The Wrong Attitude

"Yeah, but this is Morrice."  This phrase gets under my skin like nothing else I can imagine when said in that depressed, condescending tone that admits defeat and implies that our students are second-rate nobodies.  And much like many other small, rural schools dotted throughout the countryside, it's use is far too prevalent around school and needs to stop.
Besides being an appalling attitude that will get you nowhere, it's insulting.  It's insulting to the teachers who work tirelessly and passionately to make sure every student has an opportunity for success in their future provided through a top rate education.  This comment permeates our perceptions and becomes a reality, negating all of the countless efforts of a passionate staff.
It's insulting to our students who work extremely hard each and every day to be the best they can be.  This comment pigeonholes students into a mindset of mediocrity that they do not deserve.  Every student deserves not only the opportunity for success, but also the opportunity to believe in themselves.  Don't strip away their self-respect.
It's insulting to everyone, like myself, who graduated from a small, rural school with more swine farmers than white collars.  This attitude makes the assumption that my teachers were sub-par, my education was second rate, and that I am one of the lucky ones who escaped.  Do not insult my hometown; I love where I am from and I love every one of my friends from "back home."  Just because they are working in or near Urbana does not make them any less successful because there is an abundance of farmland or a smaller population.  And my teachers and education were second to none.
It's insulting to our taxpayers and community members.  They expect us to do more with what we have than chalk up our losses to an incorrectly stereotyped version of them.  Just as I want more for my own children than I had myself, every single student has a parent at home who wants better for them.  Our job as educators is to provide this opportunity, not to make excuses.
"Yeah, but this is MORRICE!" should be shouted with pride because we are a small, rural school in a farming community, not in spite of it.  We have a unique opportunity at our small school, just like the other small schools everywhere.  We have the opportunity to know each and every one of our students better than any other teachers at any other schools.  We have the opportunity to follow through on providing more for our students than their parents had provided for them.  We have the opportunity to mold successful citizens, not to send off far and away, but to remain in and return to our community and strengthen it.
Yes, this is Morrice, just like it was Graham for me, a small school in rural Michigan with the ability and the charge to make a difference.