By Eugenia Dickerson


Teachers these days face a constant struggle to balance how to achieve their objective of educating our students with the difficulty of not being funded. From drawing adding and subtracting fractions worksheets on their own paper and printing them with their own ink to purchasing textbooks for students with out of pocket money, our teachers are facing a problem of enormous scope. Being satisfied with what they receive is not often how they are reaching this objective and many are showing huge amounts of ingenuity and creativity.

The American education system has broken. After decades of serving pupils that turned out to be engineers, doctors, scientists and teachers of the highest caliber, it has now become a system that caters to laziness and excuses poor performance. Our students are no longer competitive in the world and it is being reflected by the fact that our country is becoming less competitive.

Many teachers are using creativity to fill the gap. By creating supplies that can be recycled or reused by class after class, they allow for a windfall where what money they do receive can be used more wisely. Homemade teaching tools are becoming the standard for education, not the exception.

Why should a company pay good wages to an American who doesn't understand simple math when they can hire someone from Shanghai who has all the advantages of a great education and a work ethic to match? The answer is that they shouldn't. It's arrogant for us to think of ourselves as more deserving and stupid for us to expect employers to accept second rate employees and work just to ensure that our people are made more comfortable in the extravagant lives that they already live, comparatively speaking.

Does this ignorance reflect stupidity, apathy, indifference or even all three? It's unthinkable to consider that nobody cares. It's horrifying to think that the responsibility that mankind used to feel for improving constantly has been replaced by the hope that "someone else will do it". What will happen to us as a nation and even as a world if we stop trying to improve?

It's no secret that America has fallen on hard times. It's also no surprise. If we continue to allow other countries to become better educated, they will continue to take jobs and money away from the United States' economy. The dollar's value will continue to fall and smarter countries like China, for example will continue to become more profitable.

Our priorities need to be straightened out. We must allow for more money to be channeled into the primary education of our students. What they choose to do with that education is and always will be up to the individual but the empowerment to allow for better choices is no longer an option but rather, a necessity.

It's time that we allow our children to form those fond memories of multiplication tables, adding and subtracting fractions worksheets and long division. Those things form the basis for a strong education and a strong ability to be competitive in a global economy. We need to empower the future generations with the ability to be great.




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