I see a lot of rhetoric lately about the women’s U.S. Soccer team being unsportsmanlike and unpatriotic, so stop. Right here. They are heroes. If you are going to get your feathers all ruffled because they cussed a bit in the thrill of their celebrations, please remember that many of you still call Kobe Bryant an icon, just as you do Ben Roethlisberger…both of these athletes accused (and I believe rightly so) of rape. Bengals running back Joe Mixon punched a girl in the face, but fans still cheer a good run up the middle. Kareem Hunt was accused of three violent incidents, proof positive, but Browns fans are slobbering and panting in hope he will be allowed on the field. Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of first degree murder and is serving life in prison, but Patriots fans didn’t miss a beat cheering their team. Maybe the “outrage” here isn’t about over-celebrating. Maybe it is really concerned with the idea that the Right despises Megan Rapinoe for announcing she doesn’t have plans to visit the White House. Hmm. I don’t want to turn this into a Left versus Right thing, not today, but how many famous people must refuse to go to the White House (besides the absolute tool, Kanye West) until we start looking at it through the lens of who is sitting in the oval office to begin with…and maybe he is the problem and not the other way around?

Anyway. My feeling is this. For anyone who is bitching and moaning about the “liberals” and the anti-Trumpers being unpatriotic, I have a suggestion. You want to make a difference? Let’s make a new law that resembles Israel’s requirement of serving in the army for two years before one goes and starts an adult life. For us, however, let’s make it law that after graduating high school, Americans must teach their expertise in a failing public school for two years, at a school-teacher’s salary. A company in search of their services will promise them a job at entry level after the two years of American service. Of course, even for high school graduates versus college, the annual pay would be less in the classroom than what would be attained in the business world, so the difference is donated back to the school for supplies, trips, guest speakers, and broadened curriculums.

If you are an artist, you teach art. If you are a computer game wiz, you teach computer game creation. If you are a welder, you teach welding.

There would be too many teachers flooding into the schools, you say! Good. It would decrease class size. Hell, maybe public school would become one on one tutoring sessions centered on the given expertise. I’m in. How ’bout you?

Wait. The high school grads wouldn’t have a teaching degree, so how would they know how to teach? Uh. Hello…now the certified teachers can be bosses. Certified teachers oversee student teaching all the time. Certified teachers, take what you know about the art of teaching and…teach it! Maybe, just maybe, these young future experts in the field will realize how awesome it is to teach children, and they will switch careers, become teachers, and enrich that community!

There still would be too many teachers versus kids you say! Ok. If the school has reached its capacity for one on one instruction, the balance of graduated experts putting in their two years would be required to go to low income houses for home visits, teaching illiterate parents to read. That way, they would read to their kids and make sure the next generation doesn’t come into kindergarten and first grade without pre-reading skills.

Stop bitching about our heroes kneeling for a good cause or celebrating a great win. Stop thinking that the head of the Department of Education can simply donate money to the Republican party, and therefore be qualified to run education in this country. Stop bitching at the “other” simply because it feels good to bitch. They are Americans too, and until you have gone in and taught in the public schools, you have NO IDEA how to solve the problems in the country or the world.