Crippled by Knowledge
The wayward way of thinking has always been: “Son, I want you to go to college, graduate with a degree so you will have the education to secure a well-paying job. You know back in my day, I was able to go to college, so I want to make sure you have every opportunity to! ”
The inevitable downfall: The rise in college tuition, along with the decrease in federal aid for working middle class families’, students and their parents are placed under enormous pressure in paying back mass amounts of student loan debt.
The vicious cycles remains: Parents could not afford college for themselves ' Parents want better for their kids ' Parents struggle daily and sacrifice their home, their livelihood to ensure their child will have the opportunity at a college education ' Casting a dark cloud over the excitement of their child’s graduation - Four years in a state school and one bachelors degree later ' Parents are faced with a $500 a month student loan payment ' Their son will begin paying on his portion of the loan next month.
The pleasures in being a working middle class family in today’s society. Parents who in the course of hard work and determination established careers with little to no higher education, providing and making the ends meet. Nevertheless, no tuition grants or federal aid for their hopeful first generation college student. “Son, we make too much money for you to qualify for grants. I know who would think a daily struggle is equivalent to making too much money. It is simply loans for us, and I'm not sure we can afford the $568 a month payment. I guess we will manage like we always have. I sure didn't foresee this worry and grief when I just wanted better for you.'
His son, an elementary school teacher in a low-socioeconomic urban school district has hopes that each and every child in his classroom will have the opportunity to pursue higher education. Thoughts of his monthly struggle on a state teacher’s salary to make ends meet and pay back his student loans, escape him every time he walks into the classroom full of young minds craving to learn.
The children we raise and educate today are the minds that will drive our society into the 21-century. Must you realize you are sacrificing the well-being our nation and placing the future of our society in jeopardy to only have history repeat itself. Senators, congressmen, lawyers and lobbyists almost certainly would not have had the opportunity to be where they are now without the support and devotion of their underpaid and overworked school teachers. Everyday leaders such as school teachers and their hard working families do not deserve the crippling burden of outrageous monthly student loan payments when the end goal is to simply further their education in order to influence and guide the society that will lead our nation’s future.
If educators take a primary role in being the driving force behind a society of accountable well-informed people; I can only help to wonder if serving in our nation’s military can pay back student loans, why can’t serving in our nation’s classrooms pay back student loans.
© 2010 April Michelle
poem by April Michelle
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Domino College
By: jimmy buffett, dan fogelberg
1986
Found myself a matchbook
Beside some hotel bed
Opened it up and looked inside
And this is what it said
Chorus:
Get on back to school
Domino college, back to school
Boneyard full of knowledge
W-w-w-orking vacation in a third world nation
Back to school (going back to school, going back, back to school)
Fly down to miami
Get yourself a boat
Fill it full of suntan oil
And rent yourself a goat
Aint no registration
Aint no student loan
You may not learn to read or write
But you will surely learn to roll dem bones
Chorus:
Get on back to school
Domino college, back to school
Boneyard full of knowledge
W-w-w-orking vacation in a third world nation
Back to school (going back to school, going back, back to school)
They dont rap your knuckles
If you cut the class
They just track you through the jungle boy
Then they kick your ass
Its a different kind of domino theory
They teach you down in butler town
If you lose you buy the booze
And then the student body all falls down
Chorus:
They cant get back to school
Domino college, back to school
Fountain of knowledge
W-w-w-orking vacation in a third world nation
Back to school (going back, back to school)
Get on back
Make your parents hate you
Be a big disgrace
Act just like a domino
And fall on your face
Chorus:
You cant get back to school
Domino college, back to school
Fountain of knowledge
There aint no graduation from this kind of education
Back to school (going back, back to school)
W-w-w-orking vacation in a third world nation
Back to school (going back, back to school)
Be true to your school
-- spoken:
Oh, jan & dean be true to your school. big six, big six, whose got it? goddamn robert when you gonna play man, hey man, say, you know whose turn it is.
Coda:
Back to school (going back to school) repeat and fade
song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
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Pell Grants
The USA has fallen behind in college graduates in many areas especially the sciences and technology. We need more kids with ability graduating from college and getting master degrees etc. Pell grants allow a young or older person who cannot afford a college education to get one. People pay the loans off by the percentage of wage they make at the time. This democratic benefit to the middle and lower classes would be dropped by Romney/Ryan and the republicans if they are elected.
The implication of this would be college is for the wealthy and the extremely gifted with scholarships or in sports. Is this fair? Is it right for a young person with an IQ of a hundred with rich parents to go to college and another child with an IQ of a 120 with parents that can't afford 20,000 dollars a semester not go? Is this the America that you want? I am not voting for people only but justice, equality and a real America with real opportunity for all not just the rich.
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Home is the first school and mother is the first teacher
Home is the first school and mother is the first teacher
Parents are the builder of children’s characters and minds,
The mother won’t be a fighter but should be a well preacher,
If she is an illiterate she must carry her children to tuition,
Howsoever the mother should educate their children first,
And she should send her children to school daily and regularly,
Teachers are not blamed not to fulfil children’s educational thirst,
Both the parents and teachers should make them the best citizens,
As we can’t work with one hand likewise we can’t walk with one leg,
Hence, parents and teachers are the same faces of the same coin,
If parents and teachers do them careless they suffer in life to beg,
Do well and have well it is said to see your own profit in life or ruin,
That is why parents and teachers are the best artists of the child,
If an art is spoilt the statue of the child looks like an ugly and a wild.
poem by INDIA Mazid S Kazi
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My first taste of the importance of a college education
I remember going
to my first Chicano Higher Education Conference
in January of 1969
in a barren place of
University of Whitewater, Wisconsin
my brother Juan drove a white university station wagon
to his hometown Racine
that Friday night
to pick me and my other brother up
I had never been to a college campus before
but from stories I had heard
college was a cross between
Disneyland and
a crowded New York subway on Times Square on New Years Eve
all I can recall from the two hour ride
was a flashing red light
at the intersection of Highways 20 & 83
there were no cars in sight
just a warning…
we arrived on campus at 11 pm
and went to the student union
where we listened to an acid rock band
playing to a crowd of Chicanos and Blacks
no dancing occurred
just meditating
A college friend offered up his room
and slept at his girlfriend's
at 3: 30 am
seven of us shared
the beds, floor and mushroom chair
but I didn’t get much sleep
we snuck into the cafeteria
in the morning
when a football playing black friend named “Big C”
stood in the way of the cashier
the first workshop
was on bilingual education
and the speaker was so excited
he used a lot of big words
I had never heard before
so I figured bilingual education
must be important
or he wouldn’t have been so serious
the only bilingual education
I had ever heard of
was mentioned once in
our Mexican-American history class
taught by the only Mexican-American teacher
in our high school
the last workshop
was on getting more students enrolled in higher education
the speaker Corky Gonzales
was also a poet
and he told us
“we were the future of our people”
I stared at the blackboard
in that college classroom
and felt strange
about all the times
I had raised my hand in grade school
and my teacher
did not call on me
or want to hear my answer
poem by Oscar Mireles
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My Sweet School
School is where one learns,
Kowledge is what one earns,
Teachers, friends are a part of school,
Without them, a school, isnt a school,
A teacher's duty is to teach,
And a student's duty is to breach,
When parents get the complain,
The teacher's trust then, gets hard to retain,
Oh! It's recess,
But to her heart there is no access,
Boy tries to impress girl,
But oh! She's a knurl,
Recess is over and class has resumed,
Next exam, God! I am doomed,
I know I won't pass,
Coz I know Im a bass,
Walking back home in the evening,
It feels like my stress is lessening,
Im happy to be home,
Coz there is every place to roam,
Back to school, early in the morning,
I see it is snowing,
I'm back to a place of learning,
Knowlegde is what Im earning,
School is a source of knowlegde,
The best part in my life is being at this stage,
It includes everything,
And it lacks nothing,
Teachers, friends are a part of a school,
Without which a school isn't a school..............
poem by Sherbanu Molu
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What My Dreams in Life
When I was a child I'd a tough life.
I dreamed of becoming a doctor.
I dreamed of becoming a lawyer
But I ended up of being a nurse.
At an early age,
My parents were away from me
And only grandparents were there for me.
But then I understood it was for our future.
Though I'd encountered troubles with my playmates,
I was never a prodigal son to my parents.
I was just spoiled by my grandparents
And I don't blame them for loving me, of course.
When I was a high school student,
My parents trained me to be independent
That's why they sent me to the Seminary
To become a God-fearing person today.
When I went to college for study,
I took B.S in Nursing Degree
And all my teachers were proud of me
Especially on my personality.
Now that I'm a Registered Nurse in America,
Philippines, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia,
Part of me is still missing...
I dream of a peaceful place to live
where my wife can stay with me.
I dream of a better world
Where my children can grow old.
Until all these dreams never come true,
My life is still an empty bottle.
poem by Alon Calinao Dy
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At a time when going to college has never been more important, it's never been more expensive, and our nation's families haven't been in this kind of financial duress since the great depression. And so what we have is just sort of a miraculous opportunity simply by stopping the subsidy to banks when we already have the risk of loans. We can plow those savings into our students. And we can make college dramatically more affordable, tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.
quote by Arnie Duncan
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The Perfect school
THE PERFECT SCHOOL
A place where a student worships his teacher as a god,
The heads of the children before their teacher nod.
The place is the school where teachers give education,
It’s a school where there is afforestation.
A school that has all the beauties,
Is a perfect school whose students have all the qualities.
A school whose students will become president and magic vista,
A school whose students will become Rabindranath Tagore and Mother Teresa.
The Perfect School is a school whose trees will always be uploaded with fruits of joy, success and happiness,
A school whose students will never have a future of darkness.
That school will conquer the world,
In that school, music will be sung by birds.
CONTRIBUTED BY:
Gautam Kumar Sharma
poem by Gautam Sharma
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Instead, California is one of only 10 states that provides in-state college and university tuition to illegal immigrants. That's grossly unfair to a legal high school student who moves out of California for a year, then returns to attend college.
quote by Elton Gallegly
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I have fought to protect those benefits that ensure better salaries for teachers across the Nation such as grants to pay off student loans and funding for Teach for America. Still, we must all do more to show our continued appreciation for our Nation's leading role models.
quote by Solomon Ortiz
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The School Of Life...
The place were much was learned; The School Of Life.
A far different place than papers, books, and homework.
The School of Life, is a never ending, when it comes to lessons.
In The School Of Life, I have learned, that not
all, is ever learned, or comprehended.
The School Of Life, often teaches one, some bitter and
disappointing lessons.
This school, reveals much in the way of surprises. Many
that of a happy nature and some, devastating.
Somehow, The School Of Life, teaches one, to keep going.
To try...try and try again. We learn that much is gained
through tenacity. We learn it matters not how many times
one is knocked down, for it is how many times we get
up, that is the test in this school.
We learn of mans inhumanity to man. We learn that in
helping our fellow human beings, there is much reward.
We learn, that The School Of Life, has no graduating day.
We learn, that we remain, an ongoing student of education.
The School Of Life, does have its rewards; a diploma of
knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
The School Of Life, better than any college in the world.
The School of Life, where knowledge is ones ticket to
anyplace in the world.
Learn ye well, for in The School Of Life, one does not
have the opportunity to repeat a grade.
The School Of Life
The place were much was learned; The School Of Life.
A far different place than papers, books, and homework.
The School of Life, is a never ending, when it comes to lessons.
In The School Of Life, I have learned, that not
all, is ever learned, or comprehended.
The School Of Life, often teaches one, some bitter and
disappointing lessons.
This school, reveals much in the way of surprises. Many
that of a happy nature and some, devastating.
Somehow, The School Of Life, teaches one, to keep going.
To try...try and try again. We learn that much is gained
through tenacity. We learn it matters not how many times
one is knocked down, for it is how many times we get
up, that is the test in this school.
We learn of mans inhumanity to man. We learn that in
helping our fellow human beings, there is much reward.
We learn, that The School Of Life, has no graduating day.
We learn, that we remain, an ongoing student of education.
The School Of Life, does have its rewards; a diploma of
knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
The School Of Life, better than any college in the world.
The School of Life, where knowledge is ones ticket to
anyplace in the world.
Learn ye well, for in The School Of Life, one does not
have the opportunity to repeat a grade.
Higher Education...
The place were much was learned; The School Of Life.
A far different place than papers, books, and homework.
The School of Life, is a never ending, when it comes to lessons.
In The School Of Life, I have learned, that not
all, is ever learned, or comprehended.
The School Of Life, often teaches one, some bitter and
disappointing lessons.
This school, reveals much in the way of surprises. Many
that of a happy nature and some, devastating.
Somehow, The School Of Life, teaches one, to keep going.
To try...try and try again. We learn that much is gained
through tenacity. We learn it matters not how many times
one is knocked down, for it is how many times we get
up, that is the test in this school.
We learn of mans inhumanity to man. We learn that in
helping our fellow human beings, there is much reward.
We learn, that The School Of Life, has no graduating day.
We learn, that we remain, an ongoing student of education.
The School Of Life, does have its rewards; a diploma of
knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
The School Of Life, better than any college in the world.
The School of Life, where knowledge is ones ticket to
anyplace in the world.
Learn ye well, for in The School Of Life, one does not
have the opportunity to repeat a grade.
College Kids
Someone please save us, us college kids!
What my parents told me is what I did
They said go to school and be a college kid
But in the end I question why I did
Im poor, Im starving, Im flat broke, Ive got no cash to spend
Sell all my books for front row tickets to dave matthews band
My girlfriends at another school, I know this year will test her
I called, found out she had three other boyfriends last semester
And thats why I say
Oh no! not for me, not for me
Call it torture, call it university
No! arts and crafts is all I need
Ill take calligraphy and then Ill make a fake degree
80 grand later I found out that all that I had learned
Is that you should show up to take your finals and your midterms
The party scene is kinda mean, I think its sick and twisted
The navy showed up at my dorm and claimed that I enlisted
And thats why I say
Oh no! not for me, not for me
Call it torture, call it university
No! arts and crafts is all I need
Ill take calligraphy and then Ill make a fake degree
Dont get excited. shell say no without a doubt you see
And Ive decided college girls just wont go out with me
They make me nervous and they always catch me off my guard
Like cell phone services I drop out cause college is too hard
Its time to call my father
Cause its his alma mater
Good grades arent what they seem
I think he knows the dean
Its time to call my father
Cause its his alma mater
He says hes proud of me
But college always was his dream
And I would always say its not for me
Oh no! not for me, not for me
Call it torture, call it university
No! arts and crafts is all I need
Ill take calligraphy and then Ill make a fake degree
Someone please save us, us college kids!
What my parents told me is what I did
They said go to school and be a college kid
But in the end I question why I did
Do what will make you happy
Do what you feel is right
Only but one thing matters
Learn how to live your life
[in background:]
(phi, beta, delta, cappa
Someone please save us, us college kids!
What my parents told me is what I did
They said go to school and be a college kid
But in the end I question why I did)
Do what will make God happy
Do what you feel is right
Only but one thing matters
Learn how to live your life
song performed by by Relient K
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stay In School
Stay in school, don't be a fool
A dropout gets left out
A dropout gets pushed out
Show me your name, what does it mean
Show me your ring, you're in the scene
Without an education there is no beginning
With education you are winning
Stay in school, student maintain your cool
It's so hard to get a job now days
Without education just be on your way
Show me your car, what does it prove?
Show me youe diploma, you're in the groove
You don't have to be smart to finish school
But you are a square if you are not there
Dropout, you can start back
Students that are in school
You are on the right track
You can stand around the corner
Watching the school bus go by
You know deep down inside you want to cry
It is good to stop drinking
It is good to stop smoking
When you are thinking about stopping your education
My friend you better start thinking
poem by Leon Thomas Lee
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Pell grants are the foundation of Federal student aid. As someone who attended college with the help of Pell grants and as chairman of the Pell Grant Caucus, I know how important they are for our Nation's low-income students.
quote by Ric Keller
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Adult Education
Its afternoon in the homeroom and theyre about to let you go.
And the locker slam on the plan you had tonight.
Youve been messing around with a boyfriend maybe better left alone.
Theres a wise guy that you know could put you right.
In the lot the boy thats idling by doesnt rev your heart.
Cause its only lonely spots he shares with you.
And the long halls and the gray walls are gonna split apart.
Believe it or not theres life after high school.
The student bodys got a bad reputation.
What they need is adult education.
Back to school its a bad situation.
But what you want is an adult education.
The teacher dont know about how to deal with the student body.
And the underclassmen are flashing hot and cool.
All your girlfriends care about the watch you wear and theyre talkin about it.
Believe it or not theres life after high school.
Theyre calling it a preparation.
Youre waiting for a separation.
Youre nothing but another odd number,
Memories that you wont remember.
So you got a little education.
And a lot of dedication.
But you want a little night school.
Maybe some of it will rub off on you.
The boys are busy in the mirrors.
Trying to imitate their heroes.
You make it with a false surrender.
More memories you wont remember.
The senior with the junior misss
I wonder what the junior wishes.
That she could graduate to adult.
That she could graduate to adult kisses.
song performed by by Hall & Oates
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Teachers Pet
My formal education
Never bothered
With my abcs
Teacher student relation
Taught me all about
The birds and bees
School boy fantasy
Lose control
Of all my faculties
You know that one thing
That got through to me
Was her body chemistry
Subject to body language
Aint so bad to read
Between the lines
I scored above average
Oral examination
Is where I shine
School boy fantasy
Lose control
Of all my faculties
Student body graduated
At the highest degree
You know that one thing
That got through to me
Was her body chemistry
Purely scientifically
Studied her anatomy
Teachers pet, teachers pet
God only knows what you
Do to me
song performed by by Extreme
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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New Colour for Education in My Country
Many International Schools are opened
They bring rainbow in my country
They will hand in hand with public school
To give good Education for our next generation
Character Building is one of the great purpose
That we should build to our children
since the beginning
Give our future generation
Knowing more then knowledge
But also a beautiful heart and mind
Parents should hand in hand with teachers
To introduce this beautiful lesson
A school is very lucky
If it has a great teacher
Not only have a good knowledge
But also have a Hugh heart to love their students
To care of parents problem
To be there when their students cry
To Help parents to teach their kids the best lesson in life
A teacher who has a great heart to make our children to be a Gold
in their own country
I wish i can be that kind of teacher
But it's still long journey to go
Me, still need to learn how become a great mom
I was a student at Columbia College, actually, in the Architecture school. Paul would drive in from Queens, showing me these new songs. I can't remember us working it out.
quote by Art Garfunkel
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