A Jumble of Thoughts on Education Yesterday and Today

For this past week's class I read an article on Helen (Keller). As we all milled around our "cocktail party", introduced ourselves, and told our stories, we came to a realization. As my group talked about the chats we had, we realized that many of the "great Americans" had one thing in common: minimal education. Now, Helen actually did have extensive schooling with a tutor and in actual institutions, but Andrew Jackson, for example, had a lack of learning experiences. I connected it to the time period, and the fact that education was for "rich people." Indeed, most "common" people could not afford school, and so they attended a few years and then fell off the map. So, many of these great Americans we read about came from poor families who could not afford extensive education. Isn't it interesting how someone with that background could become president of the United States? Would our present day society allow a person with little education to be our president? It's an interesting question and concept. I would lean toward NO, but, that brings up other issues that point to me being biased. I acknowledge the fact that I believe most presidents should have a solid education, and that my thinking may be a little swayed. It in no way means, however, that I think people without an education are inferior. It's simply the state of our society, and the fact that many high profile jobs require higher education. You would think presidency would fall into that category.

What has become of our view on education? We believe that people should go on to attain Master Degrees and PhD's...and yet we still allow younger children to slip off the charts and careen toward adding to the dropout rate. So what are we missing here? I think that a lot of Americans have become lazy (which doesn't help our current economic state), and that includes teachers. It is not an easy job, and therefore lazy teachers should be weeded out. These teachers are doing our children a disservice. To tie into the related articles from this week, we must realize that children have the potential to be something great. All it requires is discipline and stamina on the teachers' part. The Americans we read about worked hard to get where they were, jumped many hurdles, and made names for themselves. Things have changed, though, and since education is viewed as the way to success, adults need to start paying better attention the all of their children. We are on a path of segregation and "tracking", so as to put low-functioning students on the low track and high-functioning students on the track to success. We are dictating which students should do what, when in reality, all students should be given equal opportunity and then choose where they want to go from there. I guess education hasn't changed much. Opportunity was awarded to those with money many years ago, and it still is today. It only makes sense that children without good resources become uninterested. Who wouldn't?