Failing

Today I was subbing for a high school math class, and the teacher had posted his students' grades on the wall.  Of course I looked at them.   Half of his students are failing.  Literally failing.   F.

Students who were in danger of not graduating had to sign letters today notifying them of that fact.  Half of the class signed the papers.

We are in trouble here folks.

And I don't have the answers.   But I do know that for many, many reasons there are thousands and thousands of students who are not taking their educations seriously.  Maybe that has always been the case.  But in the past, the alternative to school was hard work: farm labor, hours in a factory, paper routes.  Today, the alternative to taking education seriously seems to be to sit in school for hours at a time in a perpetual daze. 

A daze is good - it doesn't generate too much attention, it doesn't get in trouble and it doesn't require too much energy.

So, I watch these kids who are not taking their lives seriously and I KNOW that there are so many kids in this world who for whatever reason - poverty, illness, war - are unable to go to school.   And some of those disadvantaged kids are doing everything that they can to educate and improve themselves.  They want to make something of their lives.   They envy the kids in school.

While at the same time, so many of the kids in upper middle class America, who have every opportunity, throw it all away every single day.

And the kids who are doing well in school?  Those kids are diminished by the thousands of their peers who just don't give a damn.  It takes a village, and if half the village can't communicate effectively or do simple math, everyone suffers.

We are in trouble because so many of our kids are choosing not to learn.  We are in bigger trouble because our culture will let them make that choice.