On my way out

Before anyone else reads this, please realize that there are multiple sides to the story and that I may not have all the facts. My English teacher, a well-respected teacher among students (I cannot speak from a teacher’s pov but I’m sure he is well-respected among them as well!), has informed me of different versions of the facts than a few other, well-respected (among the students) teachers’  have informed me of. Perhaps not all is true but the point remains – while some children know from day one what they want to do for the rest of their life, not all children will know by high school. Anyone heard of the undeclared major in college?

Also, not to say as though I have lost my head as it is fully intact, though perhaps a little droopy at such hours in the morning, but all things being said here are not for the disrespect of my school district, rather, a few things that I should have said long ago but only now felt I could voice coherently. Which is ironic becaues my words are anything but coherent.

For the past four years ,I have been attending a school that is losing it’s grasp on the legacy it once had. For the past for years, I have watched as administrators and teachers baby students and force them in the wrong direction. For the past four years, I have been losing my mind. From all of this though, I am convinced that my class, the class of 2010 can rise from the ashes. While on the one hand, I hope that we are the last class that comes out with minimal causalities but on the other hand, I hope that the students left in the decaying integrity of a once proud school can take their education into their own hands and stand up for themselves. What’s happening in this school district, and to school districts around the nation, is administrators and governors hoping to fulfill themselves with winning grant money that rewards superficial success.

Forcing thirteen and fourteen-year-old’s to choose their life paths at a young age discourages creativity and it diminishes their options for the future. Forcing them into academies at a public school, that hardly meets the criteria for  ‘hospitality and tourism’ and ‘communication’ academies is certainly not a way a school should go about winning government money. All that is doing is stroking the administrations and state governments ego by saying they have ‘academies’ which sounds so prestigious but don’t amount to anything. None of this is being done for the betterment of the education of America or for the students in the school. If a parent wants their child enrolled in a career oriented academy or if the child wants it his/herself, they can ask for it and be sent to schools that specialize in those areas. Sending kids to a public school is not the option for that. If you want your kid to have ample opportunity to try different things and see what they like, public school is the route one should take. However, academies discourage this experimentation and dabbling in the different subject areas. A kid who thinks he wants to be an artist in 8th grade could later find out in Physics I and II that he has a passion for Physics would have never known this since he was pushed into the Fine Arts academy, consisting of classes one would think are on the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Physics. When, in reality, intelligence is most often seen across the curriculum. Students who excel at English often excel at Math and Science too. Intelligence isn’t usually seen in one subject – though there ample amounts of savants out there, no one will deny that.  But studies have shown that intelligence isn’t (only) seen in one subject matter.

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to post this today. I had different intentions, I intended to rant about how the public education system is flawed because there are teachers who rant and complain about students not finishing work on time (work that can only be done in school) but when the students do have the time and go to do the work, the teacher locks them out and doesn’t let them in. Instead, he stares at them from his classroom, vacant but serious look on his face and subsequently perpetuates this lack of finished work and his own anger from the unfinished work. If you want students to finish their work, let them, don’t waste their time.

But because of this, I have recently decided to engage in brutal honesty, something I’ve adopted recently as a senior. I’ve always been the type to be brutally honest with those around me but never my teachers – I always sought to avoid conflict and to appease them. But now, not having a care in the world because I am finally leaving my school, I can be honest. And that is what I intend to be. My First Amendment Rights Don’t Cease To Exist Just Because I Enter A School Building.

Thank you.