Your Kid vs. a Box of Birds? (Who's smarter?)

I was walking in to the office this morning when I noticed a sign above a parking spot. I then noticed a sign on a glass door, next to the parking lot, that said the same thing. This took place in a parking lot that I don't use very often, but often enough that I should have noticed these signs before. I thought they might be new, but everyone in the office says that they've been there for quite awhile.

The signs read, "The Office of the Adequate Education Suruhanu."

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Suruhanu is actually a Spanish word that means "herb doctor," and to be honest I have never understood why this office would have the word Suruhanu attached to it, but there you go. What really caught my eye was the word "adequate," a word I was shocked to see used in connection with the word education.

This office is the Governor's liaison with the local Education system on Guam. I don't understand everything this office is responsible for but do know that this is the office that makes sure that Guam's academic expectations are being upheld. One would expect to see the words "Outstanding Education" or "Satisfactory Education" in the title, certainly not "Adequate Education!"

To me, adequate means just enough to get by. Right? Isn't that what it means to you? Not perfect or great or heaps, but just enough. I don't like thinking that my son is getting "just enough" education to get by. What the hell does that mean anyway and exactly where are our expectations aimed? Good lord, even McDonald's hopes their employees will do a bit more than "just enough."

According to Merriam-Webster, adequate means sufficient for a specific requirement; barely sufficient or satisfactory; or, may imply barely meeting a requirement. None of those sound very good, do they? They certainly don't sound like words or phrases I'd want associated with the type of education my son is receiving at public school.

The mission statement of the island's Department of Education is "Prepares all Students for Life, Promotes Excellence, and Provides Support." How exactly do you promote excellence when you're only planning to be adequate? Sounds like someone is going to be needing a lot of support if attaining adequacy is the level of commitment to achieving excellence!

I often use the phrase "cream rises to the top" when talking about Guam's public school system. I remind people that Commander Willie McCool also went through public school on Guam and he grew up to become an astronaut who flew spaceships for a living. Not bad for a Guam educated kid! I also went through Guam's public school system and I'm a pretty smart cookie, if I do say so myself. One of my classmates is a nuclear physicist and another has a PhD and has become a multibillionaire through telecommunications. All publicly educated and not too shabby!

But still, I think we should be very careful of the words we use. If you keep telling a child they're not good enough, eventually, they'll believe you. If we only expect our children to be adequately educated, that's what we're going to get and that's all our children will ever be, adequate. Just good enough to skate by. Just barely meeting the requirement. Doesn't sound like Harvard material to me, or Berkley, or University of Oregon or even the University of Guam, for that matter.

Personally, I think our children deserve more than that.