Just Teach Them

Teach them taxes! Teach them credit! Teach compound interest growth!
Teach them budgets, mortgages, and how to balance both!
Teach them farming, sewing, plumbing, coding, tires... oil too!
Teach them how to buy a house, and what good soil can do!

Teach CPR and critical thinking! Media literacy!
Teach them scams and propaganda, bias, hypocrisy!
Teach them empathy and kindness, public speaking, private grace!
Teach them how to spot narcissists before the third date!

Teach resilience, confidence, leadership, cursive script!
Make sure every single child leaves certified: equipped!
Teach nutrition, healthy habits, conflict resolution, too.
Teach them every life skill that I never learned in school.

Just make the school day longer till it matches when I work.
Don't ask me for more funding. Every tax hike hurts.
Keep the ragged textbooks rolling though their pages fade away.
Buy your own dry-erase markers. Make the IRS pay.

Skip another counselor; kids just need more discipline.
Every problem has a simple fix if they'd just tune in.
Pack in twenty students more. They'll hardly take up space.
After all, what teacher couldn't match a name to every face?

Teach them history and civics, economics, law, and art,
But be careful with the chapters that might trouble someone's heart.
Write a law to ban a topic if it makes a parent squirm.
Scrub the reading list and syllabus again; check back every term.

Ban the books that make them wonder. Ban the ones that make them weep.
Ban the ones that ask hard questions. Those are better left asleep.
Legislate each classroom sentence. Count each poster on the wall.
Truth is safest when filtered through the loudest voice of all.

Make sure teachers have no values, no opinions, no background,
No humanity, no politics, no soul that can be found.
They must never show emotion, never let convictions show,
Never mention where they stand but still teach what all should know.

They must foster independent thought in every young child's mind,
So long as every conclusion is the approved and proper kind.
They must challenge every student, never challenge me or mine.
Walk a legal tightrope daily. Smile. Assure us all is fine.

Prepare our youth to rule the world, create, invent, adapt...
While making sure their teachers' hands stay firmly, legally strapped.

Daily writing prompt

What’s a thing you wish schools actually taught?

View all responses

Just Help Them?

If you have a list of everything schools should teach, consider adding one more item to it:

How will you help?

Here are a few places to get started:

• DonorsChoose – Support classroom projects and teachers directly. https://www.donorschoose.org/
• National PTA – Learn how families and community members can get involved in supporting local schools. https://www.pta.org/
• Volunteer at Your Local School – Contact your neighborhood school or district office to ask about tutoring, mentoring, classroom assistance, career speaking, or other volunteer opportunities.
• Become a Mentor – Many schools partner with local mentoring organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters to connect caring adults with students. https://www.bbbs.org/
• Education Foundation – Many school districts have local education foundations that fund classroom grants, scholarships, and innovative programs. Search for your district’s education foundation to learn how you can help.