes. All over the traditional “Three R’s.”
   And so, in response to the hypocrisies of the ‘dumbing down’ of schools (kids indeed smell this stuff) in conjunction with the constant trumpeting of “excellence in education,” the natural response is mental flight.
   One would expect an outcry from concerned parents, but at some point they no longer gave a damn.
   “What about socialisation?” they bleat to the few parents who do take their kid’s education into their own hands.
   Those folks just shake their heads, remembering their own years ago in school when they were reminded daily of proper academic priorities when the teacher bellowed, “YOU’RE NOT HERE TO SOCIALISE!”