when a 70 is an F

There once was a time when education, regardless of gender, race or economic status was valued more so than anything else. It was seen as the great equalizer and the one intangible that was attainable by every one.

Today seems that the value for education has diminished greatly, and that the transformation of values as such has turned for the worse. I had conversation with my folk this morning about his. As usual we saw this from different angles. He suggested that the values have not changed; it was that people tended to finish college but would still have no job, so I was not as important as it used to be in past days. My position was not based on securing jobs, but rather the value of pedagogy in general.

Although I do not remember the time when my mom and her siblings went to school, I do remember seeing pictures. First it had to be hell and high water for them to miss a day in school and second they always had books in their hands.

My grandma would always say she never went to school. She had to work and getting married at sixteen meant she placed her family first. But this was in the late 1930s – a few decades before Brown versus the Topeka Board of education.

Today, it seems to be just different. Told him that 70% of the young African American males that enter the 9th grade wont graduate or finish school with their peers. That means that only 3 out of ten graduate high school, at least on time. Because of this 70 percent, nearly 80 percent eventually drop out.

I consider this foul on two fronts. First is our disposition and concern of materialism in the form of objects versus what one produces with his mind. Add to that our inability to want to work hard and delay gratification for the attainment of easy money. The last front is governmental, being that more money is spent on subsidies for oil companies, big business and given to places like Israel and Pakistan than is spent on education with respect to our public schools and the pay of teachers and institutions of higher learning with the reduction of grants, student aid and loans for those interested in college.

Again, I’m just venting, and sad. I used to hate being one of the two or three African American male professors at Emory University. I felt like I had to represent all of the African American men in the world and could only kick it with the building and grounds crew outside of the two aforementioned professors. In my book, this 70 is not a C, but really an F.