What Happened? (2009)

Alexander Bell, inventor of the telephone, in his first words said, “What hath God wrought”? If he could return today and see telephones in the faces of the public everywhere including to the demise of many innocent people, the automobile, he would say again, “What happened?”

The first telephone in the White House was installed in 1877 during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. I was raised in a rural community where there was just one telephone for miles and it was at my cousin's country store. My parents did not have a party line telephone until 1960.

Technology has changed the world, but human nature remains largely untouched. The greatest challenge to this country and its citizens is not the invention and establishment of new technologies, but the absolute failure of our system of education. The school system is a complete failure largely due to the most effective union in existence, the Teacher’s Union (NEA). We thought, and some still think, that throwing money at the problem will increase the learning ability of students. Washington DC spends more money on each student ($17,000) than any other school system in the nation. As I heard one black educator from Boston say on the public airways recently, “We should just shut down all the schools and start over”.

Ask the largest employer in your town, in my city it is the large regional hospital, or the smallest employer in your town, what is his biggest problem? The answer every time will come back the lack of education of the employees, their inability to perform the task for which they were hired, their attitude towards each other and the people they are supposed to serve.  I said to one of my employees, one who seemed to have more promise than most, “I will teach you everything I know about Real Estate and Securities (the areas which I have more financial success than anywhere else), but you must read, as I did, everything possible in these fields as money does not grow on trees, you still have to work for it”. He said, “I don’t care about all that work, I just want to get a check every month”. This has become the general attitude of our young people and our older citizens because the monthly check is more important in their lives than God, family or country.

In the past 3 days, after careful interviews where this 79 year old totally blind, 100% disabled service connected veteran shared much of his life and was careful to make sure the prospective employee understood his job, price, after 3 hours of work taking dictation, each just got up and just walked out the door without saying anything. I did get an email from the last this morning in which he apologized and said that “the work was more than he anticipated and that he had much respect for me”.  The facts are, he knew ahead of time just as the other one knew ahead of time everything involved in the job, had watched others doing the job but did not have the education background even to being able to admit that they each were having a problem.

I am closely associated with several colleges and universities. I am told they spend most of the student's early time, during matriculation, with “preliminary catch-up work”, remedial, things they should have brought with them from high school. But of the 65% of the students who enter high school, who graduate, their diploma is almost worthless. Most employers spend too much time just correcting mistakes. Even the college graduate, unless in a stressful, demanding curriculum of intense and accurate studies such as the sciences, mathematics, physics, music areas, where there is no room for guess work, we find a lackadaisical attitude.

In England, many individuals refuse to even accept the knighthood award anymore because so many undesirables have been knighted by the queen, that knighthood means nothing anymore.

In China, India, even many third world countries, the most important matter in a family or individuals life is success in education. When my parents and grandparents matured, a high school education was a real accomplishment. There were very few college graduates in the county or even in the state. The best educated citizens were the ministers and lawyers. Many of them were self-educated. I knew two lawyers, even in my younger life, who did not go to a law school, only “read law with other prominent lawyers and judges”. Most professions have increased their time in school but such is not reflected in their knowledge. I loved everyone of my elementary and high school teachers. They were real teachers and their mission in life was to teach and make sure that their students did learn. To the uninitiated, everything is obscure. Only the most dull citizen does not recognize the fact that our schools are failing. It has happened and only the education community and parents are responsible.

Dr. Clarence Poe, one of North Carolina's most distinguished citizens, editor of the Progressive Farmer, attended a one-room country school for just three months a year, and just one year of high school in Greensboro, but he read eagerly. One can self-educate if you know how to read.

Governor Charles Brantley Aycock, education governor (1900-1904), born and reared in the community in which this writer was born and reared, attained his zeal for education when he saw his mother put her mark on a deed...she could not sign her name. He decided then and there, that every North Carolina citizen should learn to read and write. Yet, over 100 years later, the illiteracy rate in North Carolina is as high as it was in Gov. Aycock's lifetime, a shame and disgrace to those in North Carolina, school board members, teachers, members of the education elite, who have the audacity to call themselves educators.