Teachers are the "front line of defense"

Okay so it seems the last write up is going to lead to this one. Once again in today’s paper I have read about numerous “laws” that are “on the table”. These “laws” are all about crime penalties; time served, and increased costs. Well if we did not have to continue to “support” the ever growing population of under educated criminal’s maybe we could “support” our local community schools. I see this as a way to alleviate the need to continue reevaluating the issues “on the table”.

I have some personal experience with our prison system for youth as well as adults due to a psychology course I took in school called “criminal psychology”, seems it is also the responsibility of a nurse to free the world of “bad guys” when we discover them in our hospital beds. Another story for another time.

I am seeing first hand the lack of “education” our youth receive while institutionalized in a correctional facility. School is mandatory and these institutions do release “high school graduates”. Unfortunately these graduates are text book educated with a two year olds’ schedule.

They are not taught to be responsible for their “every day” actions. Just the “criminal ones”. They are not given the responsibility of “setting an alarm clock”, filling out job applications, scheduling home work into a busy social life, or even finding time to fit a shower in.

Do to the “need for control” these daily tasks we all take for granted, are “scheduled” into the day. Your “shower time” is given to you as well as when to eat, socialize, work out and go to school. Free time is a part of the day but in a controlled environment there is no “learning to find something to do”.

Upon release these “children” are “expected” to fit in to society and “stay out of trouble”. With no peer group to relate to and no “life skills” to rely on, I see them headed for a “repeat offence”, especially if they have no “support system” on the “out side”.

These are the “criminals” in question “on the table”. Could this problem not be solved by?

Making the prison inmates “work”. For their living too.

Why can we not put a “community” inside a prison, a “community” that is well monitored but self sufficient? A way to “learn” the “life skills” most of these people are lacking….and by…

Re-evaluating our current “position” on the school boards…removing many of them and re-routing the funds saved back into the schools, instead of cutting the “front lines”. Money “cut” from the first line of defense is like suicide. Teachers are our “front line”, they hold the future in their hands, and they are “responsible” for our children’s education and actually have more influence on their lives, as they have knowledge of the “friends” your child keeps.

Once again it seems to me that the “crime” problems and the “school funding” problems go hand in hand. The Children are our future if we do not “help” them learn “how” as well as “when and why” we will keep going the wrong direction.

Again School is so much more than a “text book”, when I was a student it was a “sample” of adult hood. I did not take it seriously then, but I wish I had now.