My personal story in response to a devoted teacher who believes in public education…..
I grew up the second of seven children.
My father who was an only child and lost his dad as a teenager and his mom as a young adult, was the sole financial supporter of our family during much of my childhood. He worked as a janitor and part-time delivery man.
My siblings and I all attended Catholic elementary and high school. Because it’s what my parents wanted for their children.
When times got hard (which was always), my dad (in addition to his full time job – he worked his way up to building engineer) decided to try his hand with a family owned and run grocery/convenience store.
The store was open 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for 16 hours a day. And we all worked in it, even as young children; before and after school and during weekends and while on “vacation” from school.
The business ultimately failed after ten years of back breaking work.
My dad continued working odd jobs in addition to his custodian engineer position; and my mother, in addition to running the house, worked as well, to make ends meet – and to pay the tuition.
When my youngest sibling went to kindergarten, my mom after raising us all to school age while working alongside my dad in the always struggling family business and as a secretary afterward, enrolled herself in college and got a nursing degree.
Within about two years of her working as a nurse, my dad died suddenly at the age of 47. My mom was left a widow with an 8, 10 and 15 year old still in school.
My mom continued to work as a nurse to support her family (and continued to pay tuition for their Catholic school education) and they all graduated from Catholic high school.
All of my parents’ children are successful, independent adults:
A Captain in the FDNY; an Accountant; an Optician; IT Company Executive; Engineer; Teacher’s Assistant, Office Administrator.
Life is hard.
But it’s worth the effort.
It’s not just worth the effort.
It’s about the effort.
We are designed as human beings to find fulfillment in our efforts. We rob people of life’s very purpose and greatest satisfaction when we attempt to give them what they are supposed to work for themselves.
So many of the social programs which our government implements ultimately deny people one of life’s most important gifts:
The fulfillment that comes from being able to provide for our own families.
That is a travesty. In an effort to “help” people, our government has set so many of them in a trap they cannot get out of. We give them just enough to keep them from being able to stand on their own two feet. We give them housing money or living expenses; and as soon as they start making just enough money to pay the rent, we cut them off; so they are basically encouraged to remain dependent.
What they need is opportunity and encouragement to do for themselves; and the motivation that comes from the satisfaction of the success in providing for themselves and their families.
Public education in particular, increasingly endeavors to provide for children what they should be receiving from and within their own families. Aside from being impersonal and inconsistent, it deliberately encourages and manifests long term dependency which is terribly self defeating for the people they claim to want to serve.
It is the ultimate irony and defeat inherent in all socialist societies – in the name of equality and charity, socialism destroys individual motivation, opportunity and fulfillment and robs people of their most precious and necessary treasures – individual self worth.
In reality, the greatest education that I received from my parents had far less to do with what I learned in the Catholic schools they struggled to pay for, than what I learned from my parents’ passion and dedication and sacrifice in giving all they had for what truly mattered to them – us.
That was nothing I could or would ever learn in a classroom. And nothing I ever learned in a classroom motivated me more than what I learned in my home and from my parents.
Most teachers are sincerely devoted to their students. But the reality is that they can never give their students what they are supposed to get from their parents.
Teachers are not supposed to replace parents. The government is not supposed to supplant employment.
As a society, we should be allowing and encouraging families to earn and serve their own. It is the natural human instinct which leads to life’s ultimate fulfillment.
Public education and financial assistance are not the best things we can give to children and families.
Self worth, confidence and purpose are.
Nothing can replace the love of a family.
When we learn that, we will have mastered education.
And put an end to a lot of corruption and heartache.
If you want to save the world, fix families.
Anne On The Issues 