I am so filled with the joy of knowing that more children are getting a chance to experience learning in an environment like we had during the 1950s. I remember the 1960s when liberals became anti-war and drug users, hiding in college and attacking everything that made America Great. Too many of them stayed in college and became teachers at universities where they shared their hatred of America. The same country that provided a very good life with so many opportunities.
Those professors passed their lies and mistrust to many students that would become teachers in our public schools. The most liberal of those teachers would become school principals, administrators, or members of the school boards. Those school boards would begin to fix our public schools by implementing radical changes that only created problems where none existed. Education took a back seat to social changes and school funding followed. Each new presidential administration would bring more social changes to education with more strings attached to require that the changes be implemented or lose funding.
Any references to God were replaced by social doctrines that many times went against the family structure. The teachers would spend more time each year in classes that dealt more with politics than teaching the children. The basics that our children needed were sometimes replaced with ideas and concepts not useful to their growth and future. The Federal money with the strings brought more “standard” tests that the districts and teachers would be judged by rather than the real growth in knowledge of the students.
A question I have posed for many years is: “If no one is learning, is anyone teaching?” My point is that results is always the only thing that matters. Children are different and have different levels of abilities, but they all excel at something. God provides that and the challenge is to find that and use it to motivate the child to work harder in the other areas by recognizing their strong points. Develop the attitude, the desire to learn, and to know others care about how well they do. And all of you teachers are saying, I do that. Does your district make that the priority?
After 30 years of teaching in public schools, 15 as a GT Specialist, with all of the resources and benefits of large districts with funding for all of the outside-of-the-classroom activities, my daughter is now teaching in a different environment now. A place where God is welcome and discussed a place where motivation is very important, and a place where students get a chance to learn their leadership abilities. Both teamwork and individual abilities are encouraged to accomplish good grades and also to be good citizens.
Teachers have never been overpaid and teachers working in this type of school make even less with very few benefits. I am happy to see my daughter excited to teach in this new environment, minus the school politics.
