There is so much to argue about when it comes to education in Mississippi. But something that bothered the heck out of me throughout my first year of teaching is how much emphasis is put into the high school graduation. I taught two classes of seniors, about 35 students, and remember having my class pulled and sent to the auditorium (all the seniors were in the school were sent there) to receive an hour-long presentation from Jostens on graduation packages--it included everything from personal throw blankets that said "class of 2007" to signature books to stenciled name cards to give to your friends to remember you by or something? I don't even know how many colleges and universities receive Jostens package offers like that. There was all this hullabaloo about when and how you could order the package, which package is better than which... They were talking about these tassels that said "07" on them that you could hang from your car's rear view mirror like it was the coolest thing since... i don't know what.

I can't tell you how many times my class was pulled to go talk to Jostens... I find it very upsetting and saddening at the same time. I was upset during the year b/c it messed up my class period: I'd suddenly have students again for the very last minutes of class. It upsets me still because of the suggestion being made by these Jostens representatives. They were selling high school graduation with such fervor that it makes it seem like h.s. graduation is the icing on the cake. Put the sucker in a box and tie it with string, 'cause you're done. Reaching one's high school graduation is so widely seen as the chief educational accomplishment that that's all students come to school for. So many are just trying to graduate that they don't understand the greater importance of learning and the actual education they receive. It reminds me of that commercial that comes on every now and then with the woman in a business suit behind a desk that tells you that a high school graduate can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars more in a lifetime than a non-graduate. That's what education becomes, a money tool.
I have student that failed my class this year and some of them were actually upset about it. But a great majority were not upset because an F in my class meant they failed, they were upset because an F in my class would stain their transcript and make it harder to get out of high school, so they asked to do last minute extra credit work to get that 70 and were pissed when i said no to them.

It is very hard to get your students to care about putting in good effort and truly apply themselves in a classroom when the environment in which you teach and the community in which they live says that their greatest accomplishment will be to receive a high school diploma? At the age that these children usually are, why wouldn't you just do what you had to get that piece of paper? And why wouldn't you pay 300 bucks for a bunch of stuff to celebrate it? Makes that tassel on the rear view mirror look some much more... reasonable.

I know I'm ignoring a whole slew of other factors that one really should consider when discussing education, but this is all i really felt like talking about right now. And I'm gonna stop because I feel a(nother) rant coming on...