beating a dead horse

Education is like beating a dead horse. It's insanity defined, really. We have these expectations of our students and ourselves. And parents and communities. We want our students to love learning and want to better themselves. We want to inspire all of our students. We want the parents to support us and hold their children accountable, that what they do in school is the minimum, not the max. We want the community to support us.

Dead horses cannot give us what we want. We beg the horse, give it water, food, berate it, even beat it. My high school students only do the minimum, many only because we hold their feet to the fire. They don't see the rewards of hard work over time.

But why should they? TV shows them solutions to life in 3o minutes or less, many actors/artists/whatevers have 30 days marriages, jump from cause to cause, lead these crazy ass life styles.These are our children's role models.

Even their forms of communication are truncated- OI812, CUL8R, ETC, TTUL8R,LOL, fer fuck's sake. Everything has to happen right now, with little to no work on their end. Where did we go wrong? Was it when we decided we wanted them to have a better life than us? No wants, all the toys they can handle. New, better, faster, more gigabytes.

I've said it before, Jerry Springer marked the beginning of the end.

What's the solution?