this is not season 4 of the wire and i am not looking to be entertained....

this is not season 4 of the wire and i am not looking to be entertained....
Please excuse my curt and short tone in this, as well as any typos. Maybe this is my chance to vent. Everyone knows Tiffany can vent and rant, but right now, I’m seriously discouraged by thoughts of the future.I’m very confused about the state of the public school system. I’m so frustrated that it is failing our children.It is teaching them how to test well, but many of them don’t know how to think abstractly.They are unable to formulate thoughts that they are not explicitly told to form. They are not "free-thinkers", but little machines that produce what they are instructed to produce. I feel sorry that they can’t write creatively or think outside the box. I didn’t realize this until a few weeks ago when forming a forensics team with my middle school-aged kids. They are smart kids and they understand the concepts of why you need facts to support an argument. Their issue comes with connecting thoughts and ideas. I give them Step A and Step C, but they don’t understand where B is, nor how A can get to C. Who is responsible for forcing teachers, whose job it is to make sure children’s minds are packed tightly with information like a well prepared parachute that will open and help them soar, to cheat students of amazing thought processes and logic? Why aren’t we cultivating the genius that is in all of them? Why aren’t we encouraging originality? Why aren’t we helping the youth to understand their promise and potential outside of what they are used to seeing?They can aspire to be anything, instead we stifle their dreams with basic needs of survival & the mundane. They don’t see the need in being extra-ordinary and stellar, because they are being taught that ordinary and mediocre will suffice. I’m not saying that everyday needs aren’t important. We need to eat. Shelter is another basic need. But why can’t they think that life is about something more than the everyday? Why are they limiting themselves?
Why? Why should Shenika think she should stop at HS or even job corps, and Suzy knows that Princeton Law is just an LSAT score away? Let’s not talk about resources, that’s a different discussion. Resources aside, Shenika doesn’t even think about Princeton Law, because she may not know how much it costs to attend. She doesn’t think about it because she doesn’t know its an option. She doesn’t even know that City, Poly, or Western are options for high school. She doesn’t realize that she can be a city planner, researcher, a doctor, a lawyer or dare I say, an amazing educator. Maybe this is a rant. Maybe I’m the one that can’t put together abstract thoughts as indicated in the impromptu, unorganized and very rough draft of a piece. Maybe our youth will grow up and never reach their full potential because they don’t know of their endless possibilities. Maybe we’ll have a society, in 20-30 years, full of average people and non-thinkers. Maybe I’m wrong. I sure, for once, hope I am.

just want to see if I can really mobile blog...werd!
~fresh muslimah~