The Bottom Line

Let's get down to why we are all here. In the world of business the bottom line is almost always  profit. How can  we increase sales in order to increase profit? How can we increase customer satisfaction to increase loyalty and increase profit? How can we make that for cheaper and care less for the environment or worker's rights to increase profit.... just kidding capitalism you know we love you.

Getting to Education's Bottom Line

But what about in the world of education? More specifically what about education at a less than rich junior high school on the west end of Edmonton? What is the bottom line here?

Don't worry you don't have to think too much about it because I have the answers for you. We are here to do one thing (and it is not pass the P.A.T. sorry). We are hear to help make the future life of students more positive, fulfilling and successful.The reason we do this is to meet our bottom line - CREATE A BETTER SOCIETY.

Once we acknowledge that the millions of dollars invested in education is to fulfill that singular purpose it helps eliminate all the other bullshit that we think we are doing at school. That is what we are being paid to do, create a better society. Luckily what a better society looks like and how we get there is not exactly decided upon.

Some would say a better society includes a citizenry that is smart enough to fill the jobs, create businesses, and lead the economy. The economists have a good point. If we are not creating a citizenry that is ready to keep our economy moving then we are not creating a better society.

We must Educate for a Practical and Pragmatic Future, It's Part of our Bottom Line.

Others would argue that a better society would include a citizenry of healthy, whole, human beings that are in touch with their academic, athletic, spiritual, emotional and sexual self. These citizens care about their bodies and make smart decisions. They balance work and play, leisure and productivity, fun and games (ha). These people are also right. The number of medicated students coming from self-medicating families all destined to tax the public health care system to death is not conducive to a better society (that sounds meaner than it is supposed to sound. I love the families and the children, but repeating a cycle of destruction is poison to society).

Not sure what they are doing, but they may have learned it in school. 

A third arm of educators, let's call them the activist arm, believes a better society is populated by citizens that are actively involved in their social world. This involvement happens in the political/democratic realm, the community/local environment and also in the global n.g.o.ish sphere. I tend to agree with these people, because seriously, what's the point of all this education nonsense if we are creating a society that cares less about the world, less about one another and is less able to do anything to help their fellow human than the society before them. All the power to this group too.

I really wanted to post a picture of anonymous for this part.

The bottom line on the bottom line is that, we need all of these people and all of these visions of a new society for schools to do their job properly.

I suppose someone could argue that passing standardized tests could help our economy because large post-secondary institutions still use standardized tests to determine who can do what, but please,  is that really what we are doing? Preparing students for a test they may or may not write six years from now? Does that meet our Educational Bottom Line?

Thank you for reading my summary of why we are here. Personally I think screw all of it, let's just teach kids how to be kind to one another, to love themselves and to love learning. Bingo - society just got better.