I never really thought life was that hard till I get to be in formal school. Imagine the drama of having to wake up early, eating anything edible and available, knowing your favorite pair of socks was just chewed by your sister’s obnoxious pet, and catching the morning bus to school where the real battle begins with the common school bullies? If you say these are just rites of passage and learning for my own good, I really do not want to learn anymore. Besides, the superintendent has always been keen with my hair or how I sling my bag; I am just not the proper student in my school, and even more the bullies come to make fun of me. This is pretty much what sums a regular kid’s life in and out school today.
Formal education has come a long way. From the turn of the 20th century, the drive to have equal education has taken unprecedented leaps and bounds. Sadly however, the systems lawmakers and education gurus have installed are far from perfect and can be easily criticized for their lack of foresight.
Think about it, the catch phrase ‘equal but separated’ is just an awful example of true-to-life oxymoron. Even the dreaded No Child Left Behind Act is just plain nonsense. In fact, I have read that in other countries, teachers had to allow all students to pass regardless if they know how to read and write merely because the Ministry of Education has dictated that no student will be left behind; all must be promoted to the next year level. And I thought that bullies are the bigger and mean kids ‘all back in the bus’ only to find out later in life that those in the gurus of education are no better. If there are students who fail especially if they are many (mostly due to ill-behavior and lack of desire to learn), the teacher is summoned, reprimanded, and at worst even fired and blacklisted for being ‘incompetent’ and ‘irresponsible.’ Now, I guess you understand that the same bullies have never changed at all, and thanks to their connections and wealth, they are still all back in the bus this time on the way to the Ministry: all tidied up, prim and proper, but reeking with the same old nasty grin to beat the next helpless teacher.
Work Cited
Introduction to Sociology, (2015). Chapter 16, N.p. https://cnx.org/contents/AgQDEnLI@13.16:mEvgXsPr@8/16-3-Issues-in-Education
