For those of you that haven't heard yet, our esteemed President has won himself a Nobel Peace Prize.
There's a strong outpouring of venom in regards to this topic across the intertubes. My facebook newsfeed is alight with people wondering "WTF?" and "Bullshit" and other such disbelieving sentiments. Twitter is buzzing with people both congratulating the decision and stoning it.
Me, I think the decision is ludicrous. Yay, we have an American who won the award. Go-go American pride. That's all well and good, but I must pose the question: What has Obama done to promote peace since he's become President... or ever for that matter?
Sure, he runs around trying to curry favor with foreign governments (which includes declining to meet with the Dalai Lama in favor of placating the Chinese government), but that hasn't done much in the way of promoting peace... especially considering that the award nomination had to be submitted just 12 days into his Presidency. In the first 12 days, he accomplished... nothing.
Not that this has changed in any way since those initial 12 days. First, the wars that G-Dub started during his miserable 8-year term are not over, and are looking to get far worse before they get better - issues are escalating in Afghanistan, and there's been no notable improvement in Iraq since Obama took office. The news has been speaking recently of Venezuela, North Korea with their nuclear threats, and China becoming quite powerful. and yet, even 10 months into his Presidency, we're supposed to think he's done enough to promote peace to deserve this award?
So far, all we've heard from Barack Obama is bold and empty promises, a lot of rhetoric and hyperbole, with a few Superman jokes thrown in for good reference. He has failed to deliver on even the simplest of promises, including (but not limited to): getting rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," ending the war in Iraq, nationalizing health care (not that I want that to go through, but still), or saving the economy (or even making the economy his first priority). And, mind you, that's with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate. Fail, fail, fail.
One thing that he is pushing for is a solution to the fact that America keeps dropping in the ranks of most educated population. His solution.... Make the school year longer.
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That helps how? The only way to educate successfully, in my most humble of opinions, is to motivate. Extending the school year, cutting into the one time of year every school kid looks forward to, is NOT going to motivate anybody. I know I wouldn't be motivated, and I used to love school.
Let me throw a suggestion out there for the masses. Let's start teaching the kids instead of teaching the test. I loathe standardized tests, I think they're idiotic. You cannot teach every kid when you are teaching to a standardized test. You will fail in teaching, because the people you are teaching are NOT standardized. The idea that schools get paid more based on how well their students do on tests is a big fat failure. We all get that schools need more money, but parsing out that money based on test results is insane. Teachers need to be given the freedom to actually TEACH kids again instead of spending their time teaching kids how to fill out bubbles and how to answer the specific types of questions to be found on a test. This does not prepare students for the "real world" in any way, shape, or form.
If Obama would like to improve our education system, start out by getting rid of this standardized testing bull crap. That's my thought on one way to improve the state of our education system. Sure, it probably won't fix everything wrong with it, but it's a bigger step in the right direction than extending the school year will ever be.
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