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.

Where did the American Dream go?

So scrolling through my Twitter feed, trying to get caught up with the important and relavent stuff by mining through the 'silly' stuff, I came across the following tweet;

Following @MrRBourne's debate with Thomas Piketty (http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/media-coverage/inequality-se-isnt-bad-8 …), We're asking "Does inequality matter?" http://www.iea.org.uk/events/capitalism-and-wealth-accumulation-does-inequality-matter …

I thought that is the wrong question, cause our definition of inequality is the root problem.

The 'liberals' or 'do-gooders' or 'leftists' give great speeches about bringing the poor out of poverty. And while that is a noble endeavor, their approach is wrong. Their definition of poverty is not accurate and thus their 'solutions' to the problem are not realistic. As with most of the core elements of society and culture the meaning or the method by which we define our existence has changed and not for the better. When we measure inequality what we measure now is are you materialistically equal to others, do you have equal money or equal 'things' and those are not the best judges of whether someone is equal.
We have so deluded the 'American Dream', though in reality it is simply man's dream not American or Turkish or Russian, but all men, that we have forgotten what the original dream was. The original dream was freedom and independence and the opportunity to follow one's own path. That dream does not exist anymore; it has been replaced with the dream of conforming, looking and acting like everyone else, doing and being like everyone else, and following the same path as everyone else. Society has allowed big business to remove the human nature from humanity. Creativity is ok as long as it is inside the lines; talent is fine as long as it conforms to the preset image. Motivation and innovation are acceptable as long as you are a company man. Intelligence and ingenuity are sought after as long as your soul is for sell. All these limits, leashes and cages on the human experience have crushed humanity.
However, we seem totally surprised that mental issues have risen, that drug use is at its highest, that violent crime is sky-rocketing. We seem ignorant to how business creating a consumer oppressed delightened work force has increased our diseases and decreased our happiness. We are animals, like it or not, and as such we were created to roam and explore and discover our world. Something that is severely limited under the subjegation of government control for the purpose of security and national identity. 
If we truly wanted to do away with inequality then we would increase the foundational opportunities for all peoples and refocus how we define equality. To make all equal then we need to create equal and quality and real education opportunities across the board. We need to meet the needs of the student instead of requiring the student to meet the needs of society. We need to acknowledge, accept and celebrate the fact that we need many levels and skills and talents in varied areas and of various aspects for society to move forward in a meaningful and truly humanly successful way. We need to judge the success of a person not by what place in society he holds but how well he holds his place. For in an equal society the garbage man is just a valuable as the lawyer. Don't believe me, do not take out your trash for a week and see how well you like your house then.

This Is Why Public Schools Get Ridicule......

I was reading the headlines on Fox yesterday and came across a headline that caught my eye; Girl, 10, Arrested for using knife to cut food at school. So wondering if the headline was just to grab your attention or if there really was something to this, I went to the article and read the story. I only have one word, well two actually, that comes to mind...... *&$*# STUPID!!!!!!

This article is a prime example why our kids do not get a quality education in the public schools of this country. If the teachers and administrators put as much effort into teaching as they do into stupid stuff like making sure that a 10 year old little girl gets arrested for having good table manners then we would be the best educated population in the world. When I was a student in the public school system, teachers taught. Teachers knew their course of study and they were capable of teaching it. Yes there were some teachers that had not kept up with their field and their were some teachers that while very well versed in their areas were not proficient at decimating that information to their students. But I think the biggest difference was that if a student misbehaved in class the teacher put an end to it right then and there. Teachers controlled their classrooms, but also used common sense and good judgment.  Teachers were not afraid to interact with their students nor were they afraid to discipline them either.

When kids got in a fight, their lives were not ruined by calling the cops and having them arrested and charged with assault and or aggravated battery. The teachers or the football coach got a hold of them, even if that meant physically intervening and then either just sent them on their way or isolated them until tensions had eased and in extreme cases the individuals involved might actually be punished by having to run laps or write sentences (neither of which, by the way, injures the child).  Also, when I was a student it was no big deal, especially in high school, for you to have aspirin or Tylenol in your book-bag and even share it with a friend or teacher in need. Nor was it an issue to ask your teacher if they had aspirin or Tylenol. No one was going to be expelled for being in possession of drugs or arrested for distribution.

So here is the newest show of just how far down our public schools have gone. If you didn't read the afore mentioned story, a little girl had a packed lunch, which was steak, and included (this was probably a parent with common sense) in the lunch box was a steak knife to cut the steak up with. The little girl used the knife for its intended purpose, that of cutting up her food and was subsequently arrested by the police (I hope they feel really stupid, because if the support their actions then that is a whole other blog) and taken to the juvenile detention center and was charged with a felony possession of a deadly weapon on school grounds (Let me show you what I can do with a school chair).

Now I have to say that if this case goes any further, than the already ridiculously stupid path that it has taken, every resident of Ocala, Florida needs to think long and hard about their elected officials and their priorities in upholding the laws.