Education

 

Education! The simplest and most challenging thing one will go through in one's life. Simple because all you have to do is sit down and read a book on a subject you know nothing about and question what you are reading allowing it to shape you, along with gaining hands-on experience by practice or trade. It’s coming across a problem and wanting to solve it. It’s the hope of finding something new or creating something new.

 

So, what’s challenging about it? Is it commitment? Or is it the expectation?

 

What is more intimidating?

 

If you find enough interest in something, and make it essential to you, you will commit to it with no problem. The essentials are budgeting money, cooking food, and whatever else is needed to survive and stand alone.

 

Unfortunately, the classes that teach this are not normally required. The requirement is to find Y’s X. Let me tell you something: I have not needed to find Y’s X since my junior year of high school. Math needs to be money budgeting and taxes, not the sum of a letter unless you are pursuing a degree in something that requires it. It’s a letter. Not every parent can teach their kids how to budget, but you should learn it in school.

 

However, the school system thinks it's more important to educate on a topic that “may” come in the future through profession or subject of conversation.  Budgeting should be a requirement, and algebra an extracurricular. Not the other way around. 

    Also in the USA, it is too easy for someone to become a teacher. People are becoming teachers just to get a paycheck. Some teachers who specialize in a topic such as history get a job in Spanish just because the position is open. To become a teacher for any level other than college is 4 years of college education. One of my cousins in Germany teaches French at an advanced high school level. To do so she was required to attend college and get her Masters Degree. That is the same as what a professor has here in the USA.

    For special ED, Even though they are required to hire teachers that specialize in taking care of kids with disabilities a lot of schools accept almost any teacher into the program. They are so desperate to fill these spots it’s ridiculous. These teachers are clueless about what to do with their students and are told to just watch them.

    Another thing they do is pull kids into the program, who don't necessarily need to be in the program. I saw this happen firsthand with a friend of mine. The only thing she had was ADD. As for me, I had to fight my way out of the program. Why did I have to fight my way out of a program that is there to help? Why is the Special ED program so desperate to pull students in? It’s so they get more money. The more students they have the more they get paid.

    They shouldn’t be pulling students in. They should be working with them to help them work their way out and get a diploma instead of a certification of attendance. And yes that is all that they get: A Certification Of Attendance.

I heard this with my own ears. I shadowed one of the Special ED classes during my lunch break. All I did was sit in the back of the classroom quietly. One of the students was passing notes to me asking me out. I responded by stating that I would be graduating soon and therefore didn’t think it would be a good idea. ( I didn’t know what or where I was going to go). As I respond I hear one of the other students asking about graduation. The teacher responds with “ Yes, but that won’t be for you. You will be getting something else.” I didn’t know what to say or do at the time so I just remained quiet. I waited till the bell rang then I ran out to my next class. How do you tell your students that they are not worth self-improvement?  Telling them such things does not help, it hinders them regardless of their condition. In Germany, there is a saying: If a rider falls off the horse it’s not the rider's fault but the horse's fault. In the world of equestrian the horse is often referred to be the rider’s teacher. It’s the student's responsibility to be ignorant and willing to learn but the student can’t learn if the teacher does not educate the students on things students do not know yet. There have been many times when I have come across teachers who would ridicule you for not knowing something yet and will place you on a pedestal as an example of stupidity instead of teaching what they know on the subject that they are to be paid to teach.

    I had a Kindergarten Teacher that called me “Slow Poke”, and got the whole class to do so as well. I had a professor in college ridicule me in front of the class accusing me of not knowing my German culture when all I was trying to do was answer her fast-paced and ever-changing questions. Another professor (an American who taught German) kept telling the class while referring to me “Her problem is that she speaks a dialect”. The entire reason why I took the class is so that I can improve my German and learn German grammar. Not many schools teach German Grammar in the USA.

A few years after graduation I worked part-time with another professor in a retail store. We would get to talking about education and how it needs to be improved. She would go about how it’s the student’s fault that they don’t learn, that they do not apply themselves. But there have been plenty of times when I have applied myself and still failed at something.

Not everything will fall into my strengths but that is where I need a teacher to change how they are teaching to find a way to get through to me and not give up on me.

The funny thing is, people say that the USA has the best education system but I have only heard that from Americans. A friend of mine spent time in the EU and went to class through their school system and stated that it's better than the USA. A cousin from the UK tried going to school in the US and stated that he had already learned what they were teaching him and went back home.

John D. Rockefeller stated:

“I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.”, this is the idealism that was placed in motion by the General Education Board in 1880-1925 and continues today.

The Eugenics movement founded by  Sir Francis Galton has been a factor in our education system's belief in the perfect race “ blue eyes blond hair, no faults allowed”. This was carried on by Harry Hamilton Laughlin an American educator and eugenicist.  This led to the "if you have any mental or physical deformities then you are worth nothing and there for your to be tossed to the side and forgotten". We now have a history of mental asylums that became known for unbelievable experimentations that ran from the early 1800s- to the late 1990s/ early 2000s. Today we call it Special Ed and it’s very much the same where the mentally disabled are kept on a separate bus and corralled in a small area of the school with teachers that aren’t qualified to help them half the time.

We are deeply behind with our general education system. We desperately need to look at what other countries are doing and make a lot of changes.