2011/365/073: We’re Sorry, Ben

You should have heard it. It was awesome.

When I came home from school today, I ranted like a steel-toothed madman about the way in which education is viewed in America. Amy sat back and let me rip words from my heart and throw them on the table. It was a good moment.

But then, as is usually the result with any good rant, I was spent, tired, done.

Why? Because it’s really a moot point. There’s always going to be one group of teachers who gets it, who understands and accepts the sacrifice, and just plows forward with doing whatever we need to do for the kids (hey–this isn’t some kind of martyr rant; it’s just the truth). Then there’s the other group, and they will always believe that bake sales and candy drives are the appropriate way to keep the finance train running to teach the kids. Even though we are charged with training tomorrow’s leaders, we need to build time into our schedule to bake a few dozen chocolate-chip cookies for the after-school buck-a-bag, grab-n-run snack table.

Yes. I did leave out a third group. It’s composed of a small group of individuals who believe we can find ways to stream money into education in a way that is both necessary and beneficial for the proper teaching of our future generations. These individuals are usually running for office, and they make us believe that our children really do come first.

Now you know why I left them out.

Yes…It was an awesome rant, but now it’s all out of me. I feel better now, and I frankly don’t feel like revisiting this again tonight. God knows I will be talking about it quite a bit in the coming days.

Instead, I’m sitting here now listening to some unplugged Sheryl Crow, finding it hard not to be happy.

Why? Because right now, at this very moment, I am focused on all that I am grateful for, and not what ails me with all that is wrong with the education system.

Someday, though, somebody is going to finally get this thing right. I mean, it’s only been 211 years since we started playing around with offering a public education to our kids. You would think that, by now….