The Path to my Masters

I am worried for this country. In the movie Do You Know, (DiBlasi, 2005) we see statistics that are frightening as we see a shift in the growth of population in correlation to students in the top percentiles. But reflecting on the movie, it talks about how many honor students “they” have, which according to the movie is more than we have children. That’s a bold statement. The movie also says they have 25% of their children in the top percentile, but if you think for a minute, it means also, there are 75% who are not. And if they have more children who are honor students, it also means they have three times as many who are not. Statistics can reflect what you want. This movie also demonstrates that so many jobs are being outsourced to other countries because they are willing to work for less. They also have a lower cost of living. In these countries there is a surplus of workers, so getting a job means taking what you can. In our country, we have unions…..that take everything they can. And now, there are no jobs for Americans. We became greedy and now because we have controlled our population growth, we have less workers, so we are losing employment to outsourcing because overpopulated countries have cheap labor. . My husband lost his job at Kodak after 22 years due to outsourcing. The movie talks about how young Americans will switch jobs and may have up to 14 by the time they are 38 (DiBlasi,2005) Since there is no future with job security and because many companies are dumping their employees for outsourcing, why would employees have loyalty? Our children watched their parents lose their jobs, lose their nest-eggs, and saw older workers being removed to have positions filled by younger workers.

I found the information in the movie about how we need to train for jobs that do not even exist. I think that is fascinating and true. Statistically, “53 Americans use the Internet”, (DiBlasi, 2005) which I think is great. However, we are slowly falling behind other countries with the comfort of using technology. Many kids are so comfortable with technology you wonder f they have a different gene than us older users. These natives are amazing to us immigrants who still are not totally used to the digital world. Prensky refers to the difference in the type of student who is a native, one who needs information really fast and access and processes different than his ancestors. It is with theses thought in mind, that I realize and agree that we truly need to approach our education of the next generations completely different.

For my course, I have two things I am trying to obtain. I believe very strongly in vocational education and have great hopes that the current educational system that shuns the vocational educator and student, will realize that this type of education is critical for America to compete in the global market. It is also important to address the various types of learner and vocational education reaches more types of learners than straight academics. The job market may change, and funding will change, but there will always be a population of developmentally disabled people. (Unless we practice genocide) There are many opportunities for employment in this growing field as we find that this population is able to do more, be more independent, are not institutionalized, and are getting older. My crusade is to find the best workers for this field. Part of the problem is many years ago, this population was warehoused and were taken care of by less than the best in the field of health care. When the state decided to create separate housing, the care became better but there was limited talent to draw from. There is still a huge ignorance about the MRDD population. Hopefully by introducing young workers to the field in a encouraging and successful manner, we can make gains in the abilities of the staff and create a more stable environment for the individuals we serve.