Burr, Georgia is freezing, but it isn’t the weather. There is another reason Georgians are putting on our hats but it isn’t to keep our ears warm, it is our dunce hats. I guess they expect us to keep our brains warm by cramming more students into a classroom. Georgia has decided to freeze out the hiring of new teachers. As more and more children are born into this world we are hiring less and less teachers to educate them. Instead Legislator’s solution to the problem is HB 908, to expand classroom size; so much for George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.” That’s right, we won’t leave a child behind; we will just cram them into a classroom that is already bursting at the seams. Turn a blind eye to their learned ignorance. Children learn to keep silent when they fail to comprehend what they are learning because the teacher has no time to give them extra instruction. How could a teacher tend to every student in their class? What with lesson plans to make it through, education markers they have to make sure they meet, test scores to master, and the extra little bodies jam-packed into seats with expanded classroom sizes.
It is time to remember back to a moment in time. A time when classrooms were small enough a teacher could notice the signs of a struggling student, and a time when the teacher would be able to give them the one on one attention they needed and deserved. It is time to remember a moment in time when the budget allowed hiring more teachers when the amount of children attending schools increased; a time when the quality of education was more important than saving a buck.
As a mother of two young sons, I will now have to worry about the quality of education my children will be receiving. I guess I will have to take it upon myself as a mother and a student-history education major-to make sure they receive the education they need to succeed. Unfortunately, as I open up the daily newspapers, it is not uncommon for me to see more and more articles about schools slimming down the amount of teachers they are keeping on staff; not to mention the fact that they don’t have it in the school budget to hire new teachers. According to Nancy Badertscher at The Atlanta-Journal Constitution “Education may no longer be a recession-proof profession, and hundreds of teachers, paraprofessionals and support staff could soon be staring down the unemployment lines.” Guess this also means, I will be waiting on pins and needles, waiting to see if I win the lottery of a job once I graduate.
As a parent, I only want the best for my children, but this is not it. Call me an overzealous mother, but is it so much to ask that my children receive the same quality of education as I did, if not a better one. Come one, with the evolution of technology and expansion of greater expectations, it should not be so hard to expect a higher, more advanced, education for my children’s future. Ok so we are not all parents; however, this still concerns us as a society, as a community. As Whitney Houston states, “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way!”
Look out America, look out Georgia, we are heading for a new “Ice Age.” Teaching positions are being frozen. We need to get out our ice picks and break through the ice cubes of Legislators. In my opinion, HB 908 is just putting a coat over the problem; instead of finding ways to restructure the taxes to adequately provide for a proper education.
Maybe I need to get a bigger dunce hat made out of wool so that it would fall over my eyes like it has the Legislators and the Board of Education. Maybe their dunce hats are too tight making it so hard for them to figure out what seems to me to be a simple solution.
Has society forgotten how important an education is? Maybe it is our lack of education that is causing the spiraling domino effect of ignorance. Maybe it is the lack of teachers to educate us and give us the knowledge to problem-solve. Wake up society, even if you do not have children, these issues still affect you, because one day that child-who did not get the quality of education because of expanded classrooms and lack of teachers-may be working right next to you at McDonalds; “Do you want fries with that.”