Why do we send our kids to school? I asked this question to both educators and non-educators...it was not a scientific experiment... just random questioning...and I was a bit shaken that not one American connected the notion of schooling to the notion of preservation of our democracy. That is, no one said that we send our kids to school to preserve our democracy, which was, after all, the way Thomas Jefferson would have answered the question. Jefferson advocated public education as a means of creating an intelligent electorate capable of weighting issues and making informed decisions.
It seems to me that so many of us don’t know how to make informed decisions based upon knowledge. Instead, we echo what Plato called marketplace rhetoric, which spews out of the ill-informed mouths of the people we hear on the radio or see on television. We adopt as our own their sound bytes without ever questioning where the information comes from or upon what they base their opinions. Maybe, we do this because meaning for so many of us is limited to the limitations of our own insights...which indeed can be very limiting at times if we haven’t been taught how to learn how to learn. Dr. Michael Chirchello, professor of education at Kentucky State University says learning how to learn should be the reason we send kids to school. “I would like to think that we send children to school to learn how to learn but I am not sure that’s the outcome. The test phobia and focus on test preparation have all but destroyed the desire to develop creativity and risk-takers. Our schools are preparing drones rather than dreamers. If you watch “Shift Happens” on You Tube, you will be amazed with the space between what should be and what is in our schools.”
So if we don’t send kids to school to preserve our democracy and to learn how to learn, why do we send them? Is it to “keep them out of jail?” I wonder if Gene Bilodeau, a teacher who has taught in many countries and who wrote this, knew that his tongue need not be in his cheek because he was not far from the truth...historically speaking. The movement for public education was in full bloom in the early 19th century because advocates for a free, public education worried about the dangers of an uneducated polity. Uneducated kids wound up in jail. Better to pay for schools than jails and policemen. Society was less likely to incarcerate a young person socialized by education ...or so the thinking went.
Other respondents said we send kids to school because we have to. Barbarra Hunter, a citizen of America and England, Raymond Grimaldi, a banking consultant, and Kathryn Conway, a humanitarian worker said, “it’s the law.” Others said that they never thought about not sending them. A retired primary teacher, Roslyn Fallick, added, “We have to remember that there is a law in our country requiring us to register children at a certain age. Therefore, parents have little choice. The purpose for this law is to ensure that all the citizens of this country will receive the required education to enable them to read and write in the English language.”
We have high hopes and aspirations for our offspring, which is another reason why we send kids to school. “Parents want their kids to achieve what they couldn’t achieve themselves,” said Kathy Whitman, a retired administrative assistant at a school district and mother of two grown boys. “You want your children to be well educated and hopefully do something fantastic with their life, to be more and go further than you did.”
But if the schools don’t succeed, they can be used as a scapegoat for the parent’s failure suggested Don Sorenson, a computer administrator. “If the schools don’t do this, we can blame them for the failure of our children and not ourselves.”
School prepares kids for the world of work, wrote many. Children must learn from the get go that life is about going to a building where they must stay all day and perform repetitive tasks in order to survive.
The socialization function of schools was high on many lists. “The success of homo sapiens can be attributed to the practice of living in groups, cooperation, and organization. Surviving school impresses that on kids” From a young Swedish mother, Nina Thujfell, came this response. “We send our kids to school to educate them so they stand a better chance in this competitive world. I also think it's important to have common knowledge but most important school teaches us to socialize and get along with each other.” One respondent put the idea of socialization curtly. “We want them to be able to urinate in a room with others.”
School also has babysitting functions. For some parents, it just may be a means of getting “ x number” of hours for freedom to do whatever they wish... or put another way, to get the kids out of the house so that parents may pursue their own activities. Kathy Whitman said, “By the age of five, you are ready for the little buggers to be somewhere else for part of the day.” Sue Faubian, a mother of three children commented, “We send them to school mostly to get them out of our hair before we totally lose our minds as mothers!” A parent of one child offered this response. “We send our children to school to have more free time to drink during the daylight hours. Isn’t that obvious?” Of course, John Casciato, an alternative school teacher, was joking when he wrote this but if we read between the laugh lines many of us want to “get the little buggers” out of our hair for x number of hours during the day so that we may return to the world of sanity. School provides that relief for us.
One parent thought that the reality is that “we send kids to school in order for the school to bring them up for us since we lack parenting skills.” A retired high school teacher, Scott Cavell echoed these words. “I think that one of the main and unspoken reasons is that they...the public... believe and trust us, the educators, to do the right thing; the right thing being to do all of the stuff that they...the parents... do not have the time, skill, expertise, or patience to do. Not just the 4Rs but to attend to all of the issues that are fermenting out there in the greater society that make growing up and maturing more than difficult for many young people.”
We send kids to school in order for them to learn conformity some wrote... so they will be like every other child.” Yet others suggested the opposite. “We don’t want them to learn conformity.” Harm Meijers, a computer expert and native of Canada wrote. “We send kids to school to give them the opportunity to learn about society and their place in it through first-hand experience in a structured setting. We want kids to find their place in the social clique through trial and error, not conformity and want them exposed to kindness, cruelty, diplomacy, relationships, inclusion, exclusion and so on. It’s the benchmark our nation has set as the minimum expectation for a quality of life available to a member of this society.” The utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill would agree with Mr. Meijers. “The human facilities of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best....He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties.” Another person, not into the conformity movement wrote, “We expect them to realize that there are all kinds of people in the world and that individual differences can be a source of enlightenment. We hope that they will learn about things we would not have thought to teach them about. We expect them to accept a view of life as a predictable series of phases, starting with birth and ending with death. Educational milestones provide anchors along the way and give a valuable context to what otherwise could be a chaotic and frightening day-to-day experience.” So the reason we send kids to school again returns to the idea that children must learn how to learn in a social setting if only to survive the world.
We send our kids to school to learn, but to learn what? In some cases, “because parents are too ignorant to teach them much or have poor English skills or not much education themselves, they trust the system to do the job,” Phyllis Corn, a former teacher wrote. But what is that job, Mrs. Corn. “We send children to school so that they have the knowledge and academic skills that will enable them to do the most with their lives,” wrote Jack Sides, a former air force pilot.” Jona Henry, teacher and parent said that, “We send children to school to experience a world of learning; both socially and academically.” Another teacher and parent, Mary Johnson wrote, “We send our kids to school to prepare for life's journey, to learn how to read, write, and spell and to learn the latest technology. Her daughter, Lori Edelstein, also a teacher and parent said, “We send children to school to receive an education to be successful in life. Although parents are a child's first teacher, many are not equip to teach their children the wide range of subjects taught in school. Trained professionals are needed to teach children how to read. Higher-level math and science also are subjects difficult for many parents to teach.” A financial consultant, Judith Sides offered this. “We send our kids to school to expand their minds and open them up to new ideas.” Finally teacher, Linda Gilbert, said, “We send kids to school to create a passion.”
Some respondents thought they could not properly answer the question because they had no children. A former actress, Laura Shewman said, “Since I have no children, I'm probably not the best one to ask, but here goes. I would think it's a variety of reasons: To learn facts - reading, writing, history, etc. To learn to socialize and all that entails...making friends, working as a team, obeying orders when necessary, how to ‘play nice’ and how to be patient and how to endure boredom, etc. This would probably also include how to deal with bullies, how to learn about and learn to deal with in a positive way, peer pressure. We send them to school to learn values. Although I feel very strongly that too much pressure is put on schools to perform this role that I really think belongs to the parents/family caretakers, I do feel that children and later older young folks do absorb values from their teachers and school figures of authority like coaches. And those values can be positive or negative depending on the figure of authority. But in the best sense I would expect a child of mine to learn some degree of responsibility and other personal values from a school situation. This is something I just thought of and is very sad...but I suppose some parents want their child to get a decent meal at school....something that wasn't in my world view as a child or more fortunate adult.”
Finally, one parents summed it up this way...we send our kids to school because we believe that schools are good places and teachers are good people and that their kids will be better off for the experience and... because we have to. Gene Bilodeau added,” We believe that education will improve the general state of man and we believe that educated people have a better chance at happiness and prosperity.”
We send kids to school for many reasons but we can’t forgot that one of the most salient reasons we send them is to preserve our democratic way of life. Our culture represents a set of beliefs, which form the basis of our freedoms and continues only when we have a thinking, informed citizenry who have the ability to think beyond the limitations of their own insights. If we forget those beliefs because we no longer know how to learn how to learn, we abandon that way of life and invite the mob to rule us, achieving a way of life we did not set out wanting to achieve.
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