I heard an advertisement on the local radio station for a news segment that caught my interest. It takes a lot to catch my interest where the news is involved. I'll blame it on the fact that I have a Marine for a husband who was deployed not so long ago. A Marine wife's nightmare is played out on the news daily...lots of "bad" news about IED's, combat casualties, insurgent attacks, etc will make an already restless night worse. Ok, side tracked for a moment...back on track now. This news segment was advertised as the military spending money sending numerous "recruits" to Parris Island. What makes this so significant? Well, they are sending educators to Parris Island. You can view part one of the story here http://www.wnct.com/midatlantic/nct/news/local_news.apx.-content-articles-NCT-2008-02-21-0056.html I watched the segment to see that millions have been spent over the last 20 years to send teachers to Parris Island to give them a taste of what recruits go through in the process of becoming a United States Marine. Apparently some say that this should not be happenning because there are recruitment centers and schools should not be one of those places. This sent me into a mental rant! I paused for a moment to ask my Marine husband...what do you think of this? He's slurred something not so nice about "liberals" and tree hugging hippies. We agreed that this thought process didn't make sense.
There are several reasons that this statement of teachers seeing what the Marine Corps does to create a Marine was wrong bothered me to the core. As an educator it is my job to think about the welfare and future my students will have. I am to do all I can, within reason, to help prepare them to "be productive citizens in the 21st century" (a direct quite from our school mission statement). In order to do this it is my job to educate myself on possible careers for my students. It would be a good time to point out that I currently educate 6th graders, but would like to move up to the high school age group. I remember having several different business people come into our classrooms to talk about their careers throughout my own k-12 education. How is a teacher learning about the process of becoming a Marine any different? Is it because it has to do with the military? The military is a business, just like any other...except their "employees" literally sign over years of their life. If some high school student decides this is a good option for them, then I don't see how an educator being more informed about their student's possible career choice is a bad thing. Another thing I seem to remember occurring a lot is regular visit from recruiters to our high school during lunch hours. They were there on a weekly basis. Let's face it, we live in a world of turmoil. Someone needs to be brave and willing to step up and say "I'll make a sacrifice so others can be safe." The average age of an infantry Marine is 17-22 years old, according to the Marine I married. You find recruits in high schools, not just for the Marine Corps, but for all branches of the service. If I learn more about what it takes to become a Marine I don't think that will lead me to persuade anyone to become a Marine. You don't sign a contract like that unless you want to do so. I know a lot more than the average civilian about Marine Corps life, I think if anything I would encourage my students to think very carefully about whether or not to join the military. It requires sacrifices of all kinds to be a member of the military. Things like doing without some of the luxuries of life (both during deployment and being stateside), living far from family and having limited contact with them at times, saying more "see you laters" than "hello's", moving-a lot, biting your tongue when someone says something ignorant about what you supposedly do when all you want to do is fight back, staying up late and getting up early, and many other things.
I think you get what I'm trying to say at this point. I just don't get how teacher's becoming more educated on something could be wrong. Maybe I just don't get it because I'm a Marine's wife and I grew up in rural Ohio. A large percentage of the military population comes from Ohio (if you didn't know). Why? Because there isn't much else industry wise and as farming is dying out people are seeing the military as a way to pay for college, have a steady job, and/or get out of Ohio. As a sidenote, I think I may be checking into this oppurtunity to see another side of the Marine Corps. I think it would be super cool to spend a week there "playing a recruit." My husband would probably laugh at me and say I had it easy. We both know he's right. They may be giving educators an inside look at bootcamp, but only those who have survived to become Marines know the reality of bootcamp and I love them for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment