JOHNNY CAN NEITHER READ NOR WRITE!

Johnny is the one hired to write instruction manuals for electronics or assembly instructions from everything to bookshelves to vacuum cleaners. We don’t know where Johnny went to school because his/her knowledge of English is suspect. Johnny can’t write an intelligible sentence, but I’ll bet he can use his scientific calculator to do equations (e.g., 2 + 2 =).

Why am I angry with Johnny? I just bought a DVD player. The hook-up was self-explanatory – just match the colors on the cables with the same colors on the TV. Plug into the electrical outlet. Put batteries into the remote. Turn on TV and DVD player. Insert disk. Press play. OOPS….. Uh….. Lights are on, but no movie. Read manual. After pages and pages of pure nonsense and convoluted verbiage, I was no closer to finding the answer. I called the customer service people, who were stuck reading from a script that asked at least 20 DUMB questions. Two people put their brains together and told me to go through each channel until I saw the DVD logo appear on my TV screen. One clearly written sentence was all the manual needed, and Johnny could not write it.

Back in the Dark Ages when I was in elementary school, READING was given the strongest emphasis. If one could read, then one could master virtually any other subject taught. This was followed by extensive vocabulary and spelling drills. Of course we learned math and science. But before we could attempt those subjects, we needed some reading comprehension. We were taught to write complete sentences that ended with punctuation – not the run-on sentences that even young doctors of today use. What’s a semi-colon? What’s a comma? What’s a compound sentence? And since when did the pleural of him become “they?”

Over the past years, government has decided it knows best what Johnny needs to learn. Math and science are much more important than reading, especially because reading means delving into the great works of literature (Shakespeare, for one) and maybe reading something politically incorrect or offensive to the conservative right. The government has decided that Johnny really does not need to study music to develop even an appreciation for the great masters such as Bach and Beethoven – dead white European men who have no relevance for today. Please don’t give Johnny a set of pastels and ask him to draw. No, the government will continue to push math and science and politically correct “multicultural studies” to the detriment of Johnny’s soul and his innate need to create and express.

No matter what else, please don’t allow Johnny to become creative and to write! After all, Johnny may one day write an instruction manual that we all can read!