Stupidity In Education Seems To Be A WorldWide Epidemic

via enc.na

It is no secret that I have lost all respect for the Education System in the US for a very long time. It is an issue that is so very broken that it truly needs to be wiped out and completely rebuilt from the ground up again. I am not the only one that feels this way, one of the most famous long time advocates of education reform is Dr. Bill Cosby, whom has his Doctorate in Education. A more recent well known advocate is Matt Damon; and while I do not generally support actors getting into 'politics' only cause most do not have true understandings of the 'causes' that they take up, however, in this case both Dr. Bill Cosby and Mr. Damon have knowledge of the cause they have taken up.

The shame is that EVERYONE does not take up the cause of education. For those of you that think it isn't your cause, cause you don't have children or your children are not that young or that old; the level of education of persons in a society directly determines the health, prosperity and future of the society. There are numerous studies that show that better education results in longer lives, better health, higher quality of life, more stable communities, safer communities, cleaner and more progressive communities, higher salaries and more efficient and productive employees, more innovative and inventive entrepreneur.

If you still don't see how education is EVERY ONE'S concern, let me give you what most of you consider to be the IMPORTANT facts; better education means better jobs, better jobs mean better pay, better pay means better homes, better homes mean more property taxes, healthier employees means less sick people thus lower health care costs, longer lives mean more contributions to pension funds by better paid employees thus insuring better payments to seniors. When education is a primary concern for the WHOLE society it is the WHOLE society that benefits.

If you are a 'stereo-typical white or black American' in the US you have to prove beyond any and ALL doubts that you and your child are here legally. You have to provide multiple documents for the child as well as the caretaker of the child, you have to prove not only who you are, but where you live. However, if you are an illegal, undocumented, child with no 'permanent or real' home you are welcomed with open arms and given every opportunity including extra classes to learn the languages and classes to catch the child up to grade level. These options are only available to 'real' Americans after jumping through numerous hoops and fighting every single obstacle the 'system' puts in your way. However, any parent that cannot for whatever reason jump through all these hoops and provide all the papers and PROOF of who their child is, is the one criminalized by the system for the failure of the system to provide the education to the child.

I confess that I figured that only America was so stupid as to be this insane with getting children in school. I was wrong! Serbia seems to be on the VERY SAME TRACK! It seems to lack the desire to improve the state of the Serbian society by ensuring the right to a proper education for ALL Serbian children.

There is NO child anywhere in the world that should be denied an education! EVERY CHILD deserves to have the means by which to pursue their dreams. There are enough obstacles in the world without the opportunity to have an education needing to be one of them. While I understand and appreciate some of the concerns of placing 'undocumented' children in the 'general population' what happened to regular common sense in the everyday actions of alleged intelligent educationed adults in 'authoritive' positions. What happened to the rules being a set of guidelines to provide suggested avenues or options to dealing with issues that might arise? When did the rules become EVERYTHING and the child punished in most cases for things that are not their fault at all.
The CHILD should come first ALWAYS!!!

In this age of technology we have the means to accommodate with little effort or resources many differences in teaching methods. Yet, instead of spending a little bit of money adapting to meet the needs of children we spend much more money on hindering the access by children to even the regular cookie-cutter classrooms. We expand the staff in the office to make sure that we keep as many children out of the classroom as possible and to document their leaving so that the families can be, in some cases criminally, punished for the system discriminating against and persecuting them until they feel no other option.

If you are starting to wonder about the information that you have read so far let me enlighten you some more. Education is a part of the government in most societies, as it should be so as to enable it to be accessible by ALL. That being said to keep the education of any society successful and focused on the child the society as a whole has to maintain the highest core values and thus ensure that education is a primary and properly handled institution of the government. Education is the single most important act for a healthy prosperous society. The benefits of a healthy education system overflow into every other aspect of the society. On the other hand, the lack of such a system will inflict the rest of the society adversely to the severity that the system has been neglected.

You might be thinking; how much more money do we need to throw at the system to fix it?
I would say, NONE, what needs to happen is that the system needs to be rebuilt not added too.
If you eliminate excess 'administrative' staff and excess 'paper' load then you free up resources that can be used to improve the classroom experience for the student. However, to do this we have to decide that our schools are places of REAL learning - for students to explore, experiment, question, wonder, create and not to be indoctrinated to conformity, oppressed by authority, creatively repressed and forced to be just like EVERYONE ELSE!
How do we do that? It will take your time, your commitment, your focus, your vigilance.