What's in a community?

Today, thanks to a blizzard that never roared it’s ugly head, we had a snow day. It was a nice relaxing day with family. I caught up on laundry, worked on lessons plans, and watched reruns of Project Runway all day.  I also cleaned out the four (yep, that's right, four) bags of books, plans, and assessments that I had lugged home from school yesterday.  I might only have to bring two back tomorrow.  I was taking a break and checking in on Facebook later in the afternoon and noticed a video that several of my family members had posted on their walls. Here is the link. Most of the posts were very concerned about her message. Some comments compared the message to Hitler, to a liberal biased media telling us that they want to shape our children into soldiers of the left. I interpreted it in a very different manner than they did. It actually brought me back to a turning point in my teaching career. A point when one small decision turned out to be the biggest of my professional career.

I was ready to move on from the private preschool that I had been teaching at for 8 years. I knew I wanted more professionally and sought out some positions that could do that for me. I was blessed enough to find two that fit the bill. One was a pre-kindergarten teacher at one of the most prestigious private schools in the city. The interview process was rigorous. I was interviewed first by the teaching team (five teachers all from the Early Childhood Education Department) and then the Dean one-on-one. Then I had to create a lesson plan for the morning (two and a half hours) that fit in with their current unit of study (arachnids) that included eight different centers and a large group lesson. I had four different teachers and administrators observing me. After that, I was interviewed again by the head teacher and the Dean. I was offered the position.

The other was at the local Head Start agency. I was interviewed for over an hour by a panel of ten people that included teachers, board members, and administrators. They called my references the next day. That was it. It was not as intense as the private school. I was offered the position.

Two more polar opposites could not have existed. A position at a private school; a school parents sought out for their child because of the excellent education and high standards it presented. The school full of parents invested in their child’s education that would be active participants. A school with children that wanted to come to school and had very high expectations placed upon them for their academic career. Then there was the Head Start position. Children below the poverty line who needed a Family Advocate to help them find clothing and food. Parents who wouldn’t, or couldn’t work, and who didn’t know enough about education to make the right choices for their children because of the cycle of poverty had left them undereducated. There were foster children, abused children, and neglected children. And I would be expected to teach them.

One position would be a lot of work, yet easy. The advanced development of the children in the private school would make my job easy as far as planning. The plethora of activities that I could plan and accomplish with them would be a dream. The parents would be more demanding, but I felt I could handle the pressure. The other would be full of children who were far behind the curve developmentally. I would have to differentiate like I’d never done so before. And oh goodness the government paperwork I’d have to fill out each day for that position would be a nightmare. Decisions, decisions.

Many people (especially those that don’t know me very well) would be shocked to learn that I picked the Head Start position. I picked it because I felt it was my calling. I was put here to be an active engaged member of my community and I fill that role by being an educator. The private school job would have been a cake job. I’m sure I would not have had DHS on my speed dial had I taken the job there, that I would not have watched parents be arrested, that I would not report abuse one day only to find the family had run off in the middle of the night and I’d never see that student again. I’m sure I wouldn’t come home most nights on the verge of an emotional break down because of what I had experienced at work that day. But I also would have missed out on the joy of hearing a four year old, selective mute student’s first words. Or watching former students score proficient on state assessments even though the statistics said that they shouldn’t. I would have missed on watching family’s change their lives with the help of their community. I was a part of something amazing. Had I not gone to Head Start I would not have become involved in legislation that changes the face of education in my state. I would not be an active member of several professional organizations that fight for children in my community each and every second of the day. I would not be a warrior for children.  I would not know the power of a community.

So, back to the video. I did not take it to mean that my children do not belong to me, as many are interpreting it. I took it to mean that education in our communities is ALL of our responsibility. There’s nothing I hate more than to hear “It’s not my school/my district/my state so it’s not my problem”. It IS our problem. When we don’t as a community invest in ALL of the children around us then we have failed. And our failure is as parents, as community members, and as human beings. I don’t take this video to mean that it’s a community’s responsibility to raise my children, to indoctrinate them into their beliefs, to do MY job for me. It’s my job to raise respectful, responsible, and empathic children. It’s my job to teach my children how to be contributing members of the community and how to care for those around them. To care about what happens in the world and to work hard to achieve great things. But it’s also my job to create a community that supports families and education. And I can’t do that if I refuse to accept what is, or is not, occurring in my neighborhood, city, and state. I have to accept blame if I choose to bury my head in the sand and not be a voice for my children and their peers.

I took the video to say that we need to accept responsibility for that and for the children in our communities, whether we gave birth to them or not. To fight for them, encourage them, and be present for them.  To also FUND them! It’s far too easy to say public education sucks so I’ll put my kid in private school. Then those issues will be someone else’s problem, not mine. At least MY kids will be okay. I think that is, to be perfectly honest, a really shitty way to look at it. Whether you have children or not, I feel it’s your duty to invest in education, to care about the next generation, and to do right by them. Because if you don’t, who will?

There is a war raging in public education right now.  And we will all suffer the consequences if too many of us choose to look the other way and focus only on the needs of our own family.  Decisions are being made by companies that contribute millions to politicians who push their agendas through our system.  They create Race to the Top and NCLB in the guise of "what's best for children" without consulting a single educator (except for a few that lasted one or two years in the classroom before moving up to admin).  They stand to make thousands off of each child that is pushed through their testing system, create huge databases (with your child's personal information) of successes (and excuses for the failures), while not one of them accepts responsibility for educating our children in a relevant and appropriate manner.  They throw child development and appropriate educational goals out the window to make a buck.  And we sit there and worry about a video that calls us to action?  One that asks us to invest in ALL of our children?  Now I understand why they are winning.