The Phoenix Manifesto (Deluxe)

XII. Overall Preparation

Proverbs 24:27 - "Put your outdoor work in order and get your fields ready; after that, build your house."

When it comes to preparing the youth of America for the future, the first thing that probably comes to mind is school. School, being the primary educators of America, is known to prepare us with a base level of knowledge that can be used not only in everyday life, but also for a good start in college. As new options are becoming more popular and available by the month, school is looking less and less relevant. For teachers and schools, this may propose a problem. With trade jobs becoming more popular and people being able to receive various internships, people are not looking to school as they used to. School is beginning to seem like a buffer to our true education and to the path we choose to take in life. While education is vital to everybody, maybe formal schooling is not the path for everyone. School and college are both remain to be great things, in which everyone should have the liberty in participating in. Other options and fields are becoming more of an option for more people, and there does not seem to be a base level education for those. School only seems to prepare us for college, which is becoming less of a route for people to take.

The high demand for trade jobs means less relevance for school. It is not to be understood that school is useless, for there are many who wish to pursue a career in the classes that are taught in school. People who want to be engineers, teachers, scientists, writers, and many other fields receive the adequate preparation they need to pursue their respective field, but there are now many other options for those who are not interested in those. School is an amazing thing, but how is it truly preparing us for life? Many everyday tasks are not being taught, such as paying bills, house and car maintenance, and many others. Americans are looking worse than they ever have, because of these missed lessons that should be taught to everyone.

When you look at schools, then at these everyday tasks that are failed to be taught, it makes school look like it is beginning to fail or that the education we receive from school is ineffective. Although for some this may be true, this does not apply for everybody. People are able to factor trinomials, but not check their car oil. These everyday tasks are being entrusted to the parents to pass down to their offspring, but what is the parents are not in the picture? They are simply not taught. The number of students who have a parent not in the picture is growing by the day. This fact leaves these tasks to one parent that may or may not know the skills themselves. Maybe these lessons should be entrusted to schools to ensure that they get taught to everyone in school. Not only would this make Americans more prepared, but it would also make school more appealing to the skeptics who are against it.

Too many students come home to say that they hate school or that they did not learn anything. Perhaps this is the chance to make not only students enjoy school, but the parents to be less worried about their children's education. When the mass of students say they are not enjoying school and not learning anything, it can make the parents worry about the quality of their education. This worry creates the skeptics of our education system. Implementing these skills into our education will be one of the best things to ever happen to our education system. A problem may arise with the parents who desire to have the honour to teach their children these skills. They feel as if it might steal the quality and opportunities of a parent-child relationship, but this is not true. While school will do the teaching of these skills, the parents can put them to the test and do activities with their children that they would not be able to do with them before. Most of our current students and youth probably do not know how to repair drywall or change a tire, but this will change this. This will not only make our students more prepared, but it will also enable parents to do more things with their children. As technology and things of the sort become more readily available, parents are becoming less able to relate to their children. I long to see a powerful family and home life, as well as a well educated and prepared America.