Brigham Young once said Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world's work, and the power to appreciate life.
I believe in our youth. Students invade my space daily and I have been given the task to teach them better reading comprehension and writing skills before they scramble out headlong into the real world.
The power of a student to adapt in such a volatile world is amazing. This courageous outlook remains my rationalization to myself that they will do just fine. Here in the piedmont of North Carolina, most of them will attend a community college, enter the military or will work at a trade such as masonry or nursing and most of them will make more money than I will. And yet, the more I teach, the more I am frightened for myself and for them. I have seen seniors go off to support the effort in Iraq and return wholly cynical if they return at all. I have seen an entire town leveled by the closure of a textile mill--negating graduate jobs, and they are left with no hope. I have seen creative minds broken by a society enlarging the gulf between the haves and have-nots. Moreover, the gaps in basic knowledge and skills are declining as the demand and pace of this world is speeding up into a frenzy.
However unlike our children, the system doesn't seem to want to change to help our all-important clientele. I believe fervently that our antiquated system of under-funded public schools will screech to a halt unless we make our children a priority. I believe that parents are the first and more important teachers. But my students see parental as well as governmental apathy and more times than not, it translates into student apathy. In addition, I have yet to find the teacher that supports the No Child Left Behind Act. I believe entirely that this glossy band-aid comes from the same place as the misguided board members and state and local representatives that have either never taught or are so far removed from the classroom that they don't get it. I'll be forthright that after only five years of teaching, I have much to learn, but I came into this with intellect and energy only to find that nearly tapped out by this point. I believe I could teach for the rest of my life if only I could genuinely teach with the knowledge that our fundamental societal undercurrent was education of the youth of America flexible and entirely less bureaucratic. And so, I believe that unless education is important enough to everyone in the United States and that unless something drastic is done in order to fix our schools, our system of education will stop existing within the next five years. I sincerely hope that I am wrong.
Best regards,
Jon Newton
08/05
Concord, NC