As a fifteen year old guy who's main objectives at the moment are getting his license and passing Pre-Calculus, the furthest thing from my mind is polar bears. But the second furthest thing is the current economic situation. Without getting too political, I hope to show how the status of our country affects a future voter and money-maker in America like myself.
Our economy stinks, to put it lightly. Holiday shopping was down this past season and people in general are cutting back, spending less. This we all know. But some readers, depending on his or her family's financial status, would argue that it's either less of a problem, or much more of one. Myself, you ask? I'm in the middle. My family is no where near lawyer and doctor income, but we're not janitors either (please don't take offense to this comment). I come in contact with people from both ends of the spectrum on a daily basis. I have friends who live in poorer neighborhoods and friends who live in mansions. The point is no matter what type of monetary situation one is in, the crisis in America affects everyone.
Especially teenagers. By no means am I implying a "Boo hoo, feel bad for us" attitude, but teenagers are among those (in my opinion) that are most affected by our economic problems. We have no discretion, no respect, no understanding of the dollar. Give us one dollar, we take two. Give us five, we take twenty. Give us twenty, we hit the road.
Why, just last Saturday I went to Grand Slam arcade. Not expecting to spend any money, the only worthy contents of my wallet were a library card and nine dollars. Little did I know how addicting Skee-Ball and Laser Tag were going to be. My money was gone as fast as you can say "4+8+15+16+23+42=108" (I have a healthy obsession with the program Lost. This will no doubt come up in a future blog). This is just one example of how fast the teenage mind can go from reasonably logical to downright idiotic.
The national problem is hitting home for me in a very personal way. Or should I say, hitting school? I am very connected with my high school in multiple ways: as a sophomore, as a long-time district member (since kindergarten), as one of three representatives on the school board, as a proud member of the orchestra, of the spanish club, of student government, as a son of a school secretary, as the cousin of a school track star and of a school basketball star, as a friend of so many amazing students.
Every other Thursday from 7pm to whenever I feel like leaving, I attend the regular meetings of the school board. I, along with a junior and senior representative, have all the privileges of a board member, minus the vote. We sit with our name plates and our microphones and our computers, ready to comment on or question anything brought to the attention of the board. It's our duty to take high school thoughts and feelings and bring them to the board and, in turn, bring thoughts and feelings from the board to our fine learning establishment.
Recently, many rumors have been going around about cutting music or cutting counselors or cutting language arts or cutting social studies or cutting basically anything in order to save a little money. A week from tonight I will be sitting in my same chair, at my same computer, with my same name plate in front of me, in the same board room listening to the new proposed budget plan.
*I'll be doing part two of this blog one week from now (granted I don't have too much homework) when I get home from the school board meeting.*
No matter what happens next week, the board members will have made some new enemies. My personal opinion (though I'm not able to be biased during the meeting for obvious reasons) is that music and English and History and everything is all equally important to the development of a child, a preteen, a teen, whatever. If one area gets cut, the others suffer. As does every single student.
Because the country is in such a bad standing, money that would usually go towards education is being put towards other fields. Something new needs to happen. Change. Yes, this sounds like a Barack Obama ad. But I said earlier that I wouldn't be too political. While I did/do have a preference between Senator McCain and President Obama, I truly believe that both of them were incredibly worthy and able candidates for President. Either would (and hopefully Obama will) make this country stronger. Now, I will not even begin to demean myself by blaming someone or some group. It's not George Bush's fault. It's not Congress's fault. It's not Joe the Plumber's fault. It's not Oprah's fault. It doesn't matter who's fault it is. It just needs to be fixed.
That's the view from here.
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