Woo! It's Thursday!

I got ≈ six hours of sleep last night, but I'm feeling great today.

President Obama gave a speech yesterday at Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington D.C., which is one of the nation's top performing high schools. In his speech he basically said, "Good job, work hard, America depends on you." I just searched YouTube for the speech, and the video had 69 likes and 111 dislikes. I didn't even watch the whole thing, but from what I saw he didn't wow me by any measuring stick. If you have ever seen the film Waiting for Superman, which a great movie and I would highly recommend to anyone, you would know that Washington D.C. actually has the worst academic ranking of any of the US states. I realize Washington D.C. isn't a state but it should still have more than 12% of its eighth-graders able to read and do math sufficiently. So President Obama is aware that there is massive problem with the school in D.C., yet he plans to give a speech to people that are already succeeding. Hmmm...maybe they don't need a speech? Perhaps Mr. President, you could actually talk about something, instead of praising kids and then just saying other optimistic things. Maybe Mr. President you could talk about what steps you plan to take to make education better in this country instead of talking about how great we already are, which is even worse because we aren't great. We are low to mid range on the global scale.

If you haven't already guessed yet I am a firm believer that those that are academically capable or gifted should have autonomy and freedom whilst going to school. Each person should be allowed to pursue an education both as they are able to and as they see fit. Why do we give credit based on how much time we spend in class? If you know the material you know the material, and if you don't going to class doesn't necessarily equate to knowing anything. Sure people say "It's more about effort than ability" but that's false. I don't want a surgeon to operate on me with the attitude of "I could screw this up, but the compensate for that doubt I have I will try really hard and hopefully this person will be okay," I want them to walk into the operating room with knowledge of their trade and confidence in their ability, not a reliance on overcompensation and an imperfect understanding of the human body.

Success comes not from trying really hard, but from having ability and applying yourself. That's my thesis statement for today. Boom. Roasted.