POP!
What’s
that sound?
Fear and loss,
dreams – on hold,
watching, without a
voice as opportunity
is cut and cancelled.
For the people, or
for their bank
accounts?
Doubts – fill the staffroom.
Murmurs – echo down the halls.
Uncertainties – buzz through minds.
Bubbles – bursting before they are even formed.
Cuts like needles meant to pierce hearts and minds.
Are preparations being made for a classless class war?
Why has education been made the enemy in our province?
They say the bitter pills prescribed in government cuts must be taken or else there won’t be a future and that everyone must sacrifice because this mess is nobody’s and everybody’s fault. Yet, why aren’t elected officials in line for the same medicine that they’re prescribing? We hear tonnes of sound bites and sound bluffs. We see posturing on every stump, but where are the planters and peace makers after the forest that is public education has been razed?
We see fingers pointing in every direction because everyone is worried more about the colour of the ink on the spreadsheet than the lives that it will stain to change it.
What message is being sent to our youth by the adults, who cannot get along? The same adults making decisions about their futures? We ask our students to advocate, invest, and dedicate to their potential. We teach them to think critically, consider the facts, and make good choices. We expect students to buy into a better system, but it has already been sold out by the ones elected to take care of it.
Investing in our youth and their education should never come at a cost of denying them anything less than what their predecessors and parents had before them. Opportunity cost may be a term from an Economics textbook to understand the potential for a loss by doing something else. When we consider where things are heading in schools over the next few years, the money saved will never make up for the lost opportunity, innovation, and productivity, or the imminent financial and social costs.
Remember. Quality only hurts once. Our students are worth it. The work we provide prepares and protects them to possess a future. Our youth cannot be blamed for the mistakes of those who leveraged their futures before they were ever born. We cannot let another bubble burst and expect their children to pay for it.
