Education Science.

Ok, so I'm an Education major. No, it's not because I'm too stupid to do anything else, which is sometimes the (completely not true) stigma with ed majors. (BTW...I got a 32 on my ACT and was in the top 3% of my class of 300 some people...not to brag or anything). It's because I actually LIKE kids and I think it's a very worthwhile profession.

Whoa...deep.

Anyway, because I'm an ed major, I have to take all these "teacher" classes, some of which are better than others. In one of these classes, the class is very discussion-oriented. A lot of issues come up, many of which are labeled "controversial" by people who are clearly not in the field of education. In this particular class, there is somebody who for some reason, has a huge problem with all of these issues and is overly-critical of absolutely everything.

Oh yeah, he's not an ed major.

Now, I have nothing against being opinionated and stubborn. (Hi, my name's Cara and I am both of those). I have nothing against hearing different perspectives. (Obviously, a science major is going to have a different one.) I do have something against trying to treat teaching and schools like some lab project that can be explained by "data" and "analysis" and crap like that.

See, education is NOT a science. You can't go about it like, "Oh well data shows this so that's what we should do." I think a lot of the problems facing schools today are because of that very issue. People who haven't been in an elementary school since they were in sixth grade are the people making decisions about what and how we should teach kids. I don't care what "studies show...." Not every kid fits into some scientific model. Every single kid is different and learns differently and I absolutely cannot stand to see somebody who is not a teacher (and has no intention of ever becoming one) try to say how schools should work.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, because I definitely don't. I'm just saying, education is not a hard science and I don't think it should be treated like one. The "experts" in this field are teachers. Most of them don't have doctorates or PhD's, but I would take the opinion of somebody who has taught third grade for 20 years over somebody with lots of letters behind their name doing "research" when it comes to figuring out what's best for our schools. I would think that would be pretty obvious, but apparently it's not.

No Child Left Behind, anyone?

New Beginnings.

This is not a Glee reference, I promise.

This is a "me" reference because this is my new blog.

I was trying to come up with a title for this, and originally I wanted it to be "Faith Hope Love." Faith in something bigger, hope for something better, and love for what I have. It's kind of my personal motto that I try to live by. It's also my tattoo that I've wanted since I was 17. It'll happen someday.

Of course, faithhopelove.blogger.com was taken, go figure. Instead of using one of the stupid variations that Blogger told me I should use, I decided to come up with something completely different. I immediately thought of the song "It's the End of the World." Don't ask me why, but REM songs are permanently stuck in my head.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it, because really, it is the end of the world as I know it. I'm growing up whether I like it or not, and I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I'm figuring it all out as I go, and I feel fine.