Education

​Education
 
I have been thinking a lot about the purpose of educating children in a system which requires most of them to be in a classroom setting for many hours a day.  Schools in the United States address multiple needs of the students including:
 

• Child care – even for those children who grow up in a home with two healthy parents often both parents work outside of the home.  
• Nutrition – It seems as if more schools are feeding the children a minimum of two meals a day. There is also a greater awareness of the need for healthy food and not just calories.
• Learning basic skills which can be used to manage one’s personal and work life.
• More recently, as an effort to reduce addictive behavior later in life, some schools are teaching problem solving skills.
• Identify and refer for treatment mental health and learning disabilities issues.
• An introduction to and at times intensive opportunities to explore creative expression – music, art, drama, debate and writing.
• Teach skills for functioning as part of a team while maintaining individuality although sometimes we may be teaching that winning at any cost is important.
• Skills such as welding, automobile mechanics, wood working and the culinary arts.
• Parenting skills – some school have a nursey for the children of the students and strive to teach parenting skills.
• Keeping children physically safe.

 
Obviously, we are expecting our schools to do a lot of jobs; often with a minimum amount of money and other resources.   It is common knowledge the amount of money and other resources available will vary with the source of founding and the relative wealth of the neighborhood or area in which the schools are located. 
 
Given the breath of the mission of the school systems, one might think that children are well prepared to integrate into the larger society when they leave school.  Yet, addiction to alcohol and other drugs, mental illness, and a general dissatisfaction with life seems to be more prevalent.  We must ask ourselves what we are missing.  Surely we cannot ask the schools to do more than they are already doing.   Staff are often grossly underpaid and live with a tenuous commitment that they will have access to quality health care and retirement benefits.   Obviously access to quality health care, the ability to retire and have access to basic necessities are a concern for the majority of people in the United States – all those who are not part of the one percent or who do not live in an intentional community where individuals take care of each other.
 
Individuals in many countries, including the United States, are living longer, many of whom will require assisted living facilities or nursing home care. The cost of such care is well beyond the reach of the average person.  If one is poor enough that care might be covered by public insurance such as Medicaid, but states are already struggling with meeting the cost of those program.
 
How do we as a community – as a country – began to reexamine the purpose of our educational system?
 
What are the questions we need to be asking ourselves?   What are the questions to which our children crave the answers?  I suspect that the children are already telling us is we are listening carefully.  These questions include:
 

• What is the purpose of this life journey? Is there more to life than making money, having a family, paying bills, doing chores and taking temporary breaks with drugs, alcohol, video games, hobbies, or other activity?
• Why do so many of us feel so disconnected even when we spend a lot of our school or work day with many other people.
• What values are important?  How do we know what is right and wrong?
• Why are so many adults who have “good” educations and good jobs so busy and seemingly unhappy?
• How do we help children and adults explore values if they are not adopting a fixed set from some religious group?

 
In other words, education makes a difference when we are learning how to design and live a more purposeful, fun and fulfilling life.
 
 
Written October 17, 2018