This is my blog. It is my opinion, if you disagree, too bad.
Last night (Sunday) I was reading about some problems with todays public education system. It was from varied perspectives, from former students to former educators.
The former student was considered a nerd. He also hung out with the freaks (the pot-heads and what not.) They weren't part of the popular (football/cheerleading) crowd, and as a result were lambasted for it.
They didn't do as well in school as they could have, because it wasn't interesting to them. The skills they needed to succeed (good test-taking) don't really apply in the real world.
I totally agree with that. For me, that is totally true. I was good at tests, but I enjoyed my computer hardware class and robotics the most because they taught me something useful. How to repair computers and how to build a machine that does a task for you. Robotics taught me principles of design (prototyping, planning, etc.) that I use today in SE classes. Those same SE classes also focus on real world skills. My Personal SE class has a large focus on learning how to learn new languages and adapt quickly and be productive, which is why we're learning C.
The other thing that bothered me about public schools, and also the former educator, was the fact that public schools are run almost like prisons. Many teachers don't seem to take a care about their students, cliques and gangs form based off of color (my own high school is guilty of this (linky.)
Why does this happen? I'm not sure why those kids are so angry. And its probably the case that there is some sort of racism, but not like Jim Crow stuff. I think its because the kids in my hometown that end up in those gangs come from the less richer parts of the town. It's just the way the town is broken up. Because those kids are from less rich places, they don't get the same clothes that the "preppy" kids wear and things just divide there. They listen to different types of music, dress differently, and some even speak different languages as they come from immigrant families and may/may not be legal in the US. But even with all that, there is no reason to be angry at each other.
If the whites think the Spanish and minorities are taking all the jobs, maybe its because the whites are just to lazy and the minorities need the money while the whites really don't because they come from those richer families.
I think the other reason is their age. I'm only 19, and I'm into my second year at college, but when I go home I can see the difference in the maturity levels of the students. I guess its something you don't notice while you are there because its so gradual. You've grown up in it. But then you get out, have to kinda fend for yourself at college, cause mommy and daddy aren't there all the time, and now you've got some sort of contrast and you look back and realize that it's all just a big popularity contest. They are all focused on short term goals of being better looking than the next kid, and having more friends. Trust me, when you get to college, you see who your real friends are. I know at least for me, I don't keep in touch with many kids from back home. Sometimes I say hi, but I don't know what's going on in their lives like I did.
I recently read that something around 18% of people actually make it out of college with a BS degree. But what are the other 82% of people doing? I know in my hometown only a few of us went to schools that would be considered envious to go to. According to facebook there's 199 people from my class that made it. Most of those 199 kids are somewhere in the SUNY system. The rest are in a handful of schools (St Joes, RIT, Mt. St. Mary.) And I'm not even sure how many are going to make it all the way through.
Now in my graduating class we started out near 700. (I believe i was ranked 42/640 at the end of Junior Year.) We graduated 540, so we lost 120 kids to drop-outs and left-backs. But now where's those 340 kids left over that didn't make it? Some are probably at SUNY Suffolk but can't afford a computer / don't have internet access. But that's surely not all, so obviously somewhere those kids have just dissappeared into "the workforce." And this is in one of the "better" schools on Long Island.
Which actually makes me wonder, how is all of this related to the budget cuts and subsequent lack of activites for students to engage themselves in? I wonder if anyone has done a study about this, if not I propose it as a research project for one of carpluks research kids (if that didn't get cut, that is.) They should take a look at number of programs available, total budget that is dedicated to programs, total budget, total budget for salaried teachers, total budget for administrators, and also the number of fights that go on, number of suspensions (both ISS and OSS). My guess is that these numbers will not favor spending more money to solve the problems.
The hard thing is, I did a calculation last year to see how much I would need to make to buy a decent house on Long Island and still live a comfortable life. I was looking in the $400,000 dollar range. That might seem like a lot to some people, but remember this is Long Island where a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 2 story with unfinished basement on 3/4 acre goes for $300,000. When I was done with the calculation, I realized I would need to make around $90,000 a year to afford everything I was looking at. The thing is, not even my family makes that much. Between both of my parents, they make close to $80,000. So, obviously its not that easy to acheive.
So, obviously we've got a lot of people on Long Island that can't make the cut for money necessary to live nicely. And I think that's part of the reason why there's so much anger. It possibly stems from jealousy of those in the upper-middle class. I'm curious to find out who was suspended at my high school and see where they are from, because it may be a clue as to the cause of the problems at my school.
That's all I got.
kids beat each other cause their skin is different.
Back to my ADD.
©2006 Ed Lennon