Qualified To Give Educational Advice

  • Monday, April 25, 2016

Nationally, something over 85 percent of Americans work for themselves as independent contractors or for businesses with 20 or fewer employees. Here in Tennessee, something over 95 percent of our homies work for companies of 20 and fewer employees. Both nationally and here at home, on average 60 percent of all new jobs are created by these same small businesses. In some regions, and during some economic periods, new job creation can be as high as 80 or 90 percent by small business. These are government numbers. 

Can we see a show of hands from all those small business owners and managers who’ve been canvassed about educational requirements of their prospective employees? I didn’t think so. 

I walked out of a regular paying job (Note: not high paying by any means, but I did have a paycheck to cash every month) back in August of 1979 without much more than a toolkit, some equipment I’d gone into hock to purchase, and a dream… and except for going into hock, would do it again tomorrow. Nobody’s ever asked what I, as an employer, need from the education system(s) my companies have helped finance with tax dollars. I don’t know anyone who’s ever been asked what they need from the education system. 

We’re constantly asked for more money. But what’s the money going to be used for? 

I know of a gentleman, and I’ll use that term loosely here just in case his mom reads this, who went to five local teachers with an offer to put up some of his own hard-earned cash as awards for essay contests in their classes. The requirements were a bit strict; only 10th grade because that’s when our precious progeny, the little heatherns, need to be thinking about future careers, only for their classes because he was impressed with them as teachers, the essays had to be legitimately well written to be considered, and the essay subject had to be related to some occupation… exempli gratia; Joe the Plumber, Wendy the Welder, Dora the Demographer, Terrance the TreeHugger, etc. He offered $200 for four awards to each class… 1st ($100), 2nd ($50), and 3rd ($25) places with another $25 for the most improved from the beginning of the year to the end. A grand, $1,000 cash money… and nobody would take him up on the offer. Heck, if I’d known he was going to do that I’d have chipped in some myself. My $5 would have bumped those up to $200.25, $50.25, and $25.25. Apparently any effort of that nature had to be all classes or nothing, and approved by some higher being... unlike overnight field trips to out-of-town athletic events. 

Boo-Hah. 

How many first line supervisors, those men and women on the front line, down in the trenches, even at our major employers, are ever queried about their requirements? I submit zip, zero, nut’n. 

Then we have math teachers who will presume, based on the tendency of some to assume, that no kid will ever use algebra or geometry or physics, Sir Isaac’s not Granny’s, after they leave school. Worse… adults will make similar comments publicly. I know another person who put up $50 for any high school studii, up to a total of four, who would do a ray diagram of El Sol’s radiation as it strikes Planet Terra’s atmosphere, especially the tangential rays, and approximate how this might affect the ozone layer at each pole as it, Planet Terra, orbits El Sol. Teachers would neither encourage nor allow it. 

Then there was the guy who, for almost 10 years, had a standing offer to provide all the materials necessary (including pizza), instrumentation, and some assistance for any science class at the high school near his office that would duplicate Galileo’s falling body experiments. The first year requirement was the work had to be done at his shop, but only so the little heatherns had access to all the tools and additional materials, and a little construction guidance, they might need to build up fixtures in case the teacher wished to duplicate the experiments in the future. There was never a taker. That wasn’t here in Tennessee, but is exemplary of the prevailing attitude of our education system nationwide. 

If it ain’t invented here, or by a educator, it just ain’t no good. 

For decades we've been told the school (education?) system must be operated by “educators.” We’ve been told not only must system leadership be educators, but educators with advanced degrees. How's that been working for us? 

It’s interesting that Nashville Metro schools are now experiencing problems similar to Hamilton County, isn’t it. I wonder if there are any common denominators. There is that cat from North Carolina, the one his homies over in Statesville and Iredell County couldn’t wait to get rid of, who received glowing reports last year when he left, otherwise known in the government biz as “retiring,” just like he did here… only to discover, after he left, the true damage he’d done. 

I’ve always been open to a little experimentation here and there, and earn a living conducting them. Out here in Realville, the land of profits and losses and returns on investment, we must be able to demonstrate some benefit from our experiments and design them in advance so we can see the affect one process may have on others. How does anyone in our so-called education system justify a system-wide change with no rationale for doing so, and no demonstration of its benefit? I could care less about the little heatherns as my interest is nothing more than having a glut of prospective employees so humongous they’ll work for lower wages than illegal aliens. But those are someone’s precious progeny. The parents might be concerned about their futures, and ability to find gainful employment so they aren't living in the basement when they're 40. 

When I was in school back in the ‘50s and '60s we, the greatest nation ever to grace the face of Planet Terra, these United States of America, were numero uno in the world for education. Hands down, ichi ban. Now our standing is somewhere in the high 20s, sinking, and stinking. Nationwide high school graduation rates are claimed to be higher than ever before and rising, but up to 70 percent of incoming freshmen to colleges and trade schools must take remedial classes just to meet minimum course requirements, and that number is rising too. Those of us who read resumes and hire employees, read communications from sales and service persons, both read and write reports of various flavors, and observe new employees' abilities in math and science understand the failure of school systems to educate our precious progeny. 

We hear a lot about the three kinds of people in this world. I learned a little different set, and that each of us is a combination, depending upon the situation, but our basic persona falls into one of three primary categories: 

1. People who make things happen.
2. People who watch things happen.
3. People who wonder what (*) happened. 

* - Whatever lewd, crude, and socially unacceptable word or phrase that fits a particular situation may be inserted here if necessary, but only for effect. 

If we apply this concept to the Hamilton County School Board and its charge, the HCDE, when kids can't read, write or cipher, that's a real case of #2 isn't it. Unfortunately, the kids are the ones standing there wondering what happened. They graduated from high school but still aren't qualified for any meaningful job. 

When truly qualified citizens step up and offer their expertise, their encouragement, and suggest unique ways to motivate kids what happens? When taxpayers suggest that, perhaps, the old ways of teaching might not have been so bad after all what happens? When working schlubs attempt to give input about what skills they need future employees to have what do they get? Don't the "educators" bow up like what my second favorite politician used to call those "Republican Weenies," the party elite, and tell us they brought Volkswagen here? If not by word, in deed, don't they tell us they don't need our input? Don't they tell us, like those very same "Republican Weenies," to give them our money and our votes then sit down and shut up? They would like us to believe they're more sophisticated, more intelligent, more experienced than we mere working schlubs, the great unwashed. In truth, what are they exhibiting? 

Farfromthinkin... 

Royce Burrage, Jr.
Royce@Officially Chapped.org


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