Unruly Wisdom

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As a former High-school teacher, I totally agree that one of the keys to solving the current crisis long-term is education. As a grad student I know that our grad-schools are full of foreigners that get funding from our government because there are not enough qualified/interested Americans. We need to save our schools. Our Public Schools.

I know the situation is bad. I know many have chosen to look after their own kids first. I cannot blame them I understand. However, and I do not think that the solution is putting our kids in private schools, or worse home-schooling. I know it is not the rule all the time, but much of the time, families that take their kids out of public schools are particularly involved in their children's lives, they care about the education they are getting. Therefore, leaving a larger population of less-followed kids in schools. Mob mentality takes over easy, majority rules, if most of the class is not interested in learning, or has no drive to do so, then the teacher's job is that much more difficult. If teacher's are focusing primarily on just keeping the class under control, than actual quality-teaching is not happening.

Often times, we think that sending our kids to private schools will give them a better education, or be a better environment. Though in some cases this can be true, I know from direct personal experience it is not necessarily so. In fact, it is much easier to become a private school teacher than a public school teacher, because the bar is lowered. Giving the obvious result of higher odds a teacher in a private school is of a lower quality, possibly even unable to get a job in public school.

Regarding homeschooling. I won't get into a philosophical debate of the reasoning, as that is a whole different can of worms, but it is the reason in my family we do not and will not home-school. However, we could, and not do our girls a disservice. I have a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, an undergraduate degree in Engineering, and a Minor in Mathematics, and my wife has an undergraduate degree in English, and a Minor in Psychology. We feel that combined we are qualified to teach a variety of courses which would cover our girls' educational needs. This is coincidence. Most families do not find themselves in this situation. In fact, there are very few families in which a parent is actually qualified to teach Calculus, Physics, Creative Writing, or senior year English Literature. My poor wife was done this educational injustice, and - outside of her collegiate field of study - there are some gaps of knowledge that should not be.

Lastly, in our house, we believe we have a purpose on this earth. This purpose, to put it briefly, is to witness to the world around us with our love. Public schools are part of that world around us. We do our best to impart a Bible-based education at home, and let the girl's teachers do the rest. We do keep up with what Natalie is learning in school, and up to this point, her teachers have been spectacular...then again, she is only 5. We plan to be completely involved in our girls' educations, as it is something very important to us. But this education has to fall into our perceived purpose. I believe that if we Christians filled public schools with our kids, and were involved in that education, we would see significant changes in our country.

To close this off, I thought this song was appropriate!