The Power of an Education

After a day of using my best manipulation skills and every song and dance I could muster to somehow trick students into learning, I went to the mid-year graduation and was reminded of the truth behind what I keep telling my students over and over.

They actually DO get paid to come to school.

After completing the job, they are paid a wage that Uncle Sam will never tax, that no debt collector can "repo", that they can never lose or even gamble away. There is no bad choice or mistake that they can make or decision that any outside force or "the man" can enforce that will ever take away what they have earned. How powerful is that? The diploma that those kids received last night is SUCH an accomplishment, that they have been working their whole life to achieve it; it is SUCH a triumph, that it will last their whole life no matter what.

In a world where everything we work for seems to already belong to someone else, their education will be theirs forever. It enables them to go further into higher education, be looked at for better jobs, serve our country and protect our freedom....and for some of them, it simply enables them to see that they CAN do something right. For some of those kids, no one in their family has ever earned this power. For some of those kids, they make bad choices EVERY day that defeat them and show them over and over they cannot accomplish greatness. For some of those kids, no one believed that they would finish.

This is the power of an opportunity.

This is the power of victory over at least one bad choice.

This is the power of believing they are worth it.

This is the power of a difference.

THIS is the power of an education.

After a day of using my best manipulation skills and every song and dance I could muster to somehow trick students into learning, I went to the mid-year graduation and was reminded of the truth behind what I keep telling my students over and over.

They actually DO get paid to come to school.

After completing the job, they are paid a wage that Uncle Sam will never tax, that no debt collector can "repo", that they can never lose or even gamble away. There is no bad choice or mistake that they can make or decision that any outside force or "the man" can enforce that will ever take away what they have earned. How powerful is that? The diploma that those kids received last night is SUCH an accomplishment, that they have been working their whole life to achieve it; it is SUCH a triumph, that it will last their whole life no matter what.

In a world where everything we work for seems to already belong to someone else, their education will be theirs forever. It enables them to go further into higher education, be looked at for better jobs, serve our country and protect our freedom....and for some of them, it simply enables them to see that they CAN do something right. For some of those kids, no one in their family has ever earned this power. For some of those kids, they make bad choices EVERY day that defeat them and show them over and over they cannot accomplish greatness. For some of those kids, no one believed that they would finish.

This is the power of an opportunity.

This is the power of victory over at least one bad choice.

This is the power of believing they are worth it.

This is the power of a difference.

THIS is the power of an education.