“It’s only fitting to say that my standardized test scores from sophomore year showed a marked decrease in English language and reading skills. This did not surprise me at all. I was far too busy being indoctrinated into acceptance of global warming, homosexuality, and multiculturalism to learn silly things like English grammar.”
Why I can tell you all about gay sex, but I can’t define the word “predicate.â€
I have a confession to make: I have no idea what a predicate is.
My excuse for this fact is that I am a graduate of Scarborough High School, the public high school of Scarborough, Maine. The English department there (save Erin Blain, Jon York, and Gerry Hebert) is notoriously awful. It has gotten to the point where it is being ridiculed on Facebook. The Facebook group “You Know Your From Scarborough If…†includes the line, “If you can make it through Scarborough High School and still not know how to properly use ‘you’re.’â€
My freshman year of high school I had the highest level of quality teachers during my time at SHS. Sophomore year, however, the educational quality rapidly deteriorated. I was placed in an English class titled Honors Advanced, a class of students who had been identified as “gifted and talented†in previous grades. This was a class taught by Bruce Spang, the current Poet Laureate of the City of Portland, and the author of a chapbook of poems titled The Knot. A review of the book online (which also describes my English class) begins: “Bruce Spang is gay. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. It matters because he wants you to know, and he goes to great pains to spell it out for you more than once.â€
The first day of class, Mr. Spang assigned us to fill out an info sheet, asking us about our favorite books, movies, etc. I had just finished Godless: The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter, and I wrote that book down as my favorite book. I could tell from the crinkling of his eyes that I had made the wrong choice. I knew I was in trouble in this class when Mr. Spang first assigned vocabulary words. I used the word “agnostic†in the sentence, “Atheists do not believe in a higher power, but agnostics are unsure of the existence of one.†When I got the assignment back, the first part of the sentence was circled, crossed out and points were deducted. His comment was, “Yes they do.†I’m sorry, what?
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