The more I look into grad school, the more I find myself completely freaking the freak out! I came to the realization that I have really no idea what I want to do with my life. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish, and I can't seem to find a way to go about doing it.
A few things I'd like to accomplish in my life time besides get married, have kids, raise a big family and be successful in my family life... :
- Fix the school systems. There is no reason why people shouldn't care about the school system. The education of children is the single most important factor in taking care of the future. I don't know why some people don't realize that. The children in school now will eventually be controlling the world. "NO Child Left Behind" may be good in theory but in practice it's a bunch of crap. There is no reason why the smarter kids (and all men are NOT created equal - you know it, I know it. Intelligence varies in every person) should have to wait while the slower kids catch up, if they catch up. The schools also need more money, or less money where it isn't needed. Better resources. Better teachers (higher STANDARDS for teachers...did you know that the accepted GPA for teachers is 2.5? a high C?! That seems like crap to me. Teachers should always be smarter than their students). Teachers should also get paid more. Maybe I say that because my mom is a teacher, or maybe because that seems to be the road I'm on, but why should the very people that educate surgeons, politicians, athletes (ha ha), and lawyers be making less than any of them? ugh
- Shock the American public into realizing that elections don't have to be about "the lesser of two evils." This isn't fair to us, as a "democracy," we should have the right to choose. Bob Riley and Lucy Baxley should NOT be the choice we're forced to make. I didn't like either one of them. Raising minimum wage is great but she couldn't campaign for just herself, she had to sling mud like nobody's business? And Riley's just dumb, let's face it. ...This also holds for the last presidential election. eek.
- Change the lives of students, even if it's only a few. Help them realize their potential and not to be intimidated by the greatness of others, only inspired by it. I used to be so afraid of the "smart kids" in my English classes until I realized I was one of them.
- World Peace is completely unattainable (and I'm not running for Miss America), but I don't know why the American government can't understand that. Having more money does NOT make us much better than other countries. When we go overseas, people HATE us. That should change. One way to change that is to educate children in WORLD history, not just Alabama and United States history. I don't know how, but I made it out of public school with ONE YEAR of World History (please tell me how they think they'll cram that much info into one semester) out of the 13 I was in grade school! Also, I don't think the American Army needs to be fighting other people's wars. If a people cannot defend their land, they lose it. It's worked that way since the beginning of time and if people want to go over and join foreign militaries elsewhere, believing the cause is good, let 'em.
So those are just a few of the things that I want to see changed, and want to help effect change in my lifetime. I have no idea how I'll accomplish that.
I went to a meeting today to look into the Alternative Masters Program in the School of Education. It was pretty awful. Elementary education majors have to be pursuing that because (specifically in the case of the women in my meeting today) they cannot hold an intelligent conversation with an adult to SAVE THEIR LIVES. My GOD. The girl that arrived early (like me) was on her phone when she got there - she was talking too loud about nothing ("oh my GOD, yes I know! ...yeah, I was feeling great yesterday but today I don't feel good. Today I'm feeling pretty bad. Yesterday I felt pretty good!" she said the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over....), and this continued once she got off the phone to a girl she didn't know, which lasted about half an hour before the meeting (our presenter person was late), and then every five seconds in our meeting, she had a question that was specific to her which should have waited until later. It was like she was afraid that if she stopped talking, her vocal chords would die or her head would fall off or something. INCESSANT. I almost got up and left just because she was so INCREDIBLY annoying. It was pretty amazing.
So that kind of turned me off to the whole 5th year in education thing. I'm stumped. I know one girl shouldn't make me change that whole decision, but I can't say that I'd be happy in a permanent setting with people like her. I wanted to teach high school English while getting my PhD but now I'm sort of thinking I might just stay in school forever and go ahead and get my PhD now. I don't even know if I can do that. I don't even know if that's what I want to do. And teach college.
I'm a little muddled.
posted by Katie Mo @ 11/09/2006 11:28:00 PM
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