# Angry American Education Rant



## Noma Galway (Jan 13, 2014)

Due to the polar vortex (aka What the Starks Were Warning Us About-thanks Lowan), elementary, middle, and high schools in our region have been canceled for a while, and we missed the annual Geography Bee (For those who don't know, it is a national academic competition that, if you qualify, you actually go to state and nationals and compete for a whole lot of scholarship money). It was rescheduled for tomorrow. My little sister has been preparing for this competition for the past two years. She only has four years of eligibility for this competition (Grades 5-8). They have decided, since classroom time is now very precious, to cancel the Geography Bee for the big schoolwide event. Instead, they will do classroom competitions...in Geography class. This gets rid of my sister's hope for this year to even qualify for state, let alone nationals.

Also because we missed so much school, they missed basketball games. They are making them up this week, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (not Wednesday because that's church night). My sister, because she is in Student Council, is _required_ to go to the two home games which they AREN'T canceling due to the need for more class time. The games are after school, so there really isn't a need to cancel them. 

In other words, they canceled an ACADEMIC competition because they needed more time for ACADEMICS, but didn't cancel ATHLETIC competitions because they don't cut into class time. 

I'll say it. I was in a gifted program. I'm not athletic at all. I understand the value of class time, even though it was boring for me. I was in the Geography Bee all four years I could and never qualified, but I learned from it. As an academic brain in an athletically dominated area, _this situation ticks me off_ because this is probably the only middle school competition that gives scholarships to college, and there is a _very_ limited eligibility for it. They are ruining this year for my sister, after so much preparation on her part.

Why can't we have it after school...or on Saturday???? We are already late in doing it, but five days isn't that bad for this, especially with inclement weather in most of the country. After school this week, the only night is church night, so that's out. But they have no excuse to not postpone it until Saturday. 

My mother is calling them right now to figure out what is going on, so I may have good news later, but I doubt it.

Thanks for reading,

Noma


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## JadedSidhe (Jan 13, 2014)

I agree with you on your rant. It seems like the schools have their priorities all messed up sometimes. When my son won a regional writing award, NO ONE from the school showed up to represent the school and support the kids. They were too busy preparing for the prom. I went up to the school and ranted about it.

I'm not sure if your mother is planning to do so, but if she doesn't get satisfaction at the school, there is the superintendent's office and also the school board. (I've also gone the superintendent's office route before).


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## JRFLynn (Jan 13, 2014)

I'm not surprised, it's sad that your sister's hard work has been so easily cast aside. I don't think school staff really get sometimes how important these competitions are for those who participate and how much studying is required to even be eligible for it. Besides, they shouldn't have canceled when there's scholarships offered, that's just..._ridiculous_. 

Hope she gives them an earful and then some!


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## Noma Galway (Jan 14, 2014)

In response to you, Jaded, she did call the principal, who had no idea what had happened (he gets left out of the loop a lot), and told her he would see what he could do. The superintendent, from what we've seen of him (he's been there while) wouldn't care much. It's awful that they wouldn't show up for the writing contest awards, though. For a poetry contest I was in, they were required to come by the rules of the contest. I would have ranted about that too!

In response to you, JRF, she restrained herself...but she had to hand the phone to my dad. They will be finding a single winner somehow, we are assured, however. I'm going to go to school and have a serious rant to my friends today, though.


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## TheCatandTheBat (Jan 16, 2014)

I often feel as though intelligence is highly undervalued in America. I don't know about other countries, but definitely here. Public schools are a joke and students who value academics and using their brains are practically shunned. It discourages me sometimes to know how dumbed down the modern generation is, and to know that I myself am not where I would like to be in the intelligence and education department.

When we have kids, we're homeschooling them...


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## Yellow (Jan 19, 2014)

I may be getting a bit political here, and if so any mod feel free to delete this post, no offence was meant. 

Sometimes it's hard to forget that the purpose of wide spread education is not to have a big chunk of population being very smart and educated citizens. If you read up on the history of education, you'll find it is meant to do two things: First, to train large numbers of competitive workers (and soldiers), and only THEN to filter out those percieved as the most capable and provide a stepping ladder to higher education. 
Considering that, i'm not surprised academics are left behind in the US. They are left behind in my country as well, and it's only logical in my view. Only a small portion of the students that go to school are expected to move on to more sophisticated levels of education, where such academic skills will be highly valuable. After all, we need truck drivers and janitors and all those low pay-low education jobs to keep the world moving (I won't say wether i think this is good or bad, I don't think this is the place for that)

Or maybe i have no clue what i'm saying. Who knows.


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## Noma Galway (Jan 19, 2014)

Yellow said:
			
		

> Or maybe i have no clue what i'm saying. Who knows.


You know exactly what you're saying. And I do agree (grudgingly). However, I was expressing disgust at the blatant preference for athletics over academics.


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## Yellow (Jan 19, 2014)

Noma Galway said:


> You know exactly what you're saying. And I do agree (grudgingly). However, I was expressing disgust at the blatant preference for athletics over academics.



I think that preference ties into what I was saying. I mean, a society which pays a football player more than a teacher undoubtedly has very clear priorities regarding the education level of people in general.


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## Noma Galway (Jan 20, 2014)

This may be entering into the political arena...

But, I agree with you. I hate that it is that way. I wish it wasn't this way. I'm thinking of going into the field of education reform (along with teaching and writing) for that very reason.


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