My colleague (the one that's 65 years old, an ex-drug addict, and has a first name meaning "sir/madam/it" and a last name consisting of just one letter because he wants to remain nameless-- the letter is x if you were wondering-- aka his name is "sir nameless") is one hell of a character. If the background description of him didn't scream it, he, to put it quite mildly, probably has the least amount of trust for any institutional system that is in place out there (unless, that is, the system resembles a family, where each person supports the other through the fine balance between unconditional love and merciless discipline).
In being part of a very systematized workplace, he is a very prominent role model for me, a person who fights to secure unconditional love for all human beings to pursue their potential, and a fervent disbeliever in "quitting on a person in the name of a program's security." On the other hand, my desire to resolve conflicts through a dialogue is completely affronted by his tenacity to defend his viewpoint without mercy.
In a phrase, he truly is "sir nameless," in that, there is no name for him. It's quite a lesson really-- that all humans, regardless of their name, certainly have a name, though it is not the name's character that solely defines him.
Anyway, I'm going to stop playing in theoretical la la land. Here's what this post is really about. My colleague likes to post news articles on a bulletin board inside of the school that show examples of ignorance, oppression, and inequality within the institutional systems we seek to guarantee democracy and freedom. Here's the article he posted up today:
As he tacked it up, he commented that schools will never solve equality, as schools cannot hope to teach parents to be good parents when the kids are away from school. I was pretty adamant about responding to him that yes, equality can't completely be reached through a reworking of the school system, as I believe it is the combination and collaboration of humanitarian driven minds specializing in a variety of different arenas (i.e. psychology, econ, public health), but that you must not shut the school system out completely. In fact, to me the value of education lies in the potential to bring together many different doctrines into the school institution so as to achieve the common goal of providing the best education for our future leaders. Maybe if we started to see education as not just solely about teaching, but about creating the environment in which each student has the ability to thrive (aka, that teaching education is to ask where a student is psychologically, anthropologically, medically, economically, socially, etc., and create the environment around them that will cater to each individual's learning style, while also encouraging them to explore others as well) then perhaps we could stop blaming it on teachers, families, and students and start getting to the "how the hell do we fix this system." Education is a wee bit unpopular in the governmental budget (along with every other social service... see here for how many services got shut down in NYC because of the budget cuts: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=204719676368226438072.0004a01a5ddc0ff7e83ec&ll=40.720201%2C-73.946228&spn=0.364288%2C0.549316&z=10&source=embed ), but it seems there must be some serious rethinking that needs to occur.
Speaking of rethinking, Mr. John C. Baier (Kev's dad) sent me a link that could explain exactly what we're missing here: the ability to see beyond the system we've created. Check it out-- this guy has the hot hand (and killer speech writers): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.
What do you think? Can we, the next generation, stop the looming trend in mal-education? If so, what's required right now to reform the education system? Is it the no-excuses charter ethic, the divergent thinking within school administration that RSA suggests? Mayhaps something else?
And--dare I say it--if this system is indeed unsalvagable, what should we do now?
