Second, a prefix is a part of what we teach in grammar to introduce Greek and Latin affixes (yeah, don’t say it) that begin words. For example, the prefix “sub-” means under. “mari-” means water. If a student knows this he or she can break apart a word to know that a submarine is something that goes under water.

A Million Paths - You aren’t unpopular or crazy at all. Here’s my thought: most of the people who we normally have disdain for have jobs that are highly skilled and require upper-level vocabulary. Electricians don’t all have 4 year degrees, but do you think I want to read those manuals with those difficult words to understand what they do? No way. You are absolutely right in your assessment of the Haves and HaveNots (with regard to degrees).

Not everyone can be doctors and lawyers, and god help us if everyone was.

The saddest thing our country ever did was belittle service work and say that if you don’t have a four year degree, you’re somehow flawed. Worse still, is that more and more jobs require a degree, jobs that really don’t require a degree.

In crazy land new york, an administrative job with a finance company requires a degree from a four year institution. Why does someone need a four year degree (and the requisite debt) to plug information into a computer and answer a phone? Worse can people once they’ve pursued all this education, and there is no difference between themselves and the people that they serve be ok with a much lower salary and lower opportunity? Put another way, I work with lawyers but I don’t have a JD. It doesn’t bother me that I make much less money then they do because I haven’t spent three years with my head in a book. But when I temped at investment firms, the resentment between back office (little bucks) and front office (big bucks) was palpable b/c these two groups of people had similar levels of education etc. There was nothing inherent in one group of people’s ability to perform their job function over the other group.

I’m just jaded and cynical with the whole educational system, period (even if I am going to grad school in the fall)…meh.

It is been a while since my last comment, but I couldn’t leave this post without any comment ; )
Every time I read your posts about the way you teach and all the enthusiasm that you have, I start to think about the way things are done down here in Brazil.
Two weeks ago I read this article about the research the federal government published with the ranking of the best elementary schools in the country (private and public).
We are perfectly aware that the public system in Brazil does not work, but to surprise most of all the educated people (including the government) in this country the top 3 schools were public. And they are from the country side of one of the poorest states in the country. People thought all sorts of bad things including that the schools paid to get better scores. They discovered that the county district has a joint venture with 2 or 3 big companies and foundations. These companies are giving a lot of money to these schools to create excellency programs. The results are starting to show up this year and everyone is cheering them up. The same way Oprah is doing something for this kids in South Africa, someone is starting to do something about education in a country where we DO NEED educated people, so we can keep growing as a country.

Fabiola

I would have loved Oprah to spend the money here in the states for our school systems. The truth of it is though, politics and other greed, would have gotten in the way. The only way to make sure that money was used for a real need would have been for the Oprah staff to talk to teachers in person and personally purchase the needed goods and then deliver them to teachers.

I think it’s great that she gave these girls a chance to become a productive part of world’s society. You never ever know where the next great personality will emerge.