I am engaged in an exercise in futility, a one-man war against granting the freedom of speech to people who are too fracking stupid to use it appropriately. Today it was a letter to the Editor, the other day it was the news about how Obama wants to reward people who were stupid-enough to be talked into buying houses they couldn't afford. Surprize! The housing bubble burst, and your ARM matured, and you lost your house. Now, Uncle Obama wants to give you $20K, so you won't feel so bad about being a FUCKING IDIOT!!!! That's one word, no hyphen.
At this point, I wish to appologize for the prfanity, there just wasn't away around it.
I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
It's been called The Dumbing of America, students are not doing well in an education system that hit it's peak 40 years ago. I have but one thing to day... DUH! I've been both student and teacher in California public schools, decades between, but nothing changed in more than 30 years. OK, textbooks, maybe, but some of the maps were, I checked, the same ones used in the late 1960's, listing the USSR, and Yugoslavia. Methods have progressed glacially, Hell, there were some of the same teachers, 35 years later. Kids are graduating from high school, dumb as a post. Teachers, due to union entanglements, are forbidden to teach kids, either what they want to be taught, or what the need to learn before they graduate, basic skills that have been determined to be racially biased. You know, things like: how to make change for a ten, how to give directions, how to take directions, how to fill out job applications, all of that Klan-backed stuff.
I tried. God knows I tried to give my students the basic skills needed to succeed beyond high school. Most of my colleagues could care less. Another year, another 150 or so kids, teach the test, and let them discover, for themselves, that they've wasted four years of their lives. I couldn't do it that way. For my efforts, I got the short-end three times, and it was enough for me. Over six years, more than 1,000 kids learned how English was important, and how they were limited only by their own competance with language. Sure, there were a few I always wondered about, but most often they turn out to be people who needed what I taught, and how I taught it the most. People who knew me from my crazy Navy days would be surprised at how different I'd become because of my committment to my students.
I'm not bitter (well, anymore) about the way things happened in my teaching career. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances, for which I must assume as much blame as my employers for letting things happen the way they did. I did six years; I made a difference in dozens of lives; I've helped a few find "a voice," by which to express themselves; best of all, I've helped them become contributing factors in their communities. Seeing some of them now, a few years later, I realize that to me, it was all worth the effort, and I have no regrets.
No comments:
Post a Comment