My New Speech

High School, see how the words just slip off the toungue when you say them? Feels just like chocolate, or at least the chocolate flavored substitute that my school uses. And thats great, because High School really is like choclate. Expecially aged chocolate. Yeah, you know, the stuff with that weird gray film on it? Yup, that's high school for you, pale, bitter, and full of nuts. Wait,wait, no, wrong metaphor. Uh, I mean sweet, creamy and... screw it.

High school stinks, both figuratively and literally. Everybody knows this. And its been stunk up for a while, sitting somewhere on the political map, marinating in its own putridness and emmiting various poisonous gasses with a strong effect on the common people. And everybody, both the common people and the politicians, know about this pile of crud, but its gotten so disgusting that no one wants to touch it, even though thats exactly what it needs. Someone needs to touch the crud. Someone, touch the crud!

I mean, right now I'm a senior in high school. I've spent twelve years in the school system, suffering, trying my best to get to the top, though I should note that intelligence does not seem to be priority anymore. You know what is priority now? Money. Money to keep, money to spend, budget, budget cuts; schools are steadily dropping AP and art classes just so they can save a couple bucks. In the bleak future, events such as this very forensics competition will become extinct so that some rich white man can buy himself another ferrarri and...

Wait, wait, hold on a second, I lost my point there, now didn't I. Whew boy, Christian, get a hold of yourself man, this is supposed to be a funny speech.

Alrighty then. As I said before, school stinks, and no one wants to make it better. Someone really should before something else ruins the place. Anyways, as I'm sure the question that you're all asking is why? Why does school stink, what's going on with the school system, why is that creepy guy standing up there yelling about nothing? Well. I'll tell you why. High School stinks because disipline in school is broken and standardizeds test don't work. And to top it all off, the food stinks too.

Food... food. Yeah, I should probably talk about that first. The food, like the school, stinks, again both literally and figuratively. The average school lunch costs between $2.30 to $2.60, depending on the school, though I bet you its not even worth that. The FDA does have standards for foods, but schools are not required to follow them. And they don't. They don't because investing money into better quality foods costs money. The schools don't want to pay that money, and the parents don't want to pay that money. If no one is there to pay for the food, then who's going to pay for it?

Actually, I just answered my own question. No one's going to pay for it.

Recently, Michelle Obama has, at least according to the always reliable Fox News Network, ordered a war on food. You here that, its a war. Forget the war on terror, the war on food is clearly the war we should be worried about. Fox makes it sound as if Michelle is going to send US troops into the cafeteria and have them beat the crud out of a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Now don't get me wrong, I like and/or hate the president's wife as much as you guys do, but while she had good intentions, her results were not to my liking.

Before, our school served some wonderful food tha lacked taste, nutrition, and color. Seriously, the next time you look at school food, note that the bread, green beans, and meat are all the same color. Michelle Obama then decided to swoop in like spider-man, claiming she had "change" for everyone, and then magically changed the colors of our school food from beige to green, took anything cheesy of the menu, and changed the price from $2 to $2.60. Actually, if anything, she took change away. Literally. So at that point, our food was no longer malnutritonal, flavorless, beige crud, but nutritional, flavorless, green crud... served without cheese.

And after that, the school systems fought back, and by fought back, I mean they ignored everything Mrs. Michelle Obama said. And so now were back to the original cheap, flavorless, beige crud that is occasionally smothered in a yellow substance that may or may not be cheese.

The point is, school food isn't wholesome. When the first lady is involved, things taste like crud. Without her, and the food still tastes like crud.

I really shouldn't complain, though. I bring my lunch to school. I'm good. You know who gets the worst of it? The poor kids. The kids who would otherwise go hungry were it not for the school food. Yeah, there the fattest people in the US. Actually, statistically speaking, students on free or reduced lunch tend to be the unhealthiest of the group. Its actually kinda ironic, really, a program meant to feed the hungry succeeded a little bit too much.

You know, the US is actually one of the few countries where people in poverty are actually more likely become obese. The reason? Healthy food is somehow more expensive than junk food, which by the way is very apparent in high schools today. Junk food is readily available throughout the hallways, yet you don't see anyone popping an apple out of one of those machines. Because there not available. Even the drink machines are guilty, with the only genuinely healthy option being bottled water (which is kinda stupid in itself, but thats another speech entirly.)

Now don't get me wrong, food is a pretty important thing in our lives, but school food is not the only reason why school stinks. Another would be those gosh darned Standardized tests.

Have any of you ever take one of those? I mean, I'm sure you have. And I bet you that these tests make students look a whole lot worse than they actually are. They make most students (including myself) look stupid. But that can't be right, now can it? I mean, most students are at least competent, right? Well, here's the thing, though. Most tests don't actually test intelligence. They test memorization. They test you on your memories. And not the genuinely memorable memories that shoud last a life time, they test you on your abilty to recall a specific set of words taken out from a textbook that the student may or may not understand. There's nothing in the text book that calls attention to the information within, its just there, sitting and waiting for a student who might find it at least slightly interesting.

Tests are made so that therre is always a single definate answer, which lord knows isn't true. While 2+2 will always be 4, not all questions will be purely mathematic. Most questions, expecially in cases involving science, politics, or poetic language, actually have multable justifiable answers. As long as the student can explain it, why should the book have only one answer.

The thing is, intelligence isn't measured by someone's ability to memorize something or remember formulas. If they were, then celebrities would be the smartest people on earth. They'll memorize lines (hehe) and follow the same formula over and over again, but I don't exactly see ke$ha becoming president anytime soon. Intelligence is based on the brains ability to make connections and inferrences, as well as it's ability to apply it to a real life situation. In the real world, it doesn't matter that 2+2=4, it matters that if you have two bucks, and then you recieve two bucks, you'll have four dollars.

The other point I'd like to make about these test is whats the big rush? I mean really. You have exactly one hour to solve the one hundred and twenty questions on your test, half of which we never actually went over. If you have any questions, resort to the three-page information sheets at the front of your booklet. Now everybody has a pencil right? No, well Im so sorry, you were required to bring one. Also you've wasted aproximately thirty seconds.

Yeah, thats two questions a minute, not counting the the information page, or on an english test, the stories and speeches you;ll have to read. Like the infamous, annoying meme, "ain't nobody got time for that."

What if someone has a blister on his finger and can barely pick up his pencil? Or maybe the kid has a headache. Or maybe he stayed awake to long studying for his test, that he can barely keep his head up. It doesn't matter, Time wasted is time wasted, and you either keep up or fall behind. Because speed is more important than accuracy, right?

The last thing that I would like to complain about is the fact that schools always seem to have some sorta need to contradict itself at some point. I mean really, I have one teacher who says the introduction is the most important part of any essay or (ahem) speech and that the conclusion really doesn't matter that much, while I have another teacher whos says that the most important part is the conclusion and that the introduction that really doesn't matter, and then I have another teacher go on and say that its actually the body paragraphs that are the most important. Yeah, you'd be confused too, right.

And what's the deal with silverwere at school lunch. Theres no silverwere. No spoons, no forks, and of course no knives. They give you a plastic spork to eat with, never mind anything that actually has to be cut in order to be eaten. They don't even give you a plastic knife, because apparently there weapons and someone could be injured. Im pretty sure that if somebody doesn't know how to properly use a plastic knife, then they probably shouldn't be allowed in school in the first place.

And despite that, the kids will return to their lab classes after lunch and be allowed access to real knives... as well as fire, alcohol, gas, dangerous chemicals, duct tape, pecil sharpeners, staplers, staple removers, and my personal favorite, a giant freakin microwave. And then theres the shop classes, which add nails, screws, hammers, drills, various cutting tools, assorted power tools, and motors. Add to that the weights in gym and the cars in Driver's ed, and you have yourself evnough potential death threats to make Final Destination look like barney. And yet we lack plastic knives.

Oh, and then theres everybody's favorite, crime and punishment. First off, in our school outside food and drink is not allowed. You come to school with a bag from McDonalds, and you can't get in,   They'll send some nazi-thought police after you if your caught inside with a cup that says Dunkin Donuts. And yet the people at the office can't figure out who's smoking in the third floor bathroom. Or how about this, a cell phone goes off, even on accident, and they'll confiscate your phone. Get caught bullying? Get yelled at by a teacher. The school is apparently more focused on making sure that cell phones go extinct than they are on making sure everybody gets home safely.

Anyways, I think thats about it for now. I think I mentioned earlier that one of my teachers said that the conclusion is the most important part of the speech, while anorther teacher said the exact oppisite. That might actually be the case, so, uh, yeah. That's my speech on why school stinks.