The last couple of days I have had an interesting conversation on a Facebook group to which I belong. It was about the role of public schools in today's society, and in truth went all over the place. But it got me thinking today about society and how to make society better. You know, we all have grandiose ideas that we can save the world one way or another. The truth is, no individual can single-handedly save the world. Even a group of people working together is never going to save the world. The only way to save the world is by one individual at a time. The only way to save our schools is by each person involved taking responsibility.
What makes a great society great? The individuals that collectively make up the society. The culmination of each individual's actions is what shapes society, so the way to make it great is by each individual doing his or her part.
Going back to where I started, what is the role of public schools in all of this? Well, the system itself is not going to fix anything. It might not even matter in the end what system the schools use. What will matter is how each individual teacher teaches. What will matter is how each student takes ultimate responsibility for his or her education. And it will matter how each parent steps up to take responsibility for his or her own children. They system doesn't teach or learn. The individuals within the system do.
The system of our schools was invented to keep individuals (teachers, really) accountable to something or someone. They have to be accountable because they are being paid with tax dollars. We can't hire a teacher, then let anything they do slide. There have to be results. So there has to be a system to show results. The problem then becomes that one system can only test one kind of result, and if we were trying to test for every possible result then nothing would happen except testing and no teaching could be done. (But that is a whole other discussion.)
Through the system we create fear in our teachers. Fear that they won't measure up. Fear that they can't really teach after all. Fear that they will lose their job and not be able to take care of their family. I don't mean a debilitating fear. More of an unease, stress perhaps. Then slowly the teachers might begin to teach because of their fears rather than their love of the subject they teach or even the love of their students. Fear can make people do a lot of things they would rather not. Fear stresses us out. Fear wears us down. It wears us out. So after years of teaching teachers get worn out. It's all they can do to make it to class and get their students to pass their tests so the teacher can keep his or her job.
Then we have those rare teachers who don't give in to the fear. We have those teachers who continue to teach because they love it. They continue to inspire their students to greatness because of their passion. They decide that they must keep their individual responsibility to the students rather than giving up that responsibility to the public school system. These teachers are the ones who lift their students to greatness. They give their students an inner drive, enthusiasm, and passion of their own. They light a fire in their students by sharing some of their own fire.
Now back to individuals and responsibility and tying that idea to schools. We cannot blame the system of our schools for our problems. It's not perfect. It's not (in my opinion) the best possible solution to train up a new generation. But it's the best we've got, and I don't see it changing any time soon. So what can be done? Each person involved needs to take personal responsibility for education. Each student must realize, and be taught, that the level of their understanding around any subject is their personal responsibility. Teachers must take responsibility for inspiring their students. The test results will take care of themselves if each student has a drive to learn. Parents must take responsibility to make sure their children are getting a great education. Sometimes that means taking them out of the public schools, sometimes that means supplementing their education, and sometimes it just means being involved in the process wherever they can. Personal responsibility varies by person, and that is why I can't tell anyone where their responsibility lies. I know where my responsibility lies. Do you?
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