Hogwarts?

'Are you sure that's the correct price?'. A question that I asked regularly during the first month of my stay in British Columbia. 'Cause it mentions a different price on the tag.' Of course it was the correct price and yes there is a difference. It is not caused by a sloppy member of staff who after a night of heavy partying at the start of his daily duties, with his eyes half clogged, pressed the wrong buttons on the tagging device. Nope. There is a deeper thought behind it. Ever since the invention of the calculator some decades ago, peoples mastering of mental arithmetic has deteriorated. Dramatically I must add. Ask a youngster 

nowadays what the result is when of their group of 10 crossing the street while staring intently on their mobile devices one is taken out by a passing bus. Chances are that they stare at you with this 'whadduyumean' look in their eyes. 

The BC government quickly became aware of the gravity of the situation when the disruption of their public transportation system got totally out of hand. They came up with a cunning plan. 'What if we train our youngster's brains in such a way that they don't even notice it?' 'Who will object to that?' And during a dark night when there happened to be a power cut, all price tags were adjusted to the amount of Goods and Services Tax and Provincial Sales Tax to be levied. 

I've seen the results in the shops and on the streets and must conclude that the plan has worked out perfectly. That is, until I visited The SFU campus on Burnaby Mountain recently. To my surprise I found myself in 

a situation that best can be compared with Hogwarts. Yep, that one. I encountered youngsters that were playing 'Human Curling', and a kind of 'Quidditch'.  

A few others were performing acrobatic tricks and I even spotted a few brats hanging out in what I would call the equivalent of Ikea's ball pit. And let me remind you that we're not talking 'Kindergarten' here. What had gone wrong? 

I think that I have figured it out. And I have a solution too.
While the BC Government on the one side did their utmost to lift youngsters up to a higher level, the effort was off set by parent's urge to pamper their kiddies. Guilt compensation I would call it. As many parents are very busy with their career, sabotaging the career of their colleagues, a bigger house, and the neighbors wife, there is too little time left to spent with their offspring. Hence, financial pampering as the ultimate solution. What these guilt driven parents obviously had forgotten is the fact that pampering is only appropriate when their kiddies are very young and don't know yet when it's the right moment 'to let go'. There even is a mnemonic for those parents that tend to forget when to abort the 'dadada' attitude and roughen up. Namely when the age-groups mentioned on the 'pamper package' have a serious problem keeping up with the actual age of your off-spring. How easy is that? Well, it is not easy for everyone. One would expect the years of limitless pampering to be long gone when the first step into the world of academia is taken. Not so much on Burnaby Mountain as I witnessed this week after finishing the steep climb to the top. Of the mountain that is.

May I suggest that we fall back on 'learning by doing?' Litteraly stop pampering. Yes, they will wet themselves a couple of times, but eventually your youngsters will find a way to avoid this discomfort. They are students after all. Trust me. And if not, well then these 'warts' are right at their place in 'Hog warts'...