It was her first day on the job as principal. Dina Macksy stood alongside a tri-colored basset hound sleeping each morning at the schoolhouse gate waiting for the scents from the cafeteria to awaken his senses. As she entered through the gates, he looked up at her as he sniffed the air. Perceiving that she was neither a threat to his school or breakfast, he stretched his body back against the pavement, laid his chin firmly on the ground and shut his bloodshot eyes.
“Now what do I do,” Dina asked the basset hound. “You come for breakfast everyday. Why do I come? In fact, why does society even send children to school?”
Suddenly, Dina didn’t know the answer to her question. So she asked everyone she saw, beginning with the students. Why does society send children to school? Their answers flummoxed her. “We’re here ‘cause the law sez so,” they affirmed, not looking up from their digital gadgets. “Everybody knows that. You’re the principal. How come you don’t know that?”
Dina asked the school board members…those who anointed her principal. “We sent them to school to be successful in life. You mean you don’t why society sends children to school?”
Dina wondered what success in life looked like but was too afraid to ask. She liked being principal even if she didn’t know why society sends children to school.
Dina began to ask teachers.
“That’s your job to know...you are the principal.”
“But your input is important,” exclaimed Dina.
“We just want to be left alone.”
Dina asked the superintendent. He eyed her skeptically. His piercing glance made her think that perhaps the school board had made a poor decision about her anointment.
Because Dina could not find an answer to her question inside the schoolhouse, she began to ask people outside it …those in front and back of her on line in Costco, or queuing up at midnight for the new blockbuster movie, or just walking by her on the street. Why do we send children to school? These people provided many answers but upon reflection, their responses baffled her. It was not what the people she asked said, but what they didn’t say.
“We send kids to school for many reasons,” they answered. “…to provide free babysitting services; because it is the law; because it performs a socialization function; so that kids will learn how to read, write and do arithmetic; so that kids will be like the others...or not be like the others; to keep them out of jail; to pass those high stake tests; so that they will grow up to be successful.” Something was missing from these responses. What was it? Why do we send our children to school?
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