Just my personal opinion, the entire education system in our country needs to be overhauled, from sea to shining sea. The first problem is the education of the teachers themselves. Its been a vicious circle. Teachers were notoriously underpaid in general. Back in the 80s many large school districts began noticing severe teacher shortages. In the 90s it got worse, and I know many cities started shopping overseas for teachers in poorer countries that wanted to come here. They would get them work visas, get them certified as teachers in whatever state, and put them to work. Then they began trying to recruit people who had retired from other jobs, getting them to enroll in very basic courses to get certified, giving them "credits" for real life experience (such as business management for example) that could sub for some of the requirements to be certified. Now, due to strikes and other tactics by teachers unions that have raised the pay and benefits of even starting teachers to the breaking point in many cases for public school districts, coupled with lower standards for certification, we have an entire educational system filled with teachers that cant cut it. They dont really WANT to be teachers, they were recruited to the job in college with the promise of good pay and mandatory retirement benefits. Half-prettythang teachers make for half-prettythang students.
Now, we have a problem at school. But the biggest problem is the attitude this country has gotten towards education in general. While everyone agrees they want their kids to be smart, no one is willing to do any work to help. The parents expect the school to do it all (until you get to something controversial like sex ed or something), and no one wants to get involved. Thats a generalization I know, but I've seen it. I went to college to be a teacher, and I bailed. I could give noble reasons but the truth is its alot of work, and I didnt have the mentality, or the work ethic to be a good one. At least I didnt think so then. Course today I'd probably be fired in a heartbeat if I tried to be a teacher lol. But my ex was a teacher. I saw day in and day out the way the parents would dump their kids. Heaven forbid one of them should get sick. Oh, what, I have to give up my soaps and come get little Suzy? But you have a nurse dont you? (Really, this happened. More than once.) The more people I meet in this world, the more I appreciate the ones who still believe family = responsibility, and the more I get PO'd at the average population. The old saying "Education starts at home" really is true. I was never a great student, but I passed. Because my parents made me do the work. They checked up on me. They forced me to sit at the table and asked me questions out of my textbooks. They made sure if I had finished a chapter in math on mulitplication that I could multiply. They discussed my report cards (and cussed too
) and they never once complained that it was a burden. And they did that for my brothers too. And funny enough, so did most of the other parents of the kids I knew in school.
I have to say, I really am ashamed of my generation. While the last one is still running things, we are too busy arguing over what shade of black the pot and kettle are, and are ignoring that both are overflowing and dinner is burning. Instead of remembering what our parents taught us about how to weave things together in life, we are arguing over the merits of various nationalities of wool and which one is better suited to what, when all we need is a basic blanket. Perfection is overrated. I remember one of my neighbors growing up was a farmer, and I always loved riding on and driving the tractors. It always amazed me how the rows could be so straight across an entire field. There were little variations here and there, but mostly it was striaght. I asked him once how you keep the rows straight when you are plowing or discing a field. He said its easy, you just have to keep your eye on the other end of the field to stay straight. If you only look directly in front of you, whatever direction you go looks straight because you can no longer see where you are going. Sometimes I think "common sense" just isnt common anymore. Now its rubbing off on OUR kids.
Wow. That was a rant. Sorry. Its just that to me, lowering the bar to make things look better is selling out. Selling out and the kids are the ones being shortchanged by the deal. As long as politicians run school districts, and we put more stock in numbers generated by a test that doesnt fairly test true intelligence OR knowledge, we are going to be running things based on irrellevant information. Its like instrument flying a plane when the instruments give you data based on nothing real. How long do you think you'll stay in the air that way?
