Blame The Public School System!

Let me start by stating the obvious.  You don’t have to get good grades in school to be successful in life.  The question I pose is this:  are U.S. children being raised in such a way that prepares them for today’s world?  Do they obtain the tools they need, per their education, to be successful in life?  Let’s keep this discussion as an overview, and not focus on individual sects of society.  As a whole, are we raising our children so as to give them a “leg-up”, or are we handicapping them right out of the gate?

When I graduated college, I substitute taught for several months.  I only taught high school once, which was all it took to realize I never wanted to do it again; elementary suited me better.  During my stint as an educator, I continually compared what I needed to know to get by in this world, to the curriculum the students were being fed.  I understand that children need to learn the basics:  math, reading, etc.  Children need these building blocks without a doubt, and the school system provides them those blocks, most of the time.  The problem I see is a lack of application.  I argue that we’re not teaching the children to apply what they learn, for use in everyday life.

For example:  I learned math in school.  I loved math, it may have been the only subject I truly enjoyed.  What I didn’t learn, was how to budget my money!  I was never taught some of the most important things in life, like how to budget, how to secure a mortgage, how to prepare for retirement, how to compartmentalize my money so I could live below my means, and not live pay-check to pay-check.   How many people reading this feel differently?

So why the title of this article?  Good question.  I titled this article to point out a major flaw in our country’s thought process; that thought process is the belief that public educators are responsible for teaching our children life’s most important lessons!  Teaching these lessons is not the job of the public school system!!  It’s the job of parents!!

Parents should be taking the foundation a public education provides, and using it as a springboard to teach their children how to get along in this world.  One day as a substitute, a parent was outside my classroom at the end of the day, waiting there to scold me for sending her child to the office.  She didn’t want to know what he did, and couldn’t care less really.  She was simply there to chew me out for disciplining her child.  She informed me that I simply must not have been entertaining her child well enough.  What?  You crazy lady, I’m not here to entertain your child!  I’m here to give him the building blocks he needs to be successful in life; those same blocks that you’re supposed to use to enable him with more pointed, pertinent knowledge.  Ughhh!

Sadly, after speaking with many educators, this is not such an uncommon thought pattern among parents today.  Thanks a lot Jerry Springer! 

My point in this article is to urge parents to stop blaming the public school system, and start educating your own child.  School is not a day-care, it’s a system for giving children the basic skills they need to be successful in life.  Honing those skills is the responsibility of the parents!

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