I come from a household of educators. My dad was a psychology professor, and my mother was a school administrator. My brother and I even received the identical graduate diploma as our mother, and we each labored in larger schooling for a time.
I worth studying and consider schooling results in a satisfying life and an knowledgeable populace. It is a cornerstone of our democracy.
So it pains me once I see educators making uneducated, ill-informed choices.
Dumb choices.
As a result of they’re among the folks we rely on to not make dumb choices: educators, docs, airline pilots, and the folks accountable for nuclear bombs.
However typically they do, and it doesn’t go properly. Just like the time an elementary faculty principal suspended a primary grader for having a knife in his backpack in school. A knife he had gotten from the varsity cafeteria earlier that day.
Or the time I used to be in highschool and the administration would not enable ladies to put on shorts throughout a very sizzling spring.
I do know, I do know. Lecturers have had a tough time for the final 21 years, due to No Baby Left Behind. And the continued Republican slashing of schooling budgets and instructor salaries. And the societal glorification of ignorance.
However is it unreasonable to count on them to point out a primary understanding of necessary issues like science? Since they’re instructing kids about it, should not they really exhibit this data themselves?
Living proof, faculty directors in Cobb County, Georgia plan on releasing college students early on April 8, 2024, due to a whole photo voltaic eclipse that may occur throughout North America on that day.
That is not so unhealthy, is it? They’re giving children time to mirror and ponder their place within the universe, proper? Dad and mom and kids can research the science of eclipses higher and be taught extra about house, proper?
It is cute that you simply suppose that.
No, the Cobb County College District (CCSD) directors are planning to ship children residence early as a result of they’ve “considerations over pupil security.”
Like folks dying from eclipse illness? College students spontaneously combusting? Mass panic and riots as a result of the solar disappeared?
There is a story that, in 1504, on the island of Jamaica, Christopher Columbus used his information of an impending eclipse to frighten the native Arawak Indians into giving him and his males meals.
Is that this what they’re nervous about in Cobb County 520 years later?
Most likely not, as a result of the CCSD stated in an announcement that their “after-school packages will happen as they usually do, with college students stored contained in the constructing.”
So, the eclipse is harmful, however solely to children not concerned in after-school packages? Bear in mind, children, extracurricular actions not solely look good on a school utility, they’re going to save your life.
Truly, the directors are nervous their children will not be sensible sufficient to not look straight into the solar throughout an eclipse.
We reside in a society the place the response to highschool shootings is to offer weapons to lecturers and bulletproof backpacks to kids. But when they may stare at an eclipse? Will not any individual consider the kids?!
That is no small faculty district both. In response to their web site, the CCSD is the second-largest faculty system in Georgia and the Twenty third-largest within the nation, with 112 faculties serving 106,000 college students. Which means they suppose 106,000 college students are this dumb.
We have been informed repeatedly: Do not stare at an eclipse. Do not stare on the solar. Do not stare at an arc welder. It has been drummed into our heads since childhood. It is proper up there with “cease, drop, and roll” and “say no to medicine.” However apparently, CCSD hasn’t handed this little nugget of knowledge on to their college students. It makes me surprise what else they’re lacking out on.
A CCSD spokesperson stated that they’re centered on “. . . offering Cobb households as a lot time, info, and adaptability as doable to allow them to make one of the best well being choices for his or her kids.” As a result of they do perceive that “. . . wanting straight at an eclipse can severely harm a pupil’s eyes.”
I suppose they do acknowledge the issue. They usually need the dad and mom’ help make positive their dad and mom could make one of the best well being choices for his or her children.
Hmm, if solely there have been some type of place the place kids could possibly be informed necessary info that they should know to change into accountable adults. If solely this place taught necessary issues, like studying, science, and understanding helpful life hacks like “do not stare at an eclipse.”
If solely.
But it surely will get worse. As a result of the CCSD is just not solely misguided, they’re overreacting.
As a result of NASA says the eclipse is not going to cross straight over Georgia. As an alternative, it is going to comply with a path that covers Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Georgia will solely see the day get barely dimmer.
Oh, I can consider one thing even dimmer than the Georgia afternoon sky.
CCSD, reap the benefits of this necessary studying alternative. Do not bail on the one likelihood you must educate children one thing necessary that they’ll carry with them for the remainder of their lives.
Like how you must be taught all of your information earlier than you make an necessary resolution so you do not look dumb.
Photograph credit score: TheDigitalArtist (Pixabay, Inventive Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is completed and obtainable from 4 Horsemen Publications. You will get the e-book and print variations right here.