I spent the first half of my day today teaching a middle school geography class. About an hour into my day I was sitting at my desk wondering to myself about the future of our society. Think about it for a second…these kids are our future. They are going to be the ones running this nation someday. They are going to be the ones in charge and half of them can’t even write a complete sentence. I was talking about Columbus today and one student asked if he was the one that discovered how to make ice cream. The kicker is that she was completely serious. How on earth can you not have ever heard of Columbus before?? I also taught a high school bio class for three weeks and discovered more than half my kids can’t write a complete thought or read a paragraph. I had a fourth year Freshman in my class. That’s right…he was 18 and still in 9th grade. He was too busy getting into fights after school and trying to flirt with his teacher to learn how to spell his own name correctly. Yeah, he’s the kind of guy I want around…
It terrifies me that our school district passes these students and lets them graduate when they can’t even perform the simplest of tasks. I can’t completely place the blame on the schools and the students though. Parents have just as much to do with it as anyone else. I think a lot of these kids just don’t get the support and motivation from their families. Either their parents are never home, or they just don’t care. I understand there are a lot of parents that aren’t home because they are working multiple jobs to pay the bills, but there has to be some sort of a good influence in these kids’ lives somewhere whether it be parents, grandparents, or even just friends. These kids need motivation to succeed in life. Many of them are only settling on just getting by. How do we, as educators, motivate them to become more and actually shoot for the stars?
The excuse that I have heard the most is, “I just can’t do it.” That right there is a crock of crap. I honestly believe that one can do anything he sets his mind to. If you really want it, go get it. These kids are held back though. It’s uncool to be somewhat intelligent these days. Instead, kids want to go out and have sex and get all tattooed up because that’s what the media says is cool. Where are the positive role models? Where is the discipline? What ever happened to kids coming home from school and playing outside with their friends?Geeze. When I was a kid, not too long ago, I never worried about sex or drugs. I worried about getting good grades and what college I was going to go to. These days kids just want to grow up too fast. They don’t realize they’ll miss being a kid when they get older.
Getting back to my first thought…I pondered the thought of these kids taking over the world when I am older, and I was genuinely frightened. Now I know all the kids aren’t that bad, but a good chunk of them are. Who else worries about this kind of stuff? Am I just crazy? Then it also makes me wonder if I can really even mae a difference as an educator, but that’s a whole other story.
