First thing first. I MISSED YOU GUYS!!!!!!!! I have been working like a crazy woman to get this project finished at work. What I expected to take a few days morphed into a project that required my full attention for eight hours and several nights working at home, but I was a responsible corporate grunt and I got everything done and done well I might add. Now on to other things…
You all may remember my post awhile back defending Oprah and her choice to build an all girls academy in Africa. (here). Well, in that post I defended her saying that we have free education here that, on its worse days, is often times better than what children in underdeveloped nations receive. I stated Oprah was right in her assessment that our sense of entitlement has fostered a lack of appreciation for those things others cherish. Well, I am not back pedaling on that statement but I feel the need to put an asterisk by my post. Here is the reason why.
As I was pulling up to my daughter’s school this morning I noticed two Andersen Coaches. When I questioned the Child about the buses she said “Oh the 8th grade has their field trip today.” Well, this got me all excited because I thought inner city schools had pretty much done away with good educational field trips for the kids. So, I asked the Child where the 8th graders were going and her response gave me a “who the hell does that” pause. They were taking the kids to Pittsburgh,PA (a 45 minute drive) to go to the mall!
Yes, you read correctly. The freakin’ galleria! Now, anyone who reads me with any frequency knows I don’t mind a ride. The Child and I go to Pittsburgh often. There is tons of stuff to do there. There are the Carnegie Museums, there is the cultural/theatre district, the Zoo & Aquarium, there is the waterfront at Station Square with its segue and water and land boat tours. There are the Trams that take you up the steep hills into the historical district as well as 3 professional sports venues… All of which provide tours for school age children, but they take these kids to a mall; a freakin’ high end mall where they can’t afford anything anyway. Who does that! I am going to need the answer to this question, because that has got to be the most ass backwards thing I have ever heard.
Around here shopping excursions are big deals. At least once a month someone has charted a bus for a weekend to New York. They stay in New Jersey and spend the first day shopping and the second day site seeing all for about 50 bucks per person. You can’t beat that with a stick. So why not do that kind of field trip. The kids get to see Ellis Island, 9/11 site, Time Square and the Empire State Building and buy a knock off for $10.00.
This is my issue with public education. We want bitch and gripe constantly about how are children are growing addicted to BET and MTV with no real idea of the value of education and no world view, the teachers want to cry and whine about bad attitudes and disrespectful children who don’t appreciate the work they put into teaching, but this is a joint effort. Not every person who raises their child in an urban setting is sitting on the stoop with a blunt in one hand a 40 at his/her side plaiting the local drug dealer’s hair. And by contrast this “field trip is proof positive that not every educator has education on the brain when we entrust our children’s future in their hands. Whoever thought of this trip is an idiot.
Sometimes we live where we live because it’s affordable. We are able to purchase our home and create a life for our children. A life that is family oriented, without breaking the bank and moving to suburbs. we are goal oriented and want our children to have a well rounded life and education.
No matter what the address; however, all the children deserve to have an education that fires their imagination and allows them to picture their lives outside of their current limited circumstances. Feeding their “hood rich” mentality does nothing about freeing their mind and opening their eyes to life’s possibilities. I’m sorry, this is not just a parenting issue. This is a critical failure in the educational process. Rest assured none of the teachers or administrators working in the school would stand by and allow a school to take their kids to the mall. So, why in the hell would you do it to the children who need cultural exposure the most. They already know what is in style and guess what 90% of them can’t afford it. So you take a bunch of broke pre-teens to an expensive mall to do what? Shoplift? Wreck havoc? Be bored? Get depressed? Be envious of the dope man’s kid who has $500.00 to spend, so envious they decide to aspire to that so when their kids grow up and go to the mall they won’t get stuck with parents who can only afford a $20 for spending money. Gee, thanks.
Yet, the school officials get pissed with us when we pull our children out of public school and place them in private institutions of learning citing that we are taking the “best and brightest” while creating a vacuum that leaves the other children at a disadvantage. You don’t know who could be the best and brightest because you are stifling them with this kind of nonsense.
Those school officials can kiss my natural black ass. My daughter has a “D” in math, a “D” in science and she hasn’t been on the honor roll all year. I got her a tutor and got on her case, but when it was time for the science fair she put in two weeks of hard work with an interactive project, but the science teacher didn’t want the kids who didn’t do their work to feel bad or outdone in comparison to the ones who did. No child who did Science fair projects were allowed to demonstrate their work or conduct their experiments. Anyone who did that much work got an A. Anyone who just did something got a C and those who did nothing got an F. So much for competition or incentive to achieve. The kids who did the work were slighted so the lazy ones would not have low self esteem. That’s my tax dollars at work in Youngstown, OH.
We were lucky in that she turned it around just enough to pass the proficiency test and get out of the 7th grade. So, imagine my surprise when we get a letter in the mail telling me she is one of the highest achievers in her class. What the fuck? That’s high achieving? In my house that is not even the bare minimum. That’s some bullshit. We do not honor mediocrity in my home. We did not go to that banquet because I refuse to make her feel like those less than stellar grades were ok.
This is symptomatic of the crisis in our city schools. They don’t expect the children to aspire to anything but the damn mall. Which is where half of them will end up working making minimum wage at 30. That is if they don’t end up with 7 kids and on some form of public assistance.
If you valued my child’s mind then you would think of something better to do with it than take it to a mall in a city rich with such history and culture. You would give the children a window into what life could hold for them and what they could achieve if they dared to dream of something other than the latest pair of Pastries or Baby Phat skirt. With plenty of colleges in the Pittsburgh area, (including Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon) they could have even taken a day touring a college campus and getting a taste of what its like to be on a college campus in a major metropolitan area. Alas, no, the children are going to a mall. This is why I have pulled my child from public school and put her in *GASP* Catholic School. (God has a sense of humor)
I just can’t take anymore of this ghetto fabulous approach to education. As if I don’t have enough problems trying to keep my child grounded in reality with out her school giving her the MTV “My Sweet 16″ version of life.
Okay. I’m done.
