Well, you know what? Maybe kids would learn and the teachers could teach if there wasn't so much fucking stupidity top-down from state governments hamstringing what the teachers can and cannot teach.
I'm a big proponent of education. Mostly because I like school [considerably more than I've liked any job I've had], but also because I believe it's important to learn.
I know that there are people who hated school, and I kind of get it. I mean, if you don't do well in school, it's frustrating [hence my refusal to take a math class after my senior year of high school - I think I took a logic class to satisfy that requirement in college; you can tell by how clear and focused I am when I argue, motherfucker].
What I don't get and what makes me completely, inarticulately crazy is when the education system is highjacked and we all look like idiots.
I'm talking about what being book smart will soon mean in parts of this country In the Powder Room. Come see, and we can learn together.
you DO argue logic like a motherfucker!
ReplyDeleteWowzers. That is some seriously stupid shit. And OMG I hadn't heard that Frederick Douglass thing. Yes, this puts me straight into an existential crisis in which I cry, "The system is broken!" But then I start realizing that ALL the systems are broken and I get seriously fucking hopeless.
ReplyDeleteFixing the education system should be top priority-- once that is fixed, everything else will start falling into place. We can't have a civil and prosperous society if we spend more on incarcerations than we do for teachers.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I am not shocked at this story at all. It is no secret that careers in education do not attract the best and the brightest BECAUSE THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST CAN MAKE A HELL OF A LOT MORE MONEY DOING ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE. I cannot tell you how many of my sons' friends I have heard say, "Well, I can't be a teacher. I wouldn't make any money!" Sure, money shouldn't be the only, or even main, motivation to become an educator, but when the pay is so wretched it attracts mostly buffoons (and I have an education degree and have been a teacher, so I know of what I speak), we have no hope in competing with the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteWorld is going to hell in a handbasket. The older I get the more I understand why old people aren't THAT upset they're closer to dying.
ReplyDeleteLOVE when your posts gotz some "meatz" on 'em, Suni.
ReplyDeleteOn my way,...
I disliked school when I was in the classroom . . . then I got to the "real world" and realized how good I had it back then.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
ReplyDelete(I took a religion class in college instead of math. Duh.)
Off to read your brilliance in TPR.
Miss your face.
XO
I loved this. I live in Louisiana and I can tell you that in many ways it is more of a banana republic than an actual state.
ReplyDelete