Back-to-School Time: Are We Looking at It All Wrong?

We see it every day lately: It's back-to-school time! Sale on now! Buy the latest ______ (fill in the blank). The commercials inundate us at every turn and they use kids to push the point that they should be buying all the coolest clothes, the latest, most up-to-date gadgets, the neatest binders and notebooks (and not necessarily the paper kind). Some communities go pretty much year round, which is another issue altogether, but they still have all these sales in the fall in an effort to make big bucks off of you and to push the 'I'm cooler than you' attitude.

In the schools, kids are excited to go back, at first, but then the 'I don't want to go to school in the first place' kids start up and disrupt classes for those who do. Kids are texting back and forth, which in most schools is actually against school policy to even have a phone in class. (So why are you buying them the most expensive, does-everything phone?) A good many kids take it for granted that they will go to school, like it or not, and a lot of parents are involved enough to help them with their homework. Those who don't, again, is another issue altogether. The kids who take it for granted go along goofing off, sometimes learning in spite of their antics.

Now, flash to other countries where it is not a right to go to school; it is a privilege, and if one goofs off and doesn't participate and do well, they are out and destined to poverty and menial employment if any. Also consider the Middle Eastern countries, such as Pakistan, where the Taliban shot a young woman in the head because she spoke out against not letting women to go to school. That young woman was Malala Yousafzai. She survived the gunshots after surgery in the United Kingdom and months of rehabilitation. Still she fights on. The United Nations honored her bravery on July 14, 2013, and the speech to the United Nations Youth Assembly she gave was astounding. With great passion and eloquence she made a plea for all children, male and female, to be allowed to get an education. In her country schools are burned and the students are killed just for trying to learn. Those children aren't thinking about which clothing or robes, as the case may be, are the coolest, or who has the newest technology. They just want to go to school and learn.

If we look at going to school as a privilege and an education as one of the greatest assets we can give our children, and teach our children to respect the privilege, then we can make real strides in educating our children; not by teaching them to be ultimate consumers of whatever the 'coolest' trend is in blue jeans and tee shirts and electronics.

Watch Malala Yousafzai's speech on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SClmL43dTo