By KRISTINA SCHNACK KOTLUS
Schools and Education Reporter
Apparently some schools in the United Kingdom are offering makeup application classes for students as young as 14 years old.
Yeah, read it again, I’ll wait for you.
Now I don’t deny that I occasionally sit at Starbucks and feel horribly bad for the 12-year-old girl who’s raided her mother’s department store samples and come up short in her application of orange lipstick, sparkle bronzer, and blue eye shadow reminiscent of Mimi from the “Drew Carey Show.”
You’ve seen her, too. Don’t lie.
I get the argument, therefore, that kids will have better self-esteem and be less likely to be teased if they’re able to skillfully apply eyeliner- but I have a question. Well, I have three questions:
1. When did we stop teaching self-esteem for self-esteem’s sake?
2. REALLY, Britain? Your test scores are so high on an international scale that you couldn’t use the extra 30 minutes or so on Algebra?
3. When did we stop being parents?
Yeah, I asked it. When?
For some people it starts in preschool, where they drop kids who haven’t ever had a book cracked and hope the teachers will impart a basic knowledge of shapes and colors. We let schools teach our children to read, to do math, to respect authority figures. With the advent of school counselors, we event let them have group therapy sessions to replace the parent/child talks of a bygone “Leave it to Beaver” era. We let schools teach our kids about sex, cursing, and how to be a scapegoat or a popular kid. And now we’re going to let them teach hygiene, too?
Really, parents? It’s too much to ask you do anything anymore? Really?
