(Chapter 9) My Life as a Student

          My high school was located in a large town that consisted of mostly elderly residents who no longer had children attending school in the area.  This demographic created a social dilemma in our school community.  Because the elderly saw no direct benefit to them, our town saw much-needed education levies fail repeatedly.  Our school district suffered severely and my class experienced the worst of it.  The first thing that we saw go was our 8th grade send-off party.  The classes before and after mine all received the privilege of this celebration between middle school and high school except mine.  Students and parents alike were outraged, but the school board couldn't do anything about it.  The summer before my freshman year of high school, numerous teachers in the district were laid off due to budget cuts.  French was cut, leaving Spanish as the only foreign language class available.  Many art classes were cut as well.  The next year, our cheer-leading team and pep band were also cut due to lack of funding.  A life-skills teacher and a computer teacher were laid off as well leaving only one teacher for each subject.  The middle school choir teacher was also laid off, forcing the high school choir teacher to run back-and-forth between the middle and high school during the day teaching all middle and high school choir students.  Many choir students who were in his classes before and after these cuts said that he became an entirely different person, and would often take his exhaustion and frustration out on the students.  These ridiculous budget cuts led one of the most loved teachers in our school to quickly become one of the most hated.  Other teachers experienced similar resentments as their class sizes and work loads kept increasing.  Swimming units were also cut out of high school gym class curriculum because the district could no longer afford to keep the pool open for the school year.  This social dilemma of voter demographic caused my student body's opportunities to go from limited to almost non-existent.  There was virtually no choice left in choosing classes, and interests in any subjects beyond the basics couldn't be pursued.  Even the sports teams and extracurricular activities that were still offered to students were so expensive that most families couldn't afford for their teenagers to participate in those they were interested in.  This deterioration of our high school left a lot of time for disheartened students to find other (non-productive and usually harmful) ways of spending their time.  This ironically would annoy the elderly residents who didn't want to pay any more in taxes to help us young people create better lives for ourselves, consequently keeping us off the streets. 
          As a college student, I am still part of the education system and plan to be for quite a while.  Even after I finish all the schooling that I desire, I want to have children who will also one day have to attend school.  I will then be responsible for choosing a school system for them and will continue to participate in their education.  I don't see myself as ever really being very far from the education system or ever not being affected by it.