Too bad I don’t get great ideas until it’s much to late to capitalize on them.
With summer approaching parents undoubtedly will be looking for places to plop their kids for eight hours at a time. Day and sleep-away camps typically fit the bill for those who can afford to pay for summertime activities for their little darlings.
There is money to be made from teaching children how to make clay vases (no one smokes so there is no longer any need for ashtrays) and key chains. Given that the country’s job creators have shipped manufacturing jobs overseas, where hungry people are willing to happily work for pennies a day, how practical, really, are those skills your kids are learning?
Will the vase they build today lead to a vase making career tomorrow? Probably not.
But had I gotten off my keister and launched my “Reality Camp,” youngsters would learn valuable lessons needed to get ahead in tomorrow’s competitive world.
Like any summer activity, movies are involved. Camp starts with a replay of some of the greatest moments in reality.
Session 1 features video replays of the Sweetwater Union High School board meetings, 2010-2014.
Student participants will watch how adults elected and appointed to work in their best interest strike up deals to purchase iPads in bulk while high school campuses fall to pieces. They will also watch as real estate deals for administrators are made while students are crammed into over crowded classrooms. Video replays will also include footage of disinterested superintendents and board members listening impassively as the community accuses them of corruption and ineptitude.
Session 2 features video replays of Chula Vista City Council meetings where developers come humbly before the legislative body explaining why they need to build more homes in an already overcrowded region that’s short on jobs and industry.
Students will watch council members listen to resident after resident after resident explain how they don’t need more housing or neighbors or traffic in the area. They will watch the same council ask developers softball questions and bend over backward to find reasons to give them what they want, rather than finding reasons to vote in favor of residents.
There will also be several sessions on public records denial and back-peddling under the threat of litigation.
By the end of their time at Camp Reality, youngsters will have an intimate knowledge of how the world really works.
They’ll figure out that the ones who really get ahead aren’t the ones who work hard and get good grades. They are the ones that make the rules and break or bend them because … they can.
