Date of Education

There are now waiting lines for pre-school. Yes, two years before my boy steps foot into his pre-school, he gets put on a waiting list. This must be the ivy league of pre-schools.

I had a fluke event during kindergarten reading hour (which morphed into nap time). My friend Davy was lying down next to me, on my left. I don't remember the story being read, but I distinctly remember what happened next.

The fluorescent light above us began to flicker. As I stared at the light in awe, the light popped and broke on one end. Something inside me forced me to push Davy--into a row of desks, bloodying his nose. The weight of the light dangling from one end proved too heavy, and the light crashed directly where we had been lying.

Davy was crying. He failed to see that I'd saved his frickin' life. His nose was bleeding, the teacher was screaming, little girls peed their pants. Nap time was over.

This was the beginning of my education. And make no mistake, I liked learning. Still, the very act of sitting in rows staring at a teacher never made sense. How is a test going to really going to prove you've learned something? Answer: It doesn't.

My son will enter this school system soon, a system that closely resembles the one I trudged through. Classrooms with ~30 kids regurgitating what the Education Department believes is important.

I have already drawn up my plan towards my sons' classes. I plan to know his teacher better than most. I want to know where he/she has been and where they're going. I want to know where they stand and how they grew up. I want to know if they've travelled. I want to hear them tell a story and tell a joke. I plan on holding them to a higher standard. When you give a kid responsibility and trust, they shine. So will my teacher.

Our educational system shows signs of being inflationary. The degrees needed when I went to university are only the beginning of what is needed today. Tuitions are astronomical and are not matched by quality. Textbooks are obsolete before they're finished printing. I must face the reality that this is not a world I've seen before. We must gaze at our environment with new lenses.

How can we (an obese nation, by the way) move our classrooms out of an actual 'room'? Biology in a nearby field, language at a public speech, math...well, anywhere but behind a chalk board.

Everyone learns in their own special way. I won't get into it, but I know that you can read 10 books on starfish, but until you see one in its own habitat, you don't know starfish. We live in a world where everything is digital. There will come a day when "I've actually seen a starfish!" means more than anything.

Drugs, racism, prejudice and peer pressure are some of the many reasons parents choose to home school a child but does this really give a child the best start in life? Will that boy or girl grow up equipped to deal with the daily challenges of modern day society? Although state funded schools may not seem to be the best start in life they teach children one thing that home schooling does not. Dealing with these issues is an important part of developing as a person and understanding ones own identity. However when it comes to education can we really rely on state funded establishments to do the best job of educating our children?

Lots of people have turned to "toping up" the education of children with home tutoring and private tuition to give children the best chance that they can get. Private education has always been a way to ensure the best start in life but with tuition fees reaching an all time high it really is not suited to everybody's pocket and as a result there has been a huge surge in the amount of parents investing in home tutoring to ensure that children can excel in areas that the usual classroom environment cannot cater to.

The Tutor doctor is one such group that is rapidly expanding as a result of people losing faith in state funded schools. It seems that in a world of raising unemployment amongst highly educated people the only way to survive is to be at the top of one's game and it all starts as a child. More and more graduates are finding that the chosen path is leading them to the same place that they may have found themselves if they just decided to find work at the age of 16 but without the lingering debt of student loans hanging over them.

It seems clear that the only way to make your efforts count is to be top of the tree all the way through. The United Kingdom has become a services based economy meaning the jobs are in offices and positions of qualification. It is already the cast that there is a qualification for almost every profession out there but the competition for the higher paying work is fierce and our overall standard of living is being diminished. My children will be made aware of the importance of high achievement because even after all of the time and effort invested, gone are the days of a secure future for anybody. We are most definitely back to the days of "survival of the fittest" only it is more about fitness of mind over body.

With the new focus being on amassing wealth, people have forgotten about the lack of educational resources in the country when in fact education is a key element of any society. Companies that have been supporting the cause to improve the lack of educational supplies are the only hope left for less fortunate children all around the country. Not only do some children have to go to a class without adequate equipment in terms of materials which elevate intellect, some children are deprived of important educational resources that are meant to elevate the physical as well as social aspects of every child.

The country is worried about the standard of education and wonder why a lot of children, who should be in school, are turning to crime to make money. With no resources, these children are left with almost no hope for their futures. While the more fortunate schools have started putting their syllabus on gadgets such as iPads, some children are still struggling to read and write.

Although most developed countries are known to have some of the best education in the world when compared to developing countries, the fact of the matter is that most public schools still lack basic educational resources. Teachers cannot do their jobs properly without the right resources and supplies. Basic tools for learning include books, pencils, desks and a good learning environment. Public schools that are already functioning are using old textbooks that are broken and hard to read, purely because of how old they are. New textbooks are rare in public schools that were built specifically for less fortunate areas because they are too expensive for the students and parents in the community.

Education is one of the most important aspects of the modern world and the more we invest in it, the more our children are going to be able to benefit from it. By investing in new equipment while also retaining a steady flow of basic equipment, we are essentially providing the raw materials which will be used to fuel the enthusiasm and the aptitude of our growing children. After all, we must remember that they are tomorrow's doctors and nurses and many of them will prevail into inventions which will only brighten our future as a whole. Regardless of the level of education, everyone should have access to the resources and materials they need to learn and they should be available to them without much hassle and inconvenience.