The Education Situation
Every time I talk to my mother about her work, I feel a little bit of that general massive cloud of overall hopelessness sink in. My mother is a teacher, she teaches Montessori pre-school in a public preschool. She has a Masters degree in Elementary Education, she has been certified by the International School of Montessori, she is on the School Improvement Team, she sits on the Reading Council and she helped write the Science Curriculum for her school system. She has a higher level of education than the United States Secretary of Education (who only has a bachelors degree THAT'S NOT EVEN IN EDUCATION), this alone is scary to me.
My mother used to love teaching, she is one of the most patient people that I know, never raising her voice at these 3,4, and 5 year olds that make me want to give myself a time out. But, things like No Child Left Behind, which have her testing her kids around 4 times a year so that there school can keep it's funding, a school board that punishes teachers for demanding a raise after working for 5 years with not only no raise, but NO CONTRACT, and an overwhelming lack of respect from parents and the public in general has made her a lot more hesitant to remain in the classroom. She told me that this is the first year she has considered retiring early, because she is getting tired.
I listen to NPR and I hear about schools, "inner city" schools mind you, that are being so over crowded that there are 40-45 kids in these classes with one teaches droning above the din, not even attempting the impossible challenge of making themselves heard. I remember my freshman year of high school, before I found my chance to escape, when I felt like I was drowning in fear and anxiety every day and like no-one gave a damn. I was in accelerated classes mostly with people I had known since grade school, but my general education classes, the 40:1 ratio classes, the screaming and shouting, playing the music in the back of the classroom classes...those stay in my head just like the Academy classes that rescued me.
When I hear about these over-crowded, understaffed, under-funded, completely outdated textbooks with not enough to go around...I just think, god, 12 years and no-one has done a goddamned thing! Nobody is even ready trying to do a goddamned thing! No-one with power, money and pull. If Paris Hilton had had to go to Gage High School, it would have been turned into West Beverly High within one school year. WE NEED A REVOLUTION! I mean we still treat people who revere knowledge and those who convey said knowledge like shit. Only if knowledge can be converted into cash does it have some intrinsic value. I am just so sick of it. I don't know how to change it, I don't have some brilliant brainstorm for equalizing education and making people treat good teachers the way they should be treated so that good people will go into teaching instead of being driven away. To make us spend money to build new schools in urban areas instead of closing building after building and throwing larger and larger numbers of students together.
My mother used to love teaching, she is one of the most patient people that I know, never raising her voice at these 3,4, and 5 year olds that make me want to give myself a time out. But, things like No Child Left Behind, which have her testing her kids around 4 times a year so that there school can keep it's funding, a school board that punishes teachers for demanding a raise after working for 5 years with not only no raise, but NO CONTRACT, and an overwhelming lack of respect from parents and the public in general has made her a lot more hesitant to remain in the classroom. She told me that this is the first year she has considered retiring early, because she is getting tired.
I listen to NPR and I hear about schools, "inner city" schools mind you, that are being so over crowded that there are 40-45 kids in these classes with one teaches droning above the din, not even attempting the impossible challenge of making themselves heard. I remember my freshman year of high school, before I found my chance to escape, when I felt like I was drowning in fear and anxiety every day and like no-one gave a damn. I was in accelerated classes mostly with people I had known since grade school, but my general education classes, the 40:1 ratio classes, the screaming and shouting, playing the music in the back of the classroom classes...those stay in my head just like the Academy classes that rescued me.
When I hear about these over-crowded, understaffed, under-funded, completely outdated textbooks with not enough to go around...I just think, god, 12 years and no-one has done a goddamned thing! Nobody is even ready trying to do a goddamned thing! No-one with power, money and pull. If Paris Hilton had had to go to Gage High School, it would have been turned into West Beverly High within one school year. WE NEED A REVOLUTION! I mean we still treat people who revere knowledge and those who convey said knowledge like shit. Only if knowledge can be converted into cash does it have some intrinsic value. I am just so sick of it. I don't know how to change it, I don't have some brilliant brainstorm for equalizing education and making people treat good teachers the way they should be treated so that good people will go into teaching instead of being driven away. To make us spend money to build new schools in urban areas instead of closing building after building and throwing larger and larger numbers of students together.