It’s all our fault . . .

Mea culpa. This economic crisis, it’s because of schools and teachers. It’s bad, so it must be blamed on poor education. Someone didn’t teach the financial firms’ chief executives that it’s not right to pay themselves huge salaries for sod-all work, especially when the company is doing so badly. Schools should teach values and so this failing in the market is really the fault of schools and therefore of teachers.

The bank people wouldn’t’ve lent money to customers who couldn’t repay it if they’d been taught the rudiments of banking more thoroughly. Obviously basic banking is taught in school, not university, so again schools are to blame – and therefore teachers.

When the price of oil was high, this was bad. It was because Geography teachers hadn’t emphasised the need for alternatives to oil and at the same time for not teaching would-be engineers where to find more oil.

Now that the oil price is low, this too is bad. And of course, teachers are to blame again. It’s because we convinced everybody to walk their kids to school and thus reduce their demand for petrol.

Global warming is largely down to schools using too many non-renewable resources such as computers and copiers and lights and heaters.

Zimbabwe, Burma, Thailand, Iraq and Afghanistan are all kicking off because teachers didn’t teach kids how to share their toys and play nicely in the sand pit.

Obese kids – yes, also our fault. We modelled poor eating behaviour – meat pies and doughnuts and salt & vinegar chips for morning tea rather than celery sticks and fresh water. All kids aspire to be like their teachers and so they too ordered pizzas for lunch. Drug abuse stems from children having been exposed to teachers drinking too much coffee.

The NZ dollar has crashed. This is because Economics teachers focussed on developing economies and neglected to teach about our currency. This train-wreck of a situation is purely our fault. Unemployment will surely follow but unemployed bankers and real estate agents will not become teachers. The teacher shortage will remain and, as we were told a while back, the teacher shortage is because teachers complain. You see – our fault again.

The All Blacks victories belong to Graham but the losses… who didn’t teach Dan Carter to drop kick a goal in the last few minutes of ‘that’ game? That’s right – his teachers didn’t. And the cricket? Kids learn the basics of cricket at school – from their teachers. That’s why we lost the cricket.

The 30,000 kids who are truant from school every week aren’t in school not because of weak parents but because the teachers don’t make school fun enough.

It’s all our fault.

— Peter Giddens