12.04.2001 || 14h15

Canada, the US, and literacy

Hm,according to a recent study of 32 industrial nations, Canadian students rank #2 for reading (behind Finland but ahead of New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, South Korea and the UK) and 5th in science and maths. The US came in at 15th in reading, 19th for maths, and 14th in science, meaning (obviously) that they didn't make the top 10 on anything. Obviously, the socialist appropach to education works better than the capitalist one, but I'm a bitter cynic so I'm going to naysay here (ESPECIALLY as it seems like Canadian schoolkids are getting stupider in direct proportion with Canada's increasinly capitalist character): politicians LOVE good news and get kicked up the arse by bad: maybe the politicoes down south will be embarassed into actually educating a few Americans, which is good. Maybe those in power up here will continue to rest on their laurels and make fun of a USA that will catch up with us and make *us* look like the bumpkins. And maybe that's what we deserve.

We have sat up here in the frigid North and sneered at the buncha louts south of the 49th for so long that it's become part of the national character (just ask Rick Mercer. Anyone catch his 'Talking to Americans' special?). But I also think that we're failing to notice that the stuff that once made us better (aside from having burnt the White House down in the 1800s, I mean) has been eroded by overly fiscal-minded governments throughout the last two decades of the 20th century, leaving us with a pale ghost of the social democracy that made this country so cool.

Man, I was brought up giggling about the US's antics, just like all my friends and neighbours. It's something I'm *trying* to get past, though US policy makes the gnashing of teeth so much easier than blossoming of cross-border affection.

But at the end of the day, our cultural, institutionalised snobbery pertaining to Them is on ever-weakening legs. We hand our best to new owners from NYC or LA and don't even notice that someone else gets the credit for stuff we make. We are a nation that finally seems to be growing into itself, but only as we near the end of our existence as a sovereign country. Always too little, always too late. It's the Canadian way, and *no* number of 'Kickass country' tee-shirts will save us from ourselves.



||Gods save the Queen,
||cf

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