Education At It's Finest

Seth started soccer practice last week. He has a great coach and will be having his first game on Saturday. We're not sure he's really "getting" soccer because he tends to spend more time twirling in the grass than kicking the ball. The only point in time during practice where he really pays attention is at the beginning and end when the coach sings the theme from SpongeBob SquarePants and rolls around on the ground like a sea cucumber (At least that's what I'm guessing he's going for) I don't really understand how SpongeBob pertains to soccer (a swim team or aquatics class maybe, but not soccer), but I figured, what the heck, it makes it fun. So then I took Lilah to her preschool orientation today and what giant yellow sea sponge was waiting at the door to greet us? You guessed it, SpongeBob. And now I'm really confused, because while I don't actually allow my kids to watch SpongeBob, I have seen a few episodes and I have to say that I have never noticed an educational theme or even slight tendency towards intelligence on SpongeBob SquarePants. And I'm wondering why exactly it is that SpongeBob seems to have become the educational/extracurricular mascot, if you will, of at least southeastern Michigan. I can totally see the value in making education fun by tying in some of our kids' favorite cartoon characters. But SpongeBob? Really? And since we're at SpongeBob, why don't we just throw in his big, dumb, pink bestie, Patrick. Then our kids would be encouraged to pursue education by an exuberantly ignorant sponge who reeks of sarcasm and an even more astonishingly ignorant blob. They may be dumb, but at least they're funny. A sadly accurate depiction of the American school system? I don't know, maybe... maybe not. Either way, that's my rant for the day.