Shame or Game?! Reforming Public Education
February 15, 2009
The reform of our public education system is critical, and the federal government is not the only player in this huge task. Each of us is a stakeholder. We have a shared responsibility. In our various neighborhoods, we all have a job to do. We should serve as volunteers and bring our personal expertise to the important work of educating our children, whether they be our own or others’.
The reasons are simple and, again, shared. We owe it to our children. They are a gift, and we as adults, all of us, are their teachers. The strength of our relationships can carry our communities and our nation. I remember the adults who made it a point to support me when I was a teenager. Only now, do I begin to appreciate just how much their attention and support has meant for me personally and what a difference they have made in my life. These people did nothing more than give me their attention, to see me as the individual that I am. Can I do anything less today?
Our public education system has the opportunity to be a primary incubator for pluralistic democracy. Our system of government is still an experiment. We remain in the process of building what Lincoln called a “new birth of freedom.” Government of the people, by the people and for the people cannot be taken for granted. Such government can, and most certainly will, perish from this earth if we do nothing to nurture and cherish it, if we do not teach it assiduously to our children. Starting in our own homes and on our own streets, giving attention to children is a first step.
Our public education system is the ideal environment in which we continue the education which makes our government and our prosperity possible. Young people must be exposed to those who are different from them. Children need to be exposed constructively to all human difference whether it be color of skin, class, sexual orientation, ability, gender, sex, culture, nationality, or religion. Our diversity as a nation can make us strong if we work at strategies for inclusion, finding our common ground, and defining what unites us a people, what constitutes us as the people of the United States of America.
We cannot forget that our leadership among free market economies depends on an effective education system. A strong education system insures that we have the leadership, knowledge, expertise, and innovative strength to compete in a growing set of global markets and a complex international economic system. We must learn to build a growing, strong, and engaged middle class. Education plays a central role in creating strong economic performance, ensuring our continued growth and viability as a democracy.
So, for these reasons, we all have a vested interest in our public education system, and in the work we do with youth throughout our communities. As a director in a shelter, I know it is my responsibility to strengthen the relationship of my shelter to the St. Louis Public Schools and to other resources for providing education enrichment for the children in our shelter. Another part of my leadership is to ensure that our Continuum of Care to End Homelessness is constantly aware of its responsibilities to provided strong education opportunities to the children currently being served in our organizations. As a member of the Shaw Neighborhood and the Garden District, I have the opportunity to become personally engaged in our communities’ outreach to youth and to our schools, both public and private.
Instead of the blame and shame process that has been a part of our ongoing debate, I recommend being “game,” that is “getting into the game of education personally and at a place where we, ourselves, can learn about the great issues facing our public education system. One opportunity now available to those of us in the Shaw-Southwest Garden-Botanical Heights-Tiffany neighborhoods is to volunteer at the Visual and Performing Arts High School at Arsenal and South Kingshighway. For information on volunteering there, contact me at mjr9201@swbell.net or call 314-258-0452. I will put you in touch with Renee Racette, a dedicated science teacher there who is organizing people from the neighborhood to work directly with kids in the high school.
Let us commit to doing work in the schools so that we can better understand the nature of the problems facing public education and do more to ameliorate them. If we understand the issues better by being a part of the reality on the ground, we will know how best to bring our personal and community resources into positive relationship with our schools, thereby creating transformative change.
See the article below from the New York Times online:
Op-Ed Columnist
Our Greatest National Shame
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 15, 2009
America’s educational system that once created prosperity is now an embarrassment. That makes the stimulus package a landmark, for it takes steps toward reform.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15kristof.html
