- Target:
- The US Congress
- Region:
- United States of America
Hello, my name is Joseph Deatherage. I’m a high school senior, a native Texan and am 18 years old. Of those 18 years, most have been spent in unjust confinement. Half of that confinement has been physical, the other half has been mental.
The nature of my confinement is a program endorsed by both the neglect of this state’s government, and by the overreach (however well-intentioned) of the federal government. The name of this program is the United States educational system.
I know that last statement was probably surprising and contrary to at least some of your beliefs regarding said system, but please hear me out.
The truth is that despite the fact that the United States Educational system requires students to spend about eight hours a day, five days a week for their entire childhood stitting inside a designated building, it doesn’t usually stray into the realm of true cruelty for most students. But it does for others.
Those others usually have exceedingly rare cognitive gifts allowing them to learn at a pace many times faster than their peers, at least in some areas. This can cause them to outpace their teachers and render the whole “educational experience” a painful and meaningless incarceration in their eyes. I know this because I have a form of Autism called Aspergers. The condition has given me many gifts, but it has come at a cost: Just like all people will go literally insane when deprived completely of sensory stimulus, I suffer from severe mental and emotional deterioration if I am cut off from a steady stream of high level intellectual stimuli. This has made the chronic inefficiencies and lack of consideration which plague the American educational system excruciatingly apparent to me.
Please, I beg you to urge for greater oversite and the consistent improvement of the education experience in this country.
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