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Here are some of the slants this story lends itself to: "Whew!" It turns out that it's law school that she's not going to qualify for. Frankly, if her first reaction in a situation like this is to sue, we're better off without her in the legal profession. "I thought this only happened in America." Turns out she's a Brit. This is the kind of thing that litigious Americans are famous for. "Latin?" The test she failed was for Latin -- what has that got to do with anything? Why are those [epithet] Brits studying Latin? And why is a high score in it required for a law career? (You can learn to pronounce Latin in ten minutes, and all you'd need were the specific phrases that were used in law, which they'd teach you in law school anyway.) "What's her hurry?" Can't she just study it again, take the test again, and qualify later? "Why blame the teacher for the failings of the student?" I know a lot of people who claim that their dumb-as-a-board-and-lazy kids are "bright" -- it's not necessarily the school's fault if she failed. Or conversely, "Maybe a product liability suit will make the schools finally shape up." Between tenure and public funding, they're not accountable to anyone -- only now they will be, and they'll be forced to fire the incompetent teachers and start really teaching. Actually, all of those are too glib, and I had almost decided I wasn't going to write about it at all. Then it occurred to me that the mere fact that it inspired so many glib put-downs was itself noteworthy. It's just too easy to get righteously indignant about this one; don't be too surprised if you see a lot of commentary about it elsewhere, all of which will be slanted in one way or another toward simplistic points of view. (discuss) Update: Aha! I was right! |
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