When does the vicious circle stop? People have often said "life goes around in circles... when things get so wrong, they start getting right again."
Automatically? It might be too late for the type of formal education I received growing up.
In the era of political correctness, which tries to excise any mention of religion from the conversation lest a war of words & actions flares up, I will abide by the times by only mentioning I went through private (pre-charter school era) schools from first through twelfth grade. Take away the peer teasing (my early Achilles heel) and I reflect on those times as some of the most rewarding of my life.
The Detroit Archdiocese, battling budget problems for years, plans to close fifteen more private schools by the end of this term, including one in Riverview and one in Wyandotte, precariously close to my hometown. I know them well, and it upset me when I found they were among the targets. Chances to save these schools are deep: one school has raised $25,000 of the approximate $110,000 needed just to keep the school open for 2007-2008.
The $110,000 deadline: Monday. Bless all those who contributed, but that mountain looks impossibly steep to climb, especially when you consider how poor off most Michigan workers are.
And so here we go with the vicious circle previously mentioned: Workers are already poor in the pockets. Next, the knowledge quality goes down significantly, continuing a trend. You can imagine what this will do to the skill level & confidence of the future workers of the world. What if they're ill-prepared to work the jobs waiting for them?
I remember slacking off, both in grades & personal conduct, in junior high school. Tuition, while tame then compared to now, still comprised a hefty chunk of the household budget. Be it due to that fact, or just for an intimidation factor, my mother used to threaten to pull me out of the private school and put me in the public school system.
It worked as an intimidation factor for me, as I would hustle and reverse my skidding grades by the end of the term. I had heard so many negative stories about how the public schools didn't care; that they turned a blind eye to fistfights, and casual tobacco & drug use. Is this really the environment I was ready for?
Absolutely not! There was a certain comfort level in attending the school I went to. The teachers cared. There were parent-teacher-student-principal bonds built on a natural scale that I know public schools could not duplicate. You were treated to a full education and a full life experience going there. You lacked confidence, they built it up. If caught doing wrong, you were told the moral implications of the deed as well as paying the penalty with detention. The staff really wanted to see the entire person move ahead, not just the scholastic individual.
The public schools were only interested in graduating out one group of people in order to bring another one in. Failures in life were not their fault - the kids were seen as numbers, not individuals. This would grow into a lot of the ineptitude that we see at places like McDonalds these days.
I worked my butt off at reversing myself because, yes, I was in a comfort zone. But it was for my own good to stay there, in spite of the rising costs. I like the kind of person that I am, and I don't think the public school system would have done the job.
But it's coming at a cost of lower enrollment and skyrocketing tuition rates in 2007 that may never be reversed. And the capacity for greater learning could downturn right along with it.
Makes me wish there really was a money-tree species growing amongst us.
