education in America

Dear Clifford,

 

We are in more agreement than disagreement Clifford.  But I see education as a Right, not a privilege.  And as a Right, it carries with it all of the conditions that go with protecting our Rights.  Education should be a Right that is provided to all who accept the responsibilities of applying their time, energy and attention.  Education must take on the responsibility of setting conditions for students to succeed.  But it must also set conditions to allow those who are not succeeding in the mainstream to move to alternative tracks, as Clifford suggests.  We cannot allow our educational system to cast students aside as failures or misfits.  Turning our backs and washing our hands of them will only come back to haunt us.  But we cannot continue to pretend that we can have one big school that meets every Childs needs.  And that is the place where I differ with those who say "throwing money" will not solve the problem. 

Money is critical to quality education.  But not without a major change in our approach to Education, as suggested above.  But money allows us to bring together enough trained teachers to work with smaller groups of children, ending the "warehousing" conditions that exist in many of today's schools.  It allows us to put up facilities that suggest to children that they really matter, rather than signaling to them through the crumbling, drafty, poorly equipped, over crowded buildings, that this is all they have to look forward to. 

Where the money comes from is another battle, but money must come from somewhere.  We have always had enough money to support dictators and despots in far off places, and to fight endless wars that are supposed to protect these very children now being neglected.  But only we, the people can determine how best to spend, or allow our money to be spent.  What I know from my years on this planet is that money does buy quality education.  Go to any private school in a wealthy neighborhood.  Go to an Ivy League school.  Look about you and then wander into the ghetto and tour the Consolidated School, and travel on over to the public college.  After viewing the physical condition of the facilities, look at the faces and body language of the students. 

The confidence and hope and excitement that we saw in the Ivy League and private schools are not in existence in the poor public schools. 

And this is where so many of our blind children find themselves.  Plodding along, almost without hope.  Treated as castoffs.  Looked upon as a waste of time and money.  Too costly to educate.  A poor investment.  Wards of the State. 

We blind people, along with All Americans, deserve the Right to the same education as do the wealthiest of our people.  We are Damn well worth it.  And it will take money and more right thinking teachers. 

 

Curious Carl