It’s been a good four years or so since I started BipolarNation.com, which means this blog has been with me for the same approximate amount of time I was in college. I can still remember checking the web site statistics in the school computer labs, hoping to see the advertising money roll in.

Teachers aren’t paid enough, we hear. If we really want to invest in education, we’ll recruit an “army of teachers” and provide incentive for quality professionals to want to become teachers. If we really want to invest in our kids, we’ll make sure there are low student-to-teacher ratios and that every classroom is outfit with an iPad for every student.

The truth is, teachers are like many – not all – union workers in the United States: overpaid and spoiled.

Let me ask you something, blogger to reader: did your public school help you adequately prepare for and land your current job?

If you’re like many people, the answer is no. Some people study Business Administration and end up working in retail. Some people study Pre-Med and end up working in fast food. Some people study Theatre and end up in California waiting tables. Or worse, they end up in Iowa waiting tables.

(Photo source: inlandnet.com)

I know that I am no friend of public schools, but I think I have a critique a lot of people won’t find difficult to agree with: public schools have messed up priorities.

Frequent subjects include advanced math, art, music, science, and other subjects many people barely use throughout their lifetimes. Since public school has us from the approximate ages of five through eighteen, they can be doing better things with our time than teaching us how to dissect frogs.

They could be teaching us skills.

Ronald Reagan was deservedly known as “the Great Communicator,” a politician with quick wit, an authentic smile, and the ability to deliver his message with the force and substance that can only be backed by the exact optimism he espoused. In communication circles, this is known as “congruity.”