Education and Communication - Why this?

   First off...Education is THE most important aspect of our lives.  Without it, nothing gets done.  What are some of the problems that we see with Education?

1. Education is totally relevant to location.  This doesn't just mean a geographic location, physical street address, but also the people that are there - the administration, teachers and students.  This may seem silly or obvious but what it means is that people are dependant on what is going on around them and though they may technically have the ability to change what goes on at their local schools, the reality is that change seems near impossible.  
2. Education is only as useful as the people who teach it - once again something obvious.  Students only learn what teachers are willing to teach.  The attitude of teachers is in direct relationship with their personal lives: emotional status, financial order, and experience play key roles in what their students will learn from them.  
3. Parents don't place a priority on education.  Parents see education as a babysitter...this automatically demeans the position of teacher and puts them behind the 8 ball.  On top of that, the majority of teachers realize that and may teach according to what's expected of them.  

     This illustrates a point that we have taken to heart - people will do what is expected of them.  Children will rise or fall to the expectations that are put to them.  Teachers as well.  Parents are the one that exercise the most control of this entire situation.  Parents place the expectations on their children as students to succeed or to fail.  Parents, through their actions, also place expectations on the teacher - If a parent does not stay in contact with a teacher to show that they are involved in their children's lives, the teacher just goes on with what they are doing.  This leads to a sort of apathy...not apathetic in the sense of a destructive behavior but one that kind of affirms what they are doing-that everything is status quo when in reality it could be changed for the better. This brings me to my point:  In this triadic relationship between educator(educational system), student, and parent, who really has the power?  Who has the responsibility to the other 2 to assure that people are getting the information that they need?  Why the hell can't parents be more involved in their children's lives and what is it about this that makes people think that once they drop their kids off at school that, that's that?

     Now what are we going to do about this?  Education is something that gets a bad rap but the truth is that people like myself who left school or dropped out are responsible for those actions ourselves.  We can make up all the excuses that we want about bad teachers and subjects that we'll never need in real life (Algebra, any one?) but the bottom line is that I was scared about something...personally, I think the feeling of failure was much stronger than the idea that I could learn.  It robbed me but only because I gave it my wallet.

   What went on was something that could have been fixed if it had been called into question at an early enough time.  My parents are great parents.  Like all families we have had our disagreements but I wouldn't trade them for anyone on earth.  They raised my brother, sister, and I as well as they could.  They were involved in our lives at school, they provided us plenty of opportunity growing up and there was lots of love in the household.  What I learned to do was to do things at a minimum so that they would leave me be.  If there was anything that I wish they would have done differently, it would have been to not let me get away with things as much.  They loved me so much, they would ease on me when I didn't do what I was supposed to.

     Here's the thing, it all falls on me.  I realized this but only within the last 5 years - coincidentally, the amount of years that my daughter has been on Earth.  My parents expected great things from me and I will fulfill them, it's just gonna take me a little longer than they had hoped for.  In turn, great things are expected of our children.  Lillie is growing up with that and Alexa is beginning to realize that and is starting to fulfill some of that promise.  For her, life has been tough and I wish to hell it hadn't been so tough...but she's going to do great things because she has lived through this and is seeing how things can be if we expect great things from her.  As parents, we need to expect great things from our kids.

     So what does this mean?  This means that we are going to do what we can to change the culture of education.  Education itself can be amazing...maybe not always fun but even things we love aren't always fun.  How do we get children to understand that education isn't just about school?  How do we get children to understand that there are expectations of them and of those expectations, Education is the first and foremost of them?  Why do children fail when in reality, failure isn't bad...it's a learning tool.  Failure isn't actually as scary as we have been taught to believe...it's accepting failure that is the scary part.  People who expect and accept failure are not acceptable.  I don't mean that we go out and eliminate these people but what we have to do is create a culture where this mentality is unacceptable, where failure is truly looked at as a tool to succeed.  It's given lip service but when in early classrooms, failure is slowly reinforced with shame and embarrassment.  Kids can be jerks and some love nothing more than feeling better about themselves by putting others down (Bullying) - This is one of those things that exhibits people's willingness to accept failure: They decide that failure is acceptable because they slap other people down as soon as they can.
  
     How do we encourage success?  Parents.  Parents.  Parents and Parents.  Parents have to become more involved, ESPECIALLY at the early stages of education. They need to be on top of their kids so that their kids learn early on that they are expected to be great and early on how failure is OK as long as they don't get frustrated and that they keep moving forward after they experience that failure.  Posters and slogans don't mean much when it isn't truly encouraged.  We need to teach kids HOW to learn and HOW to act responsibly towards each other.  Kids need to really learn accountability and what it means to be person of greatness.  What does it mean to be a person of greatness?  Honestly, I don't know.  I do know that we need to look at people we think are great.  We need to show children that we expect them to be great.  We need to truly understand that children will be great if we expect them to be great.

     This means that Teachers need to be great.  Teachers need to be more than competent.  This may not mean that they graduate top of their class or that they have 50 years of teaching experience.  Hell, I'm not sure if people need a degree.  Of course I don't know how well that works, but we want people who can teach the hell out of some kids.  One of our proposals is - 3 people at the head of a class...a Certified Teacher, and 2 T.A.'s or 2 people of differing opinions that would be able to show children a total of 3 different POV's.  This involves a highly interactive relationship between the 3 teaching figures and automatically improves what the children are learning because the children will learn 3 POV's and all the information that goes with those 3 POV's.  This would be ideal for older students but it may work with younger students in the sense that broken up groups can be shown things by each teacher (reading to small groups, math concepts, things of that nature).  The bottom line is Teachers need to be trained thoroughly in how to teach - right down to how to get children to pull out a piece of paper and pencil and be ready for class.

       The reality of the situation is this:  Our world is becoming more and more isolated and the loudest voices belong to those people who are ready to just shit on everyone else.  The idea of being out for yourself dismisses 6.5 billion other people who could possibly help.  On top of that, this selfishness turns people into tools to be used by those that want to take advantage of people.  We need to teach them to not be tools...they need to learn how to think for themselves.  We need to give children tools so that they don't become tools.