For most of my life, I have thought teachers hung the moon. I’ve not changed my mind. I’ve been an artist in residence in the state of Colorado since 1985, and also visiting scholar and diversity scholar at various universities, and I’ve seen radiant profs and teaching assistants. I’ve also seen ‘the dark side,’ the very dark.
Tonight, President Obama spoke about education, about ratcheting up the bar …above high school only, for ALL citizens. Good. Aside from how to pay for it all. I am still waiting for proofs, not just promises. Call me Sarai the Skeptic.
But, I’d like to say this to our President: Being in the midst of watching my grown children struggle to pay for their child’s sixth grade year at Catholic school …which costs per year what I once paid for a year of college for my education
1. and seeing the future for the parents already working more than one job each… that there are only more outrageously high expenses ahead for many years… could we just stop segregating people by whether they can afford the 50k+ per year to go to a ‘good’ college with books, room and board and all else thrown in?
2. Could we see that at elementary and high school currently, huge numbers of teachers are forced by government mandate not to teach… but to literally ‘train’ the students to pass the state standard test.
3. which is not teaching to each child’s way of learning, but a slashing at the student’s longing to learn: ‘Learn this because you have to pass that test in order for the school to get rank, to compete in rankings, etc.’ We want to learn to read and write well, but the joy of learning is different than forcing compliance. Just saying.
4. What if, President, just for the school years, we stopped this ranking idea and just taught ALL children everything they needed to live in THIS world, instead of the world of governmental ranking? What if everything needed to succeed was taught instead of everything to submit to?
5 And what if ALL education at university level, too, was truly free of charge? And all books, free? So ALL who long so to go to school, to get an EXCELLENT education, could do so without being forced out. The time of the acre of land and a mule is past. How about a free quality college education, and the house mortgage paid for in full (I know, call me a Commie)?
6. What if lack of money or ransoming your life for decades in student loan paybacks, would never prevent pulling down a fine education. (When I came out of my doc and post-doc ed, I had over 150k in loans that took years to pay back. I did, and was at the bottom of the economic scale for years while raising a child.
6a. This is not a complaint, but just saying, it is a huge barrier for most who long to learn, those who are afraid they cant make it in one way or another, and money becomes the drowning point, so they say to themselves, ‘I can’t go, I haven’t the money,’ rather than, ‘How can I go, what do I have to do to learn best? I have the money.’
6b. So, what if gaining a great education did not indenture a person, but gave them best running start… without Marley’s clanking chains and money-boxes hobbling them (I know, call me a Commie)?
7. And what if all teachers were paid well to attract the best minds, rather than low paid to attract the best minds that must also bear great sacrifices in order to pursue their beloved teaching?
8. What if we could exit as gracefully as possible those teachers, whether at university or elementary or high school, who are dead ROD, retired on duty? Who put in the minimum hours, the minimum work, who hate their jobs but only hold to them for the bennies?
8a. What if indolent parents had to go to school to better develop in several ways critical to helping children to learn?
9. What if teaching ALL children well… did NOT need to be done at incredibly expensive schools? What if ‘all the best’ teachers and schools were available to ‘all the rest.’ All. All, all, all.
10. What if everyone could have quality, interesting, enthusiastic, caring, balanced, teachers who are not a laughing stock, who are not hostile to children or parents and other teachers, who are not self-interested, who are not fools, who do not have incredibly rotten judgment, who are giving far more to their students in energy, than they are gaining in energy from their students?
11. What if teachers who predate on the energy of their young students had to get a real life and make contacts and work to be fawned over by persons from their own peer group?
12. What if some university professors would NOT be paid or retained if they initiated serial sexual affairs with students year after year, using the rationale that ‘she agreed to it,’ ‘she’s old enough to make her own decisions,’ and etc, … but fail to consider the imbalances of power and the fact of ‘easy pickings’ amongst those who are young and inexperienced… students who do not have their fathers, uncles and brothers nearby and watching?
13. What if university was for learning, and there were non-university residential camps set aside for young men and women whose main goal is to party, cruise and hook up, with making classes or grades being tertiary?
14. What if the parents of the above group didn’t have to pay their retirement to send their grown children on a four year drunk and acting out?
15. What if we just faced facts and understood that much state money goes to support not learning, but other things that require no university setting to make those ways and means manifest (I know, call me cranky)?
16. What if students had to work to pay at least part of their university educations even though their parents could afford full freight… or else not go to school til the student is ready to hire on in more ways than one (I know, call me old school. I’ll take the compliment)?
17. What if it were a perfect world and I were ‘queen of the world’ and I could magically make schools always face the sunrise and sunset, and that poets would be honored with golden trophies in the glass case in the foyer as much as the athletes? And that to be an outsider would be an honor? And so many other good things.
Ok, Ok, I know. Not going to happen. But some part of each of the above and more, is way overdue for a true education in our current world. I hope much will come to pass for the better. I want to see the proofs, not just the promises.
Yet, just my two cents’ worth as a teacher these many decades: Solid education has only one directional wind: Upward. But the egos of all still have to bend over the oars and row hard to make progress, nonetheless.