I have an issue with the so called Philanthropists in the Afrikan American Community. I see a lot of organizations and programs set up to help Afrikan students and the current situations on the Continent. This is a noble cause and by all means it is needed. My issue is a simple on indeed but I feel it needs to be voiced, well lets be honest the only person that reads any of my rants is myself so I am doing it for self edification. I was listening to people sing the praises of Oprah (sigh) talking about the 40 Million dollars she donated to help students in Afrika. This is sweet, but Ms. "I love me some me" has seemed to over-look the millions of children in this country who suffer from inadequate schools. Apparently she or her people supposedly interviewed students and she wasn't impressed with the ethics of the students in the US. I do not know if this is true or not so I will not comment on the remark. But I do know this to be a fact, there are thousands of kids in this country who want to learn and want to better themselves but are not able to because of lousy environmental conditions.
My gripe is this, Why do we continuously look to Afrika and want to save her. I mean I have nothing against that but I feel that we should at least have a blueprint to work from. Why can't we put the time and resources into building a better Amerika for our children. Someone told me that Black Amerika is a figment of my imagination because it does not exist. I believe it does not exist because of that mind set. We need to build our place here in this country and ensure the future of our children. Once we have a proven Blueprint then we can spread out and help Afrika. But as it stands now we can't even help ourselves so why do we think we can help others. The key to improving or situation is by improving the school systems in Urban areas. We need to put pressure on the school boards and make them teach our children the things that they are going to need in order to succeed in life. We need to make sure that our children have the proper books and resources in order to get the best education they can. Why not build an organization that will basically serve as an over-site committee for education in our cities. And when a school system is severely lacking then making money available through donations in order to get AC, Books and in some cases heat into the schools. While we are at it lets bring the arts back to our schools. The children are suffering because our politicians always seem to make the first budget cuts in the schools. So how can we expect the children to learn?
An outline should look this way, we put our initial focus on the elementary school level. We should raise the expectations of our children at this level. By expecting a higher standard level we then prepare the children for middle school where the bar is yet raised again. That way when they get to High school there is no problem teaching at a higher level. We can not raise the bar without first preparing the children. The other thing is we need to get away from this no child left behind BS. In all honesty some kids need to be left behind because it only takes one to bring down an entire class. When I was in school if you had trouble learning you where put into a class where the subjects where taught at a slower pace. Why hurt the learning of the students who are capable because of the one or two who aren't.
this all I have to say on this for now. But I will be back, believe that.
My gripe is this, Why do we continuously look to Afrika and want to save her. I mean I have nothing against that but I feel that we should at least have a blueprint to work from. Why can't we put the time and resources into building a better Amerika for our children. Someone told me that Black Amerika is a figment of my imagination because it does not exist. I believe it does not exist because of that mind set. We need to build our place here in this country and ensure the future of our children. Once we have a proven Blueprint then we can spread out and help Afrika. But as it stands now we can't even help ourselves so why do we think we can help others. The key to improving or situation is by improving the school systems in Urban areas. We need to put pressure on the school boards and make them teach our children the things that they are going to need in order to succeed in life. We need to make sure that our children have the proper books and resources in order to get the best education they can. Why not build an organization that will basically serve as an over-site committee for education in our cities. And when a school system is severely lacking then making money available through donations in order to get AC, Books and in some cases heat into the schools. While we are at it lets bring the arts back to our schools. The children are suffering because our politicians always seem to make the first budget cuts in the schools. So how can we expect the children to learn?
An outline should look this way, we put our initial focus on the elementary school level. We should raise the expectations of our children at this level. By expecting a higher standard level we then prepare the children for middle school where the bar is yet raised again. That way when they get to High school there is no problem teaching at a higher level. We can not raise the bar without first preparing the children. The other thing is we need to get away from this no child left behind BS. In all honesty some kids need to be left behind because it only takes one to bring down an entire class. When I was in school if you had trouble learning you where put into a class where the subjects where taught at a slower pace. Why hurt the learning of the students who are capable because of the one or two who aren't.
this all I have to say on this for now. But I will be back, believe that.
No comments:
Post a Comment