Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest

I always love it when Oprah blows the lid off of hidden crises in America, especially when it’s not a political statement in disguise. She did a two-part special this week on the lack of education in our public school systems; a situation I believe is epidemic.

As of right this second, 735,828 kids have dropped out of school since January 1^st and the number goes up every minute. Our nation used to be ranked among the highest in most educational subjects and now we are in the high 20s in many subjects including math and science. It’s about expectations in the schooling system: there are none. We hear so much lip service from political leaders about the educational system so we think something is being done. It must just be kids these days. But it wasn’t too long ago that I was in high school and I’m telling you… the crappiest of kids – the ones who make you say “kids these days,” would rise to the occasion if more was expected of them.

Case in point: I was always among my teachers’ favorite students. But I was an awful student! I refused to do meaningless busy work for the grade, and if I felt the curriculum for the day was lame, I’d skip class and go to Barnes & Noble, my happy place (smell of coffee and books). What happened when I admittedly (to my teachers, even!) skipped class (sometimes 3 days per week)? Well I would confess lightheartedly and because of that, my teachers would laugh. THEY DIDN’T CARE! I held a 3.8 GPA all throughout high school and the only class I didn’t regularly skip was choir.

I learned about a charter school called KIPP. They’ve developed a totally non-conventional way of teaching kids. I watched and cried and wished there was a KIPP school in our area while my brother was going to school. My brother, who everyone said had severe learning disabilities but now I feel has NO learning disability. The real problem was the teaching system in his schools werejust created in 1956 and never since changed. His teachers didn’t truly care and the curriculum didn’t allow for higher methods of teaching. I have to think, no, I know, my brother’s life would be a lot different if he had gone to a school like KIPP.

To my 5^th grade teacher’s credit, although I couldn’t until yesterday recite the state capitols, or point out 15% of the states on the map, or tell you the first five presidents of the United States, I did somehow remember – and the memory came busting through out of no where; I mean I swear the memory didn’t exist, it was like my mind was creating it as it sang so loudly from my lips…that Mother Very Earnestly Makes Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

Although, like the entire US education system, this acronym needs a serious re-vamp with all the planets they’re discovering lately. They named them “Santa”, “Easter Bunny”, and “Sedna”. I bet God is so displeased.

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