Educational Concerns

Dear Mr. Obama:

No, I don't actually expect you to read this, but in figuring out what to say, I often find it easier to pretend I'm talking to someone directly.

This evening I heard on the news that you are considering the possibility of expanding the school year and even possibly making the school day longer for American students. The reasoning given was that American children are way behind other industrialized countries in performance. What, exactly, is the measurement used for this "study"?

A few days ago I was talking with my mom about that show "Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" She was laughing, though appalled, at the level of "education" some of these people have who appear on this show. It got me thinking about schooling in general, and my schooling in particular.

You see, I've always thought that I was lucky to have had the education I had growing up. I went to public schools in Richmond, VA in Henrico County. My freshman year of high school, my school was chosen as the "Top school in the United States". We had a carnival celebrating the victory and everything.

Why do I mention this? Well, you see, in watching "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" and then discussing it with my mom, I realized that if I were to appear on that show, they would never air my appearance. For I would be forced to say something like this: Smarter than a 5th grader? Who cares? I'm successful in my life, and none of my successes have anything to do with what I learned in school. I just regurgitated a bunch of information I learned 25 years ago to earn some money on a game show, and that is all I've ever used that information for!

In 2008, I was impressed, Mr. Obama, by your convictions and your stand for something new. I voted for you because I thought you could see something that others couldn't see. The mist of bureaucracy somehow missed you. You had a vision, and you had the best interests of the United States at heart. I respected you for that stand - especially in the face of how many people were gunning for you (Some of them probably quite literally).

Lately, however, I've been noticing something that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. When Professor Gates was arrested in Cambridge, you were asked about it at a press conference you were giving that day about health care. The answer you gave shocked me. Without knowing all the facts, you denounced the police department of an entire city by saying they acted "stupidly". Your entire press conference was trumped by that one statement, and I was shocked that you spoke so blithely. You made a decision without all the facts.

Recently, Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at an awards show. When asked about it, you responded that he was a "jackass." Yes, it was supposed to have been off record, but obviously that makes no difference. As the President of the United States, you should know better than to say things like that about public figures. You spoke without thinking it through - again.

Now I sit here frustrated about your supposed proposal to lengthen school days and extend school years. Your own children supposedly let you know they do not approve of this idea. When did we stop listening to our kids? When did we decide that a 12-year sentence of confinement, drills, bells, scheduled eating times, forced sitting, and standardized tests was good for our kids? Doesn't it sound a little too much like jail for comfort?

I remember sitting in school agonizing over tests. As I sit here now, at 35, I can remember one question on those tests - because I got it wrong, and I knew the answer. Can 2 pieces of matter occupy the same space? It's interesting that that is the question I remember because it makes me wonder if 2 different ideas can occupy the same space. Matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time as another piece of matter. I didn't need school to find that out. All I really needed was a good car accident. As far as 2 different ideas occupying the same space, I am going to go with the most elegant of answers. No.

You see, we cannot sentence our children to jail and say we are looking out for their best interests. We cannot banish our children from society, from interacting with people of different ages and backgrounds, from family, from life outside the school compound and also say we are cultivating the next leaders, movers, inventors, geniuses, or Presidents. When our kids are locked away from the world, they have no idea how to relate to the world.

Looking at the previous paragraph, I'm curious how I figured out how to ask those kinds of questions. Not in school. Multiple-choice tests don't allow for that kind of thinking. Did you know we are the only major power to use multiple-choice tests? Yep. It's true. Did you know that recent studies have shown that kids who text are better at grammar and spelling than other kids? Why is that, do you think? I think it's because texting isn't taught in school. You have to know how to communicate with someone - get your idea across - in as little space as possible. How can you abbreviate "later" with "l8r" if you don't know how to use the former?

Mr. Obama, if you have a real interest in rebuilding this country, the schools are a great place to start. But not by taking what already doesn't work and making more of it. If testing and schooling and classroom standards and everything else attached to schools doesn't work, what makes you think more of the same will improve the situation? We have obesity and diabetes in epidemic proportions in our children in this country. Do you think making kids sit for longer periods of time is going to make that better?

Whether we are at a crossroads simply because of timing or we are at a crossroads because of who you said you would be as President is irrelevant. Either way, we are at the crux of a huge tipping point in our country's future. No offense, but hope is not audacious. Hope is the faintest glimmer that something could be another way. Audacity is taking action when there is no hope. In spite of no hope -because you know it's the right direction to take.

I challenge you, Mr. President, to give up hope in favor of audacious action. Something new. Something revolutionary. Something that will justify my vote.