FROGTOWN DIVA

Divas Don't Hop, But We're Hip!

FrogTown Diva

FrogTown Diva
Location
Toledo, Ohio, USA
Birthday
September 23
Bio
Observations From the Swamp Many folks think we live in the nether regions of the earth here in Toledo, Ohio. However, Toledo is the birthplace of jazz great, Art Tatum, not to mention many other distinguished and accomplished AfrAms (African-Americans) who often remain unheralded and unrecognized in their home town. This swamp is a petrie dish swarming with undiscovered talent that the world may never know because there are too many slimey creatures down here in the swamp pulling down anyone who tries to climb out and come out into the warmth of the sun. This diva climbed into the swamp with one purpose - to rid the world of slime!

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MAY 8, 2012 4:37PM

Senate vote against student loans nefarious act of treason

Rate: 2 Flag

After being a public school teacher and having to fight to do what I needed to do to help children until I finally gave and recent stories about children becoming activists to get an education, two from Detroit, I'm convinced that public education's purpose is not to educate children but to "house" and train them to follow instructions, group think, and stand in line. The only time I required my second graders to stand in line as a first year teacher was during fire drills and when there was an assembly and the halls were full. Otherwise, they went down the hall however they liked. They were kids, not soldiers.

However, I think my job as a teacher was to prepare them to be soldiers in the eyes of some administrators and even some parents. I got flack for not having my students say the Pledge of Allegiance when I started teaching third grade. My approach was to teach my students what the Pledge meant, line by line, as a lesson in reading comprehension and have them tell me what they thought they were pledging "allegiance" to as a lesson in critical. The principal thought I was a communist or some other kind of dissident. I just wanted to teach my students to think.


Now, it's lack of the kinds of thinking skills i was trying to teach that have our average students lagging behind students in many European and Asian countries. Yet, even now, it's hard to teach those skills consumed by teaching students to pass tests so they won't lose government funding and/or students to charter schools. Students graduate from high school without the prerequisite skills for college and have to take remedial classes to learn basic things like reading comprehension, critical thinking, and basic writing and rudimentary math skills, the very things I taught as a teacher. 

I'm a doctoral student in a grant program that's focused on improving the teaching of science in primary grades. Why? Because this country's economic future depends on our producing more Thomas Edisons, Henry Fords, George Washington Carvers, and Lonnie Johnsons (inventor of the Super Soaker) to put us back on top in innovation (now, Singapore holds that distinction!) and regain our previous economic standing in the global economy. 

That any legislator would sabotage efforts to close the global achievement between our average students and students in other countries by not supporting funding education is not only idiotic and obscene, it's an act of treason. 

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global achievement gap, student loan programs, corporate loopholes

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If you haven't managed to teach them to think in the first 12 years of government funded schooling, why should we believe that another 4 years will do the trick? If they're paying for it themselves, there's a chance that some small percentage will actually take the process seriously.
Goedjn
May 08, 2012 06:50 PM
How is it that we at least try to get a basic education in our young and then expect them to amass a staggering amount of loans to complete a college education that will guarantee they will be slaves forever and a day repaying them Diva??

My daughter has an undergrad degree from UGA. My son is still there in his third year. No support from no one, they have both worked full time and attended full time. There is no way for a free ride by anyone anymore. As I am sure you know all too well.
I fear the system saddling my children with debt.
Yet the same system tells them they must have the degree as a ticket to the big career in the sky...
Geez, I feel like I went way off the intent of this post...sorry
Mission
May 08, 2012 10:31 PM
No problem with working to get through school, but mine charges $2500 a credit hour for undergrads. Most classes are three hours. Unless they're staying at home and have no expenses, most kids can't come up with $7500 each semester plus the hundreds charged for fees and books. My neighbors middle daughter decided to work to put herself through school when the student loan wasn't enough to pay school expenses and living expenses, but in order to have enough money to afford to go she has to change from the university I attend as a grad assistant to a two-year college. She was counting on getting a sports scholarship since she was a high school athlete, but didn't get one. My grandmother's generation put themselves through college and she was then able to pay for her children to go. But most college tuition is so high now it often takes a combination of parents paying what they can, students working, and loans to pay for everything. And if the parents can't pay (my neighbor can barely support himself, his wife and the two children still at home) it's really hard for most kids to go to college without a loan. I had a tuition scholarship because I was valedictorian and my grandmother paid the rest. But when I went to live with my parents they had four other children to take care of, so I worked and got a small loan just to pay my tuition at my new school. My brother who was in the military paid my dorm fees. My loan was so small I was able to pay it off in three years. I've heard the horror stories about student loan debt, so I wish there was some other way for kids to find funding to pay the enormous cost of a college education. But there aren't many other avenues and a minimum wage job isn't going to provide enough money for students even if their parents are able to help a little and if parents can't help at all, what can they do?
FrogTown Diva
May 08, 2012 11:42 PM