School of Rock is one of my favourite movies of all time. For those who don’t know, School of Rock is a 2003 movie starring Jack Black.

Black plays Dewey Finn who has just been booted from his band. He has no income and has a week to come up with rent money, so he impersonates his roommate as a substitute school teacher. Instead of teaching the kids the curriculum, he turns them into a rock band. Just a day before they are due to participate in the Battle of the Bands, though, he’s caught and makes a run for it. The kids, however, decide to run away from school anyways and participate. When the parents find out, they are furious. But when they watch their kids perform, the power of Rock n Roll melts their hearts. Finn ends up starting an after-school music program and the kids become regular rockers under his tutelage.

Even in 2003, the movie could hardly be called “realistic”, but in 2021 the entire premise is rather laughable. This is because parents these days are much more anal about school. As a father of a Primary Grader, I know. Some personal examples of the unbelievable lengths parents go to micromanage their kids’ schooling

1. Parents taking an AQI meter to their kids’ classroom to fight with the school administration about how polluted the classroom is. All the parents gather and scream at the school to reduce ventilation.
2. Parents taking a CO2 meter to their kids’ classroom to fight with the school administration about how stuffy the classroom is. All the parents gather and scream at the school to increase ventilation.
3. Parents fighting with the school teachers if their kid gets a tiny scratch while playing.
4. Woke parents fighting with the school teacher for using “he” and “she” to refer to the kids instead of “they”.
5. Parents fighting with the school teacher because the muffins served for snacks had “too many raisins” & “too little wholegrain”.
6. Parents complaining that their “precious kid” doesn’t get enough attention in class and feels sad (with 1 teacher for every 3 kids).
7. They enrol their kids at International Schools and complain about how the curriculum is “too progressive” and there’s too little of “traditional studying”.

It doesn’t take long for them to make a new WhatsApp group and rally other parents against the school. After all this, they also have time to fight with the school administration about how high the fees are.

During our childhood, our parents were not as passionate about our schooling. I appreciate that parents these days are more involved, but some of them have taken things to a whole new level; especially those sending their kids to fancy schools. When I went to drop my daughter to school, I would always find some parent arguing with the teachers. I felt bad for the teachers and the school administration, that they had to spent so much time pacifying anal parents.

If School of Rock were to come out in 2021, people would probably have it banned immediately.