This past week, two different conversations with teachers raised the question: is education a privilege or a right? Join me as we repaint the conversations.
A high school teacher recently returned from six weeks in India on a Rotary Exchange program. One of the requirements of the program was spending a lot of time in schools. India has public schools for those who cannot afford private schooling. In their public schools, students are often left without teachers. The parents work and save so they can send their children to private schools. Why? They know their child’s future depends on the quality of education. In the classrooms, often sixty to seventy students, the teacher never had to address student behavior or ask students to get out their homework. Students worked.
The teacher reminsced, “what would it be like, if our students had the same desire to excel in their learning?”
A middle school teacher returned from visiting a charter school in Phoenix, that offers a Math program we are considering. The teacher shared, “as I pulled up with a BMW in front of me and another BMW behind me, I realized that I was at a school where families had wealth.” You might be asking yourself, what does wealth have to do with learning? Good question! Let’s see if it gets answered as we continue observing this story.
As the teacher observed and talked with children, in the classrooms, there was not a single student who did not have completed homework. No excuses, no incomplete work whether it was a 1st grader or a fifth grade student. The children had learned to focus as they were in what was called open classrooms. Open classrooms are big rooms where two classes are taught at the same time. However, their classes were about the same size as Grand Canyon classes 15-20 students. The kids were engaged in their learning and could clearly explain what they had learned and why they explored solutions in certain ways.
So what did the children in India and a Phoenix charter school have in common? What was different?
Perhaps the children understood that when we look at education as a privilege and something of great worth, we are willing to work hard for results. When education is seen as an entitlement, something that is deserved just because, it loses value and luster. If one feels like studying or doing homework ok but if not, ok.
Perhaps the children and their parents understood, that today knowledge is valued. Those who learn, and are willing to tackle that which is hard, benefit, in the long-run. Whether it is a child in a 70 student classroom in India, or one who rode to school in a BMW, children all over the world, share a common goal of a better life. Could education be the greatest equalizer in pursuit of greatness? You be the judge and while you are judging the value of education, perhaps, we can all work a little harder at making certain that our kids are taking advantage of the privilege for which you and I are paying for them – a public education!
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Let’s face it, the majority of kids who attend school with a sense of entitlement and waste everyone’s time do so because it is the law. These kids neither question nor learn. They quit or finish knowing minimally more then when they started. Don’t get me started on behavior, drugs and alcohol. Education today is neither a right nor privilege it is about government run dare care.
Perhaps India has it right – charge the families for education. If the people are so ignorant to not recognize a good thing; then take it away. No more tax funded public education. I mean why should Joe tax payer pay to rescue children of parents who disassociate long-rang thinking from baby-making.