The problem with public education

Don't get excited. There are too many problems with public education to be addressed in one little blog entry. I have answers, but not all of them. I am a classroom teacher so I have a unique perspective. I see kids daily and talk to kids daily. I'm going to call myself an expert. What I see is a world where we give lip service to the impotance of education, but fail to act in ways that put that declaration into action. We claim education is important but we betray that claim through our actions. My school is a middle class/upper middle class school. Ask students at my school if they get newspapers or magazines at home and the answer is overwhelmingly no. An educated populace is a reading populace and kids don't see their families modeling reading. Kids are kean observers of what adults think is important and what they're observing doesn't convince them that education is important. As an aside.....I asked students three questions today. Do you have a cell phone? Do you sleep with your cell phone? Have you ever texted someone in the middle of the night? Of those students who have cell phones, 75 percent sleep with them and 67 percent text in the middle of the night. How's that for a cultural shift and do you think parents approve of this. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone