Hey, I am not being a judgemental bastard, I was probably like them as a kid [and I would most certainly be like them as an adult] … the key difference is that way back when I was a kid, apart from that technology not being around, I wasn’t allowed to not be interested.
Yes, that’s right, I was made to appreciate what I was seeing/hearing/experiencing.
And how was I ‘made’ to do that?
Because my parents and teachers made it interesting for me.
It wasn’t a case of being dragged around a museum and told to “look at things”, my parents and teachers told me what I was seeing in a way I could relate to. The history of the work. The reason it should be seen and celebrated. Why I was lucky to experience it.
In other words, they found ways to make me care.
Now I don’t know what it’s like today at public schools – I guess I’ll find out in a few years – but what is seemingly apparent is that the whole purpose of education has got lost along the way.
Not just with students … but with teachers, parents and governments.
In the past, the role of public education was to help build a better society in the future.
It was not just about personal progress, it was about national progress.
As Malcolm Forbes said:
“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one”.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case any more.
Now it seems public education is evaluated on what it costs rather than what it delivers.
Built on minimum standards rather than maximum potential.
In short, it seems we have gone from valuing a society filled with educated people to one that celebrates average.
I would happily pay more taxes to help public education be improved.
To give students better facilities to let them experience more of it.
To give schools better infrastructure to let more people benefit from it.
To give teachers a better salary to ensure talent stays within it.
I would happily pay more taxes to stop parents thinking private education is the only way forward.
To stop universities acting like a business rather than a place of advanced learning.
To stop governments lowering standards so they can use the figures to pretend they care.
To stop councils selling schools because they care more about the value of the land than the value of education.
To stop kids going into a lifetime of debt for a degree that makes a mockery of what a degree used to be.
To stop business alienating against those who don’t go to university.
Quality public education should not be a gift … it should be a right.
Everyone benefits when everyone benefits and so we need to get away from box ticking and averages and get back to finding ways to make people care so they can be better than they thought they could be.
Not just because it will give them advantages in life further down the road, but because it will give advantages to everyone further down the road.
Public education is the last defence against a World of FOX News readers.
If anything should give you a reason to lobby government to treat public education with the respect it deserves, it’s that.