Musings on education...

I'm still an urban teacher in a sense. Most every Saturday, I'll be instructing a host of freshman in an "enrichment" program not unlike Prep for Prep in a highly regimented grammar course. I'm excited, slightly nervous because they're freshman, and I know just what they're like at that age now. And I know they like to test, test, test all figures of authority.
However, the routine, the curriculum, and the discipline, are all hand-fed to me by the program. I have the liberty to ask any unprepared or unruly student to step outside the room, which is nice. I think nothing can ever compare to the little monsters my freshman at my former HS were... even though they ended up being my best class, they were a wild bunch at first.
So I'm actually quite excited. And the "he said WHAT?" stories will be back on AGW... with, hopefully, not as much of the frustration. Stay tuned.
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*As always, I have the instruction of young minds on the brain. Eliot Spitzer, speaking in a "town hall" the other night, said that without educational reforms, there will be no resurgence of a middle class. (Incidentally, he went to my preppy prep high school and worked on our school paper, and he's a smug bastard, but so dead on.)

*But education isn't even a priority for our nation
...so how's change ever going to trickle down? The manpower it takes to educate and train youth is staggering.

*Meanwhile, in the higher eschelons, injustice still wears a suit, has a Y chromosome and a pallid skin tone, and is given affirmative action that sees color: the color green.

*Read all about the "Price of Admission" and weep.