A man named George Shaw left a message for Mankind:
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
It is one message that we as a nation that values education more than anything must hear. We know what education does for America. It is what separates us from countries that are struggling to get back on its feet with the weights of poverty, disease, and constant violence upon its shoulders. It is what prepares our leaders of tomorrow and therefore, education is what prepares this nation to succeed. How can we fail to realize that education is the tool we give to the next generation?
And what’s more, how can we fail them by prioritizing our own personal convienence of saving a couple hundred dollars a year above the effort to equip our young minds with the tools they need to take on the role as the world’s leader?
Education is what gives our future leaders their own train of thought, their own principles, their philosophical and analytical abilties to identify and solve problems. And it is exactly for that reason why education should always be improving. It is precisely the reason why we must always struggle to take education further, just inches beyond our limits, and when we reach our limits, we must push to improve it some more. There must be constant progress in education.
Progress cannot be made without ingenuity or imagination. We must be looking for paths that we have not yet discovered. I’ll tell you that “progress is impossible without change”. In order to improve our education, we must look for ways to change our education. And in order to change our education, we must look for creative and innovative ways for our education. Doesn’t that logic ring true for any caring parent or any American who want the best for his country?
I do not claim that we will not make mistakes. We will stumble in our search for that creativity, that innovation. Some ways proposed may be attempted but fail horribly. It will cost money. All efforts for anything worthwhile do. Anything worthwhile will come with a sacrifice. However, it is a storm that must be braved. It is the training that we must constantly endure to perfect our future.
So why is it that we argue that innovative methods that improve student achievments are not worth the several dollars out of your pocket? Why is it that we are failing to realize that, yes, some methods may not work, but those mistakes give births to successes that will give our next generation of our country what other nations cannot give to their next generation? Should we not support the effort towards this crucial investment for our young minds?
I’ll tell you this: the value of our nation is not determined by where we stand today but by the direction we will be heading tomorrow.
