Education Or The Lack There Of...

   Education is a fundamental and key aspect to any society with hopes of prosperity and ascendancy.  In the inner city areas, schools are often meagerly funded and the lack of resources are evident. Frank Marrero, a 4th and 5th grade teacher in the Los Angeles School District wrote an article about the "crisis" going on in inner-city education that was published in Motion Magazine.  He started off by asking the students how they would describe their settings and they named 3 things: their neighborhood, their school and their home.  When the students described their settings, they all had common themes: gunfire, shootings, and death.  That is compiled with the lack of educational resources that include lack of pencils, paper, and even paper towels.  When it comes to curriculum, students are supposed to learn about how explorers discovered the New World, founded colonies, declared independence, fought the Revolutionary War, wrote the Constitution and established democracy.  It was also said that since the state tests focused more on some subjects rather than others, they were discouraged from teaching what was not being tested.  When education does not serve the purpose for which it has been established, the youth are at a disadvantage and they then lose the structure that they could not find at home and really lose connectivity, thus the increase in dropout and truancy rates.  At my school, we had pencils with no erasers, books that were extremely outdated as well as constantly being torn or rattled with graffiti.  Some of the teachers were very good and helpful, but I vividly recall my teachers telling the students, "We get paid whether you learn or not."  Another thing that sticks out to me was the fact that when I compared my schooling to those who were fortunate enough to attend a better school was the protocol for damage control.  We had similar things like the fire drill, the earthquake drill, and what to do if someone broke into the school.  But the one thing that we had in the inner city that they didn't have was drive by drills; which was a set of rules to follow in case of a drive by shooting.

   The education system has been put into place to instill discipline, creativity and structure.  When they can no longer serve, the students will lose the connection to the importance of education and will then focus that curiosity, passion, and intelligence on their surroundings; which are the urban inner city.  As someone who came from the inner city and directly experienced all of the things expressed in this blog and more, the lack of resources definitely makes going to school less interesting and more like a chore.