EDUCATION OR LACK OF IT STINKS

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of all the Bravo Sierra about how to improve education in our school systems? The answer to how to teach is so simple I am perplexed and disgusted at the many and sundry methods that don't work proposed by so called experts. Let's look at a few.

First, there is the spend more money solution. Balderdash. North Carolina is already spending approximately $11,000 per student and is accomplishing virtually nothing. If money were the answer then we would have the most brilliant and well education children in the world. But it is not so.

Second, add more days of instruction to the already too long school year. Nonsense. If the students were being taught now, we would not need more days.

Third, pay the teachers more so we could get the best. Nuts. Many of the teachers are intelligent and capable but aren't allowed to teach but were not taught how to present their lessons in an interesting and palatable manner.

Fourth, Give the educators more electronic tools. Screwy. We are gadget heavy now. Too much technology destroys the ability to think.

A few years ago I was working as a substitute teacher with a student teacher as my aid. As an aside, I asked the student teacher if it would be difficult to teach if she didn't have a computer, Smart Board, or other devices? Her answer: "difficult?", "I could not do it." Incidentally, she was very intelligent, just undereducated.

I asked another teacher if she preferred writing her own tests or using the ones in the teachers aids. Her reply: "I never write my own tests." How can an educator educate if they do not know their students better than an academic in some ivory tower writing tests and books without contact with the real world? One size does not fit all.

Fifth: "Green Stuff." We need to dump this environmental brainwashing that wastes major amounts of instructional time.

Sixth: Don't worry about Americanism, it's archaic. Hogwash. Our students and teachers are pathetically ignorant on the history of our country and the Constitution. Without understanding our heritage we as free Americans will be a historical bullet point and we will be relegated to servants of a tyrannical government.

I am presently conducting a survey in which I ask one question; "who is our current vice-president?" The result at this point is: 98% DO NOT know the answer.

I have mentioned six things that don't work. Now for the simple solutions. Teach teachers to teach, make sure they know their subject, fire those who don't perform, hold parents accountable (make it hurt if they are lazy), teach morality (don't give me that junk about it being unconstitutional), and enact discipline on students whose objective it is to cause others to fail.

Finally: The "Special Ed" students are getting good attention and help and the top IQ students can get it even with poor teachers, but the ones in the middle are getting the shaft and it's the fault of screwed up politically correct governments (federal, state, and local), liberal universities, lazy parents, undereducated teachers, and brain dead school boards just to name a few.