School

Last night I went to a PTA meeting at school because they are about to cut a few more positions in the main office and a few of the parents standing outside corralled me into going. Last year they had to pink slip some of the teachers and this spring they will have to cut a few more. Teachers. Because there is not enough money to pay them. Usually I hear about this kind of thing and I’m only half listening, but when I think about some of the big stories in the news lately: the growth of the tea party movement, bullying, the development of social networks (which some people aptly call anti-social networks) I can’t help seeing a connection to our schools. Out of 30 developed countries, the US ranks 25 in math and 21 in science. How can that be? We’re so competitive and aggressive, if people only knew about these stats, we would be ashamed, and if we were ashamed we would want to kick some ass, and if we wanted to kick some ass, we would want to come from behind and score some goals and teach our kids better so they could be #1. Or at least in the goddam running. Yes! But there’s no superbowl for schools, there’s no 24 hour talk radio station endlessly and tirelessly going over teacher plans, math concepts, historical connections, books, READING. No, there are just pink slips and budget cuts and tired people who send their kids to private school.

The one category US kids ranked highest in, was self-confidence. (In my mind I just jumped off a table saying HELL YEAH #1 and then headbutted the wall). Confidence means literally: with belief. I like that we believe in ourselves, but self-confidence without merit equals loudmouth, uneducated, bully.

Both of my Grandmothers were teachers. One of them, Mary, lived in the same town where she had taught (before I came along), and I can remember going to the grocery store or to the bank or to the beach and random people would come up to her and say Hi Mrs. Lewis, I’m So and so Biddyhoo, you were my fifth grade teacher, I’ll never forget you, and then they’d recite a poem she had forced them to memorize or recall something they had learned from her and inevitably she’d remember their name or something about them 5 minutes after they said goodbye to each other, and I remember feeling proud and slightly confused like she had an entire life before she was Nana. It’s hard to talk about how important teachers are without sounding corny or obvious. I know teachers have a hard job, I know they don’t get paid enough, I know they’re expected to teach boring and necessary things in a fascinating and exciting way, and how hard that is, I know that the best of them can make you believe in yourself, and can change your life in extraordinary ways and I know it sucks that they have to get fired because the state has a deficit problem, but what am I supposed to do about it?

I realized last night that the answer is simple: communicate. But before I can do that I need to do all the things my earliest teachers taught me, i.e. sit still and listen, keep my mind open, be curious, don’t judge, don’t be afraid, let it sink in, know that I am not entitled to an opinion, I have to earn one, think before I speak. I think there should be a national mandatory service at public school, like the Israeli Army, where you have to work there for one year. Maybe then we could get better at putting two and two together.