I will admit that I don't plan on using all seventy-nine of my upcoming vacation days productively.
Most of them, sure. I have to. I'm self-aware enough to realize that if I don't have some tangible goals in front of me during the summer, I'll go a little crazy. But I plan on doing my fair share of time-wasting in front of the TV as well. And during the summer, a good way to make hour-long increments of life disappear without anything to show for it is by watching reality TV.
I'm not a reality junkie or anything, but I probably spend more time watching this worthless crap than most people with my combination of education and mildly (?) elitist nature. And I've seen enough to think there's a fair case to be made that a year spent in an elementary school classroom is analogous to a typical season of reality television. Here's a short rundown of the similarities:
-- They are both centered around a group of people who have been randomly assigned to spend time together.
-- Both groups of people start out with nothing but peace, love, and happiness. And it doesn't take long for the cliques to emerge and the infighting to begin.
-- At some point, it's revealed that some of the people in the class / on the cast are not precisely the people they initially appear to be. A kid gets caught stealing, or bullying, or lying, or really bad work habits and attitudes come to the surface. And let's face it, anyone who would voluntarily be involved, and in fact pursue involvement with a reality TV show, often has some fairly deep character flaw.
-- Each group has a few people in it who simply live to create drama where drama did not previously exist, just to draw attention to themselves.
-- Each group, over the time they are together, has the potential for several different romantic pairings. In the classroom, this amounts to two kids simply declaring they are "going out" and then refusing to acknowledge the other person's existence, even when they stand beside each other in the lunch line. Reality TV? So much creepier, but probably with the same amount of actual emotion involved.
-- When the season or the school year comes to an end, there are always people who end things with great dramatic flourish as to give the impression their lives will not be complete once they've been separated from the group. Even if they have just spent the past several weeks or months complaining about how much they can't stand each other.
Both can be equally entertaining in their ridiculousness, but unfortunately I only get paid to watch one of them happen.
