Fight For Education

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Fight For Education

Current mood:  determined

Category: School, College, Greek

An education is worth fighting for.

(Read only if A- you are passionate about education and B- you want your eyeballs to fall out by the end of this blog)

It is also a cause that is definitely worth working towards and fulfilling for your goals.

I was just watching Leno tonight, on the 5th year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and his guests were most interesting.

His first guest, actor James Woods, discussed how a few weeks prior to the attacks he was on his way to Boston via airplane and noticed a few suspicious men and told a stewardess that he felt that these men were going to hijack the plane. The stewardess agreed with him and mentioned that she had felt the same. A report was made. And guess what?

Nothing was done about it.

It turned out that some of the suspicious looking men on the plane were later involved in the attacks. Something could have been done about this, but as I've mentioned many times before, things happen for reasons.

Leno's other guest was Charlie Rose. For those of you familiar with him, he regularly hosts a talk show on PBS which airs late at night.

(I think all people should become familiar with him - instead of watching that s**t on MTV or whatever else they see fit to call "reality" TV. I'm sorry, that's NOT reality. If you want to watch real people toiling for things in their lives, take a step outside your front door. Go volunteer in the city or at a soup kitchen. All those floozys are going to end up dying of some funky venereal disease anyways since they sleep around with their co-stars and everyone under the sun and it might as well be you, that is, if you're wanting to be on "Real Life". RL my @$$!)

Okay, so I'm sorry. I got myself off on a tangent and now I'm back on track.

Charlie Rose was saying that ignorance of certain topics in one's life is what brews small, close mindedness of the world around people. Especially if they don't take the steps to better their own education. He mentioned that this hatred that all the terrorists have towards Westerners is due to their ignorance of the world around them, i.e. LACK OF PROPER EDUCATION.

I agree with Mr. Rose. I believe that all people should be educated to a point. That way everyone can be a happy camper and we can all sing campfire songs and eat marshmallows and make smores all day long.

For us here in the US, basic education is mandatory from the age of 5 up until the age of 16. (Unless if they've changed the laws again in certain states, so correct me if I'm wrong, please)

A lot of kids don't go because either their parents cannot afford even a simple public education or their parents simply don't care. Which is sad.

A few weeks ago, I was at home alone watching a HBO documentary of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans. One of the "topics" covered in Spike Lee's "When The Levee's Broke" was about the public schooling system in New Orleans. Before Katrina hit, New Orleans' schools were some of the WORST in the country, with low test scores and not a very high turnout percentage for high school graduates. And even now that it's been a year later since the disaster, schools are not opening like they should on time, there's still low turnout which is due to the fact that not very many people have returned to NO's.

In fact, I think a lot of low test scores and high drop out rates hit home for a lot of Southern and Southwestern states, but it doesn't just affect those regions of the country. It's EVERYWHERE.

Right now, since I'm back at home and spending time with my many neices and nephews, I've taken it upon myself to tutor them on their schooling. My sister Ana says that I should become a teacher, to which I reply - "I'd probably bring out a shotgun and shoot all the brats."

"You're patient with kids and you're highly intelligent about subjects that I can't remember"

My second oldest neice is starting her freshman year of high school. She called me up last week to ask if I could please help her with her homework. So of course I said yes.

I went over to her house and she was working on geography. Which is my FAVORITE subject of all time. So I didn't waste any time with her. She kept asking me questions, and I answered them for her, but then it occurred to me. These questions were not refresher questions. These were questions in earnest.

"Nené," which happens to be a nickname she bestowed upon me. "What's a mountain range?"

I laughed because I thought she was being funny. But she looked at me in all seriousness.

"Mel," I replied with shock all over my face. "Are you telling me that you don't know any of these terms?"

Sadly, she shook her head no.

I immediately went about by first going out to my car and grabbing my atlas out of the car. What can I say? I REALLY love geography. We went over it and kept going over her homework until she could somewhat memorize what certain terms were.

Now, this is going to sound biased and perhaps mean of me, especially being her aunt. I really wonder if what she's telling me about her teachers teaching subjects like Geography and History for the first time are really true, or if she's just not paying attention in class. Compared to her little brother, who sucks up all the knowledge I give to him like a sponge, Mel has no desire for book learning. She's an intelligent girl, but I don't think that classroom learning is her thing.

Now of course, I also believe that any single person can achieve an education outside of the classroom. I mean, how the hell did schools start anyways?

Outside of a stuffy building.

For my religious counterparts, God taught Adam all he needed to know outside in that nice Garden.

For example, slaves in the South during the times of slavery could make the most amazing calculations in their head about how many grains of wheat or bushels of tobacco could make money. They weren't allowed to read or write, so what else could they do?

Or the poor and other lowly (poor Creoles, Indigenous folk, and slaves in Latin America) could pick up languages without cracking open a book. Like "La Malinche" - what an impressive brain that woman had! Being part of the Aztec people in common day Mexico and only speaking Nahuatl, then picking up the Maya language and then Spanish. Amazing!

I remember switching from a private to a public school in the 7th grade. My former school had been a nice one, but lacking in some areas like Math and Science. My first year at public school was a little difficult for me since I was way behind on those two particular subjects.

However, when it came to history, geography, English and foreign languages, my fellow classmates called me "the Smart Girl"

"Ask Ren what it is because she'll know what this, that and the next thing"

I think all subjects are equally important for everyone to learn. Not just here in the US, but EVERYWHERE in the world.

Even though the US may be a world power, or THE world power, our knowledge of the outside world is limited to some folks here in the US. I've met some people that have never even left the COUNTY that they were born in and have no knowlege of anything else outside of their "little glen"

Also, our lack of knowledge of foreign languages is EMBARRASING! Most Europeans or South Americans - hell! A TON of people are "polyglots" - people who speak more than three languages. Did you know that in India, that there are over 18 official languages, English being one of them?

My friend Ken complained to me one day about having to call Bank of America and having to press 1 for English. "Dude, it's not, like, fair! This is America, we speak English here"

Well, a lot of other countries speak English too, but do you realize we as Americans don't reciprocate the favor of learning other languages?

It irks me to see American tourists not even attempt to learn some words of the language used by the host country they are visiting. Drives me nuts! If I went to Japan, I would make an attempt to say "Konnichiwa" or "Domo origato" (Hello and Thank You).

We are a country of immigrants, a country where languages first melted together into certain dialects and then those same immigrants learned English, which as everyone knows is the official language. The English language itself is a conglomerate of French, German, Spanish and a whole bunch of other languages. Did you know that either?

And then when it comes time for college.

Those stupid standardized tests! NOT ALL SCHOOLS IN THE US ARE TAUGHT IN THE SAME MANNER!!!!!!!!

Why can't anyone figure this out? Why don't they go ahead and make tests that reflect each students abilities or just abolish them alltogether.

I understand that not everyone can have a chance for education, but somebody ought to start a united front for the fight for education.

My snobbiness will come through in a second when I honestly say that I will not seriously date a guy unless I can talk to him on an intellectual level. So I've begun to reserve that aspect of my life for the older guys who have Master's or PhD's or who have extensively traveled.

That's not to say that regular Americans have nothing to talk about. It's just that I'm cultured way beyond what they are used to, so when I sit with some of my friends, old and new, or my past boyfriends, we have nothing to talk about or nothing in common. Spending time with them becomes cumbersome.

All of this lengthy blog to say that I think the US needs to step up its standards for education and focus more on the innercity and poorer schools. People need to learn more about the world around them and learn a few languages.

Communication and education are key!