Learning and Education
I have been a high school teacher since 2012. I taught English for seven years, and I spent one year employed at a private school as a Learning Specialist. Currently, I continue to teach English at public high school in New Jersey.
Throughout my years of teaching, I have learned that good physical and emotional health is essential to the ability to acquire new skills. The healthcare system in our country is very costly, even when one has insurance. If a student lives in a household that is at or below the poverty line, there access to quality healthcare and nutritional foods is limited.
Teachers are consistently blamed for poor student performance. As a teacher, I do feel that student success is my responsibility. Yet, I don’t feel that the weight of each child’s success belongs solely on my shoulders. Our government needs to take more responsibility for helping families with low-incomes survive at a level where they also have the opportunity to succeed and remove themselves from poverty. Students that are malnourished or that are not able to receive support and guidance at home because their parents are unavailable struggle much more with learning.
They also struggle with understanding why learning is important. Many low-income families do not value education because college has not been accessible to them. A high school education only gets one so far. Students learn from their examples. They need to be guided towards their strengths. Teachers are examples. Parents are examples. The way the community around them operates is an example. All that said, even if a student understands why learning is important and sees good examples, they will still struggle to learn if their family is not able to afford proper healthcare and nutrition.
I am passionate about this topic because I am a teacher and a newly single mom. My salary is not great, and I (like all parents) am in the position where I need to make sure that my children have the care and nutrition that they need to succeed. In my life, I have had many advantages. I can still take out student loans and further my education. I am healthy enough to work part — time to earn extra money if needed. Not everyone has those same privileges.
True equality is not actually possible. Right now, though, the balance of power is extremely tilted towards corporate monsters swallowing up small businesses and small doctor’s offices being consumed by healthcare giants. The larger corporations get, the less important individuals become. The more power we allow material items to have over us, the less safe our communities will be.
In my opinion, our focus as a society needs to be progressive. I believe we need universal health care and free secondary education and trade schools so that people that do not come from money don’t have to start out their adult lives with crushing debt. A closer look needs to be taken at taxation and ridiculously high salaries for those working in the public and non-profit sectors. The way money is spent in schools to feed the corporations that mandate testing and design impractical curriculum needs to be re-evaluated.
We, as a nation, are on the wrong path. To get on the right path, we need to overhaul our systems, feed all of our children, educate everyone, and minimize excessive spending. We also need to remember that we are all immigrants. Every single American originates from parents or grandparents or great-grandparents that arrived here from a different country, scared and afraid and looking for hope. Immigrants do pay taxes and they get no services in return. Immigrants go to our schools and struggle to fit in and learn our language. Immigrants are not the problem. Excessive corporate power and poorly managed government budgets are part of our problem. I am not an expert, but I know that we have the capability to revise the broken system currently in place.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know that education and health care are extremely important for our nation’s children. Until all children have access to a similar education, nutritious food, and proper healthcare, we need to do more.
