Solution

If you are looking into doing something to help this issue there are some things that you can do on an individual level. First you can encourage your kids to learn at home. By them books that have lots of pictures. Soon they will love looking at the book and soon be able to read what is said in the book about the pictures. If you don't want them to be on their own with books then read them books. If you want something more drastic since you know you can't be around to read to them then consider putting them into a charter school or having them home schooled if you have the money. If you aren't interested in these things but want to do more than encouraging reading then you can become closer to your child's school by joining the PTA or becoming a rom-mom in an elementary school. Another thing could be have a closer tie with your spouse if you are sperated/divorced. This could be crutial to your child. Another things you could do if you are on the PTA is promote sex education. All these things can result as an immediate return of signs of better education.
If you really want to help others by helping America's education system, you can write to your congressmen and inform them that you do not agree with their plans. You opinion matters too. If you are paying taxes then you have a right to say something about your education.
This is the closing of my blog. I hope I have given the person who is reading this now some insight on what you might want to do in order to save your kid's education. I am always an email away though. Thank you for the time spent here!
Signing off: Stephanie Burkle

Preggo?

Recently I have been considering the idea that teen births effect education in America. If you stop and think about the situation it may become easy to agree with me. People who have had kids can definitely say that having a child completely changed their life. Well what about a teen-ager? Let’s say sussie has a kid because Bobby got her knocked up. Sussie and Bobby are both 16 and sophomores in high school in America. Both their parents make decent livings and they both hope to go to college. If Sussie is pregnant how can she afford or be able to go to college? If Bobby has to help support her how can he go to college or can afford it? Most people who have kids lose their focus and only will do the bare minimum and therefor can’t make it into college. Even if they could get into college how could they tend to their kid? So most individuals stop caring because they know it doesn’t matter. Another one of my close friends are writing a paper about making birth control over the counter. Think about the possibilities of making it over the counter. So many more teenagers could be able to and afford to go to college. This could be another way to make students more successful, by making birth control over the counter.

Be Specific.

Ever since I can remember I always knew what I wanted to do. I always wanted to be a lawyer. Now, my major is Biology and I want to teach high school students. I really do not know why, something to deal with the effect my biology teacher had on me. I haven’t always wanted to do biology and I haven’t always wanted to be a lawyer. But between those to careers, there was always something. Something I was good at and wanted to do/share with someone else. My mom always told me I had to go to college and pursuit something I was good at and would make money for me. I haven’t always paid attention to the money part, but I have always pursued something I loved. I am thankful for my mom, because she always guided me in the right path. If it wasn’t for her, I might not ever think about my future, but she was the one that gave my conscience. If parents and teacher could target student’s interests and build on that, then students might be well off with what they are happy about. IN a previous post I talked about teaching styles, well if we used a teaching style that focused on what the student like more, then we could keep their focus more. Of course, they still need to be well-rounded, but since being in my major it is so nice to know that I have become so much more specialized in something I love. Sometimes I am surprised that I don’t spend all my time talking biology with people. I definitely think about it, but most people do not find interesting what I find interesting. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to become specialized in something you like earlier on? Then you’d know sooner if you actually like it or not.

Get a Book!

“Nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.” (citation) That’s crazy….how do people in AMERICA not know where the states are. The same close friend of mine that I refer to is from a foreign country, told me that most Americans can only locate three European countries on a map. It is so annoying when you think about how little we as americans know about each other or other foreign countries. Are your proud of that? What is sad is that this statistic does not come from school children, teen-agers, or college students; it comes from adults or just American citizens. I love my country, and from what I am told, the land we have is a blessing, but it is so hard for me to be proud of the education we have when I see a statistic like this. I want to be proud. We need to do something. Give your kids books. Growing up, I never wanted to sleep; I was a night owl. When I didn’t want to sleep and I didn’t have the convenience of a TV, I had books. I’d look at these children house encyclopedias cover to cover just astonished at the things that I didn’t know about. People wonder why I know things that I probably shouldn’t know or never was taught, and I just learned early on. I sat down and was so easily intrigued by things that I read about. And I continued to want to find more things I didn’t know. I find many things very interesting that most don’t. I can definitely say that, but that’s not a reason for someone to not be able to identify states or countries. Not a reason at all.
**Citation for photo

Distractions

Being in the digital age can be quite distraction. When doing anything homework related such as this assignment that I am doing right now, I always become distracted. The internet is full of distractions. Essentially when I am on my computer the distractions are so in my face. I feel that is one of the many reason for children not doing their full capacity on their school work. Of course there are other countries with the same distractions, but I feel as though Americans encourage these distractions because they are not discouraging them. With things like facebook, myspace, email, photos, youtube, ect. The possibilities are endless in terms of distractions. I’d rather do work for a class that doesn’t involve a computer because then at least I know I won’t get so distraction. What’s more difficult is that more and more you see people with internet on their phone. So now distractions can follow them. When you add these digital distractions along with other modern distractions and daily general distractions, we as American can get easily sidetracked. We blatantly, I feel, find things to distract ourselves with. Maybe that’s why we constantly are inventing new technology, just so we can be so entertained that we subconsciously want to do less work/responsibilities. There is a video that displays interesting statistics about how teens are consumed in the digital age: citation
**PHOTO IS TAKEN BY ME

Divorce?

A close friend of mine was writing a paper on the effects of divorce on children's learning ability. I thought this was interesting considering America has such a high divorce rate. Could this be a contributing reason for our failing education system? We all have friends or family going through a divorce; it happens all the time. Children are the ones that get thrown under the bus in divorce. Its very hard for children to cope with divorces. %50 of first marriages end in divorce (citation). That is such a sad statistic. Many times the stress of the parents getting remarried is what causes the difficulty, sometimes. This could be why children have hard time learning, they are so focused on what is going on at home and not what is going on at school. If we could change this problem this could help more children become more focused in school. We could invent programs to redeem lost marriages and prevent them from divorce in order to save kids from learning problems in school.

Survival of the Fittest...

Have you ever had a teacher that you knew could not handle the classroom? And the other students knew it and took advantage of it? Usually these teachers would threaten to give detentions but would never actually give any. Maybe they were too easy going because they wanted to be the easy fun teacher, not the difficult one. For whatever reason they were liked this, if you were a hard working student you especially share my problem. You felt like the other students were pulling you behind by picking on the teacher’s weaknesses. So you’d sit there and wonder if you would ever learn anything. This is a problem for the students who want to excel but are hindered by a teacher’s incompetence to handle a classroom. This is a problem in which one of my other friends brought up. I can’t help but agree that I have encountered this too throughout high school and middle school. This is a problem that should be addressed by other teachers, parents, and students. If you feel like your teacher is doing a good job say something. Why allow your education to be hindered if you could fix it. Survival of the best teacher wins!