Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.Can we afford excuses? By J. G. Fabiano Excuses are defined by Webster as being, "a cause or explanation for something you may be responsible for or a reason to release oneself from an obligation." In today's changing world the concept of giving an excuse is an over used one. As a teacher I hear many excuses from my students when they are not able to get their work in on time. Years ago these excuses had to do with a dog or a younger sibling who decided to eat their work. Technology changed these excuses to include my computer's hard drive died, I ran out of ink in my printer, or the work was sent to my E-mail address at school that rarely works. The other day I heard a new excuse from a student who told me she could not get her work in on time because of 'female' problems. Since there was no way in hell I was going to press her I may have to spend some time working out a means of defending myself against that one. Excuses are not only used by students. They are used by people who are supposed to be responsible for the education of these same students. Their excuses include reasons for why we are failing to fulfill our student's dreams. They state their teachers do not follow standards of education that were developed so our students can do well on their tests. As to how succeeding on a test is analogous to a student's success makes absolutely no sense. I guess I am one of the teachers they are talking about. Parents use excuses as to why they can't get their children to understand the importance of an education. They blame the teachers and the schools for not doing their jobs. I have been to many meetings in which the parents put the teachers on the defense by stating they can't understand why the teacher can't motivate their child to do well in the classroom. I once told a parent I couldn't understand why she couldn't motivate her child into wanting to succeed in my class. I went on to tell this particularly aggressive parent that I can't successfully teach unless I have someone in front of me who wanted to learn. As to why I am still employed is above and beyond my comprehension. Education is not the only sector of our society that uses excuses to cover up why they can't do what they were asked to do. The leaders of our nation perpetually blame other leaders of our nation for failures we all have to pay for. Whether it is blue against red or red against blue this nation is sick and tired of the political battles replacing legislation we so desperately need. As a society we are even giving excuses for the problems we are suffering through today. Not so long ago the sub-prime mortgage industry was being praised for allowing the American Dream of owning a home be a part of everyone in our nation and not just the one's who could afford it. What did we not understand about having someone purchase something they could not afford? It is not the fault of the industry our nation's economy is falling into recession. We are at fault for believing this fairy tale with obviously no happy ending. Now we are told our government is going to give each and every one of us a few hundred dollars to turn our economy around. I am trying to figure out if our leaders think we are foolish or just stupid. Not so long ago we were told we could bring democracy to the world and that our forces would be met with cheers and flowers as they marched into capitol cities like our brave men did at the end of World War II. It is not the fault of our leaders who fed us this crap. It is the fault of every citizen who believed we had the right to push our philosophy of life on all even though they had no use for it. Now we are told we have to continue to spend our depleted fortunes because if we don't the people who were supposed to be throwing flowers at us will hurl bombs in our neighborhoods. In less than ten months we have a national election taking place. I just pray we don't use the excuse we have no one to choose from or all the candidates are the same. If we do and we don't not only vote in this election but had also better damned well understand what the candidates represent because we are at a time in our nation's history when we can no longer afford excuses. Excuses are defined by Webster as being, "a cause or explanation for something you may be responsible for or a reason to release oneself from an obligation." I believe another term has evolved into becoming far more important. This would be responsibility. The End.
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