How Can We Build to Last?

Since my days as a Journalism major, when I realized just how toxic our media can be, I have made it a point to not watch television journalists when I can help it. So I switched my major to education, and in the last couple of years I have realized just how nauseating politics is. How deep the corruption runs and how strong the bureaucracy stands. So I have made it a point not to listen to politicians either. In Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Neil Postman talks about the problems facing our education system. He says schools are in the business of "creating eager consumers, "of transmitting dead ideas, values, metaphors and [irrelevant] information," and that they produce "smoothly functioning bureaucrats" that "undermine our chances of surviving as a viable democratic society." I think that sums up our current system pretty well, and that's sad. What's even sadder is that this book was written in 1968.

Most recently I have decided I can't afford to "sit the bench" of the political spectrum. I need to know what's being said and done and vice versa. So I listened to the State of the Union for the first time in years. I would first like to commend our commander in chief for being so eloquent and for what I think overall was an accurate picture of America and a bold plan for what lies ahead. A lot of what he said was idealistic and romantic and probably a lot of it will not happen, but we are in a time that demands idealism. As an education major I can tell you that we need to be idealistic, because the alternative is what your looking at today, and it's seemingly hopeless.

Mostly, I want to applaud President Obama for what he said regarding education. Of the hour and ten minute speech the portion of education was about 2 min, and that is heartbreaking on a lot of levels. But it's also about 2 minutes more than the average GOP candidate is willing to devote to education. Obama praised good teachers (and I thank him for that) saying "a good teacher can raise the lifetime income of a classroom by $250,000." He talked about the excruciating hours, the "modest" pay, spending their own money for resources and the regular "bashing" that goes on in todays media. He came out and said "Teachers Matter!" That's awesome. However he also said some misleading things as well. Such as "we have problems in our education system and we know how to fix them," and "Let's offer schools a deal: give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job and reward the best ones." First, I do no believe that the minds in charge of this country know how to fix the education system. If they do, they simply do not care. Because if NCLB and Race to the Top are their best efforts and their "solutions," than we are in trouble. Second, I am all in favor of a reward system that benefits great teachers and gets rid of the bad ones. The question is, how do we measure success? He does not say it in his speech, but Obama's plan for "rewarding great teachers" is rooted solely in standardized tests. The very thing that says we need to stop teaching towards.

The title of Obama's SOTU was Build to Last America. That's a great title. America is often so concerned with the short term fix. What's the fastest way to see results? What that leads to is disasters like the demise of the housing market and bills like No Child Left Behind. High risk loans and test scores are a really FAST way to see results, but they don't benefit anyone long term. I'm not a political analyst, but I liked a lot of what Obama had to say, because he admitted that our nation is somewhat broken, and there is a divide that needs to be fixed. I have a friend who I value a lot. She's teaching in the same building as me this semester and she's amazing at it. But she's also discouraged. Because she looks around at the system and the leaders and the professionals already in the field of education and she feels hopeless. She told me she's thinking about ditching teaching and becoming a missionary because that's a field where she actually feels like she can make a difference. Thats the cost of a broken system.

We cannot afford to lose passionate, honest people of any profession to hopelessness. Because without passion, we can't build anything. So I really urge you to vote this election. Look at each candidate, listen to their views and research every issue that matters to you and vote for a person, not a party.