You hear it all the time. "All 'yall jus need ta suck it up and stop wasting time and money on dumb shit! Once ya do that 'yall be rich in no time!"
Others respond with how the system keeps people down. Does "The System" really keep people poor? The last few days here in GED land shed some light on just how systemic being poor is. Student one is talking about having to quit classes with just one test left to pass. The reason? Thanks to our honorable republican governor shutting down the extended assistance programs they had to get a job. Now, many will say welfare is bad and people should get a job. I can see some merit to that argument, but stop and think for a moment about what job can a person without a diploma get? I'll tell you. Minimum wage. Constantly changing work schedule. If you are lucky your hours will be consistent. Odds are they won't. Chance for promotion or advancement: next to none. Chance for losing your job: high to certain. Student two tripped on a section of damaged sidewalk. To add insult to literal injury they also dropped their phone. They spent three weeks laid up due to this injury and couldn't contact or participate in online lessons until they replaced the phone. Student three has a certificate for a well paying career but can't get hired because they lack a GED. The state has a program that can grant a GED equiveillance for training and experience. Out of eight points needed the state only grants one for a professional level certificate. Non of these examples are the end of the road. And yes, on a one by one basis they can be overcome. However, all of these examples do illustrate a system that at best creates more obstacles to climbing out of poverty. From locking people in low paying jobs, to crumbling infrastructure that disproportionally effects poor people, to options that are not really options at all, "The System" does actively continue to create new barriers as well as reinforce currently existing ones. As these barriers pile up breaking the cycle of poverty becomes a Sisyphean task. As to all the self made types out there, it is amazing how many of them got a cheap loan, somebody gave them tools, they had free access to materials and a place to store them... The list goes on and on and the more you look the more you realize most of them have never experienced real backbreaking poverty. But they sure do like to tell people they have.
0 Comments
The Lovely Wife said to me the other day, "Why do we need teachers if everything is available on the internet?
It's a fair question and it got me to thinking. After that thinking I came up with a single word answer: context. Part of the GED test here in Arizona (and a few other states) is a civics test. It's basically a How Well Do You know The United States trivia test. Seriously. One of the questions is "What is one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for?" Answer: "Oldest member of the Constitutional Convention." As a teacher, I bring relations and connections to the trivia. Trivia is knowing who Susan B Anthony is. Context is discussing the decades of fighting, the truly nasty opposition, and the social issues of the movement. Context is connecting that movement with the women that didn't want to go back to being housewives at the end of WWII. Context is also knowing what to ask. Context is creating the situation where the student comes up with the question. Recently I put up live feed of a volcano in Iceland. A student asked isn't it cold there? This opened up a conversation on what makes a volcano hot, how we can capture that heat for energy production, types of rocks and more. Another reason for have teachers is helping others sperate the proverbial wheat from the chafe of all that information on the internet. After all, just because it's on the web doesn't make it true and we have seen the results of less than critical thinking on "facts". To sum it all up, I like to think of what I do not so much as teacher, but rather inciting curiosity. My jam is setting up a place where people can come and explore and ask questions. Talk about things and see stuff they may have never thought of. And to show them how they can find information |
Step inside the mind of me.Hi. Welcome to my little electron of the internet, where you will find random comments about whatever pops into my mind! Previous mumblings
December 2021
Categories
All
|