Things Have To Change!

I was searching through blogs about education and I came across a particularly disturbing blog that talked about a young boy who had dropped out of school. The boy was only 12 years old but had been out of school for the last three years. He described how he and his friends go to the library each day instead of school so that they can study and read together. Due to the emphasis placed on testing, many schools have begun to pay very little attention to students who test poorly because they bring down the the school's overall testing average which determines funding and other issues. Because schools don't pay as much attention to the students that don't test as well, many students like the boy in the blog I read get bored with school because they are quite intelligent but not stimulated enough, so they drop out. The school paid so little attention to the boy that his parents had no idea he had dropped out. He was skilled and smart enough to fake his report cards using Photoshop and InDesign, to the point that his parents never had a clue that their 12-year-old hasn't been to class since the third grade. This kid was highly intelligent too, something that was quite obvious to any reader of the blog.

See, the blog was written by a man who had run into the boy while he was not in school one day. The boy and man got into a conversation that was so intriguing to the adult, that when the boy invited the man to continue the conversation at a coffee shop he couldn't wait. The man asked what he and his friends studied, how he knew so much, and asked himself how a kid who only made it through the second grade could be so personable, mature, as well as very, very smart. In my opinion the boy in the blog is much better off than children who are stuck in public school these days. He and his friends practice different instruments together, play sports together, take tests together, study together, and love learning together.

My point is instead of being stuck in a classroom focused on the next standardized test that they are told over and over will effect their future, the boy and his friends are working together to become more educated members of society. They're having fun learning abut the world around them, something that todays' public schooling system has taken away from the children in this country. I'm not proposing that schools close and students educate themselves, I'm only pointing out that the most grounded, happy, mature, and intelligent 12-year-old I've ever read about dropped out of school when he was nine, so what does that say about the U.S. public school system. Vast changes must be made to our public education system, and using the boy from the blog I spoke about and the way he and his friends have made learning something that they love as an example would be a great starting point.