Ya Can't Fix Stupid

As I've mentioned earlier, I'm taking courses with an online university. My wife, who is a professional chef at a nice eatery here in town, has graciously consented to work while I finish my degree.

One thing became very apparent as I've been interacting with my online classmates, who on the average are significantly younger than I am: either our school systems around the country just generally suck, or these days kids are being born more and more stupid. Probably both.

Case in point: the class professor posted a discussion question asking us to define the term "weak dollar," and discuss the fiscal and monetary policies our government uses to influence the strength of the dollar.

My classmates immediately launched into a series of discussion posts that showed they hadn't done diddly-squat when it comes to reading the assigned text. They kept talking about inflation, and about how bummed they were about the rising price of clothes at the mall.

Jesus.

First off, the strength of the dollar does not refer to inflation. It refers to how well it trades against foreign currency on the international exchange markets. The professor posted a reply to one particular student telling her she needed to read the text again, when her responses had been showing that she had no clue.

She continued to make posts that looked like she had her head buried in the sand. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I made a post telling her as kindly as I could to read the text again. It's one of those situations where someone is making a complete fool of themselves and ignoring the warning signs, like walking out of the restroom with your skirt still tucked into the back of your pantie-hose.

She then replied to me very tartly, saying she had read the professor's post and didn't need a fellow student to lecture her about the text. All of her posts in the days after continued to show that she still didn't understand the subject, and she still continued to make a fool of herself.

Many of her classmates were in the same boat. It got so stupid in the virtual classroom that finally the instructor made a post literally BEGGING the class to understand the text before they discussed the subject further. A small handful of working professionals who are students in my class agreed with me that we needed to beg the university to get rid of all the morons.