The Village and The Children...

I am a school teacher--an English teacher and a trained counselor. Today, I thought about everything that I believed in in terms of our school system here in the United States. I thought about all of the somewhat abusive slaps that I receive daily as a teacher. Whether it is directly from students, or irate, confused parents, or even people from the outside community, sometimes I feel very devalued and truly misunderstood. There have been numerous people to talk about how our school system is broken. We are indeed living in the twenty-first century with a school system that functions on twentieth century principles. That alone, is a disservice to children and those who seek to make a difference in the lives of children. My concern today was not simply in the system itself, but the people who are in the system--particularly the children and their parents. I have concluded several things:

1. As referenced by a wonderful speaker, yes, it may take a village to raise a child, but "if the village is crazy, the children will be too."
2. It's not necessarily the schools or the homes of these children and families that are broken, it's the people within those homes and schools that are broken.

We tend to blame music, television, and many of us claim to be "products of our environments," but when is someone going to wake up and notice the fact that people are hurting people. It is true that hurt people hurt people, but do we notice what our actions are doing to those in our environments. No one ever thinks about the people behind those startling statistics---people from abusive homes, fatherless or motherless children, children with an incarcerated parent--no one thinks about what happens when those people grow up or possible what happens to them on a daily basis. Those same children arrive in classrooms across the country daily. Yes, we expect them to perform and yes, many believe that our standards are sub par, but have we really considered the emotional aspect of education. We have many students who are emotionally disturb that don't qualify for services simply because they didn't test as so. Simply put, schools are focusing more on standards and accountability than educating the children holistically. Today, it's more about funding per child and being politically correct than it is education. But somehow many politicians say that our teachers aren't doing enough and we are failing children. Yes, we are underpaid, but many simply don't understand education.

What happens to children who grow up with fathers when they go on to have their own children? What happens to those students who have been abused when they grow up? These same people become your bosses, parents, employees, etc. No wonder we have so much corruption and abuse--it literally begins with the children. This is what shows up to us each day. Yes, there are some teachers that do the wrong thing, but I believe the real problem lies in the question of what are we doing to help our children---truly? Our villages are indeed messed up. We really need to address the matters of the home. How do we make homes safe? How do we educate parents? Parents are often as confused as the children, especially at different stages of a child's life. How do we make school relevant, yet rigorous? Not everyone wants to go to college? How do you help a overworked, undervalued teacher cope with the personal stress and hurt that he or she sees with students each day? Many children don't exhibit many manners, many are rude, and hooked to technology. It's as though they forget about the human side of communication--some may even do it on purpose. We need to find ways to help us be humans again. That's not too much to ask--is it? So my thought in all of this is, maybe we should look at ourselves before we start blaming the school systems or the images we see on screen or in radio. Just a suggestion...