"As a man thinketh..."

"As a man (or woman) thinketh in his heart so is he."  The key word is THINK.   What you think, what you know for yourself.  Not what you have been told, feed or brainwashed into believing.

"Study to show yourself approved."  You must Study!  You must read, contemplate, reason, draw inferences, come to intelligent conclusions.

I am sure my grandfather must have told us everyday; "You must cultivate the mind."  He explained the mind was fertile ground for knowledge and understanding if you "cultivated" it.  He taught us to Read by example. I saw him read books, newspapers, magazines every day.

He was a self educated man.  Robbed of a formal education by racism he had to leave school after a total of nine months.  It was some little one room school in Robeson county South Carolina.  He learned enough "reading, writing and arithmetic" to learn on his own.  To self educate.  He mastered every subject he tackled.  Gifted with a photographic memory he would amaze us by reading anything once and committing it to memory.

He died when I was twenty-seven and I never once beat him in a game of checkers or tick-tac-toe.  We would do math problems.  He let me use paper and pencil and he did his problems in his head and he would beat me every time.

He beat all of us.  My brother, the only medical doctor in the family never beat him.  His "smarty-pants" daughter never beat him.

My grandfather taught me to respect knowledge, to crave it, to think independently.  He taught me to observe and question.

I am a "teacher", a very disappointed teacher.  For thirty plus years I have tried to inculcate the love for knowledge and learning.  I assure you it is a thankless battle.  Far too many of our students demand to be spoon feed.  "Just give us the answers!"

The corrupt bureaucratic public school systems have managed to rob our children once again.  THINK!  Would you use a public restroom?  Do you really think a group of greedy bureaucrats have any real interest in truly educating your child?

Warehousing is a more appropriate term.  Crowd them in.  Stuff as many little miscreants in a classroom as you can.  Teach them the test!  Dumb down the curriculum.   Make sure 90% are on the Honor Roll.  The parents will never know that very little real learning is going on.  They won't know that their child has been robbed until the junior and senior year when the students are required to take high stakes test in order to graduate.

They still may never know.  All teachers are forced to interrupt real "teaching" in order to "teach the test".

Scammed and robbed for twelve years the "little darlings" finally enter some one's college.  They show up a week early to take high stakes diagnostic tests once again.  Far too many will find themselves in remedial classes.  Borrowing expensive college tuition to pay for courses they should have mastered in elementary school.

"Hope scholarships" are lost, dreams are dashed.  Teachers are blamed, forced to take more worthless classes in order to be re-certified every five years.  "It's the teachers fault!"; the mindless media clamors.

Parents complain.  Don't forget these are the same parents that complained and hauled teachers into the Principal's office every time they tried to really teach little Johnny.  These are the same parents that made every excuse for "their little darling".  He has  ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), or ADD with HA (Hyper Activity).  He is BD (Behavioral Disordered), etc.  Every disorder known to man has been identified.
The teacher is assigned a file cabinet full of IEPs (Individual Educational Plans).  INDIVIDUAL EDUCATIONAL PLANS!   Really!?  Is this do-able?

"You better get to work by 7:30 so you have a fighting chance at the copy machine.  Serve your early morning duty. Monitor the halls and bathrooms because we certainly can't expect high school students to follow the rules and do what they are told.  Make sure you are vivacious, dynamic, witty, energetic, well dressed, kind and understanding.  Don't get tried, work through your lunch, remain after school to tutor.  Give them extra credit to come in for tutoring.  Give them extra credit to make up for the test they failed and refuse to make up.

Take the blame! It is all your fault!  'Your're BOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRING!'  'YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! YOU EXPECT US TO READ ALL THAT!'

You count the days.  Pray for Divine guidance. Pray to win the lottery.  Pray that your administrators will assist you.  You thank GOD for the good students.  The students that are well behaved no matter what.  You remind yourself that it is Character not Color.  You repeat it over and over; "It is Character not Color... it is Character not Color." (But deep down in your soul you quietly whisper ...I wish the school would get whiter)"

The poor teacher is saddled with students labeled with a slew of alphabets.  How does the bureaucratic thieving greedy school system respond?  Make sure theses teachers are spending exhaustive hours cranking out weekly lesson plans that no one bothers to read.

Give her an "N" on classroom management.  Make her take an online course, she is a whiner.  Make sure her computer is older than she is.  Give the parents access to her roll book.  Call it "infinite campus".  Encourage the parents to track every grade and comment.  Force her to answer endless emails, return phone calls, attend conferences before and after school.

Haul her into conferences and crucify her for what she didn't do.  Let the parents rant a rave.  "You should have called me....  I don't believe You!...  I raised my child better than that. ... She doesn't lie! ... She would never do anything like that!... YOU CAN'T TEACH!  YOU SHOULD RETIRE!"

Now the teacher has a choice. "Should I continue to dumb these dummies up?  Give them the questions, give them the answers.  Give them "A"s they didn't earn.  Grin and bear it.  Pray, anoint my room.  Pray; "...Dear LORD deliver me from evil!"

The CEO of Coca-Cola just got another raise.  He is up to 30.5 million per year for legally pushing a drug.  I am down to my last dime, driving a ten year old car, for trying to save children.  For demanding that they understand that it is character and not color.

"I waited patiently on the LORD and he heard my cry."

Stay in His WORD children.  Remember; "Apart from Christ we are nothing."

May GOD's Grace, Mercy and Truth engulf you, cloak you and keep you in Perfect Peace,
Rachel Gwendolyn (the exceedingly proud granddaughter of a great Patriarch, JEROME WALTERS)