[Savagemom]

Have you ever held a job, usually in a union shop, where quality was discouraged because it showed everyone else up? How about a school where the students got that attitude from their fellows about not making everybody else look bad, and the principal and the teachers could not break through?

Absolutely! And women are especially subject to the social pressure not to be *too* smart.

So you're saying that the problem isn't just the parents and teachers trying to protect everyone's fragile self-esteem, but also the peers who punish those who DO try to excel. It's no wonder we're drifting toward mediocrity as a nation - and this new "let government take care of you" administration will do nothing to inspire achievement either.

[Publius]

So you're saying that the problem isn't just the parents and teachers trying to protect everyone's fragile self-esteem, but also the peers who punish those who DO try to excel.

Let's look at a man who accepts a job at a company. He is there to help the company succeed. He has sold his labor to the company for that purpose. But in a unionized situation, he is not on the compnay's side. In fact, he is the company's enemy. Quality in performance makes him the enemy of his peers.

You see the same thing at most American high schools. The students are there because the law or their parents require them to be there. They have litle interest in the subjects taught and would rather be elsewhere. This is why teachers refer to the time children spend in the school system as "the sentence". If you want to see another institution where these standards are observed, check out any prison.

In a school situation, where the students don't want to be there, there is the same kind of pressure to not excel because it increases the pressure on peers.

Ben Nealy's attitude, as I see it, shows that the unionized attitude has permeated to all facets of society.