Education

This is going to be the first in a series of political posts. I realize that, due to my financial situation, I can never run for political office. Besides my education is the same as the majority. When you watch the news and they are talking about house and senate bills in legalese I am just as confused as the next man. But I do feel that my way of thinking is closer to the common man. So my first post is: What would I do to change the education system?
My answer is as follows: We need to use education to broaden and expand the minds of the future generation. We need to train the next great thinkers. That involves exposing them to worlds, ideas, thoughts and ethics of not just our world but the world around us.
So my thoughts are these:
Foreign Language Education that starts in elementary school. The more foreign languages that they learn the better. I would start them with Latin/Greek, then move to Spanish or French then to German or Russian then in high school they can learn Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Italian or a multitude of others. The learning of foreign languages will not only stimulate their brain, but reading a foreign language will open them to a world of experiences outside of their hometown.
Math and Science education needs to become more advance. If we are going to teach computers lets use them to aid in the teaching of math, algebra, trigonometry, statistics, economics, biology, chemistry, the natural world, the sea, the sky, and all of natures wonders. We need to expose them to the wonders of math and science earlier. Math and science needs not to be scary but an avenue to a world of wonder. Yes I believe that we need to be teaching the young about ecology, botany, and creating a green world.
Shop/tool training needs to start earlier as well. If we can teach the young to use tools to build and fix things at a younger age then they will grow to appreciate things. Woodworking can start @ 5th grade. Electrical @ 8th grade. Auto shop in middle school, Computer shop in High school. Let's start showing them how things are made and maybe they will appreciate their toys more. No separating the boys to home-ec and the boys to shop. Let the children decide.
History needs to include more state history, US History, World History, Military History, Religious History. Need to know history so that we can learn from it.
More Business education is needed. Economics, Statistics, Business Math, General Business education. I believe this can be started as early as middle school.
Engineering training can begin in high school. Drafting, Construction Skills, Welding This way for those who can't afford or do not wish to go to college they have some job skills that can help them obtain work and get the better pay. Obviously the farmer kids need to start receiving agricultural training as early as possible.
Now let's discuss teachers. More scrutiny in the hiring of teachers and coaches. We need to ensure the safety of the children. Just because they have education and certification does not necessarily qualify them as educators. Why not pull from the professionals that actually do the work, much like the colleges do. There are a shortage of teachers yet there are men and women who were laid off of their jobs who could easily teach their trade to children. They would become valuable teaching tools to our young and encourage other teachers to obtain some life experience as well as education and certification. We need to also create some type of physcological screening and polygraph screening for teachers. It will not catch all of the bad ones, but just might scare some away.
These are just my ideas. Will they solve all of the problems with the education system? No. Are all of them perfect or without fault? No I can agree that these are just starting points and some need tweaking, but at least I am willing to state what my position is concerning education and what I would do to fix the education system. What a concept. Stay tuned! Maybe, one day if I win the lottery, I will be Governor of Oklahoma.