Wasted opportunities

I am the product of a public school education in America.

The elementary school in my neighborhood is called Potter Elementary – a Multicultural Global Education. Many of our teachers were from other countries. We were taught French by requirement. One of our teachers, Mr. Schnell, was of German descent and would play classical music as we worked. Mr. Mashni was an arabic math teacher.

One teacher suggested to my mother that I promote from second to fourth grade because of proficiency in the subject matter. I was sent to another elementary school each Monday for their ATP program – academically talented program. There we had unusual subjects such as astronomy, rocketry, backpacking, television production and the like.

For junior high and high school they offered an alternative to my district school based on my GPA. I chose to go and did well.

Today, I see the facebook postings of those I sat next to throughout my school years. The spelling, punctuation and grammar is shameful in some cases. I do not know why this is. It may be because of a learning disability. It may be because of a lack of parental support. It may even have been because they were ostracized by the teaching staff. But there is most certainly some who simply wasted the opportunity. Often these are the ones who complain about jobs, wages and lack of advancement opportunities. It seems the man is always keeping them down.

A completely free education. The opportunity to get into special schools and advanced classes. But no desire to take advantage of the opportunity.

Every day is an opportunity to do anything you want. If you want to squander the opportunity by taking selfies of your latest tramp stamp, by all means proceed, but please stop blaming everyone else for your lack of initiative.