Community Assets: Education
Reflections on Education, one of the 12 Key Assets of Ogallala Commons Commonwealth
My Connection
I got involved with the organization where I currently work somewhere around five years ago, as a community intern. This organization, Ogallala Commons, captured my attention for many reasons, not the least of which was their model of the 12 Key Assets of Commonwealth.
Check out this great post from the official OC blog to get the basics.
Over the next few posts, I hope to delve into some personal reflections, as well as provide further reading on each of these assets we find so vital in the communities where we live and work.
Education
I grew up in a family of teachers, so education is a subject close to my heart. So close, that one blog post hardly seems to do it justice. But I’ll keep it short.
Put simply, education is vital. Mandela said it “is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
This survey is one of many confirming the positive correlation between quality education and increased civic participation, community arts and culture, reduced crime, higher wages, and improved economies, just to name a few.
In my own experience, this has been a crystal clear principle. I attended the same public school from preschool through the twelfth grade. I graduated high school in a class of six people, and the population of our entire school (pre-k — 12th) was less than 60 students (that’s right, sixty).
And we didn’t suffer.
Our staff and administration fought for us, and worked to provide us with every opportunity. Our student-teacher ratio was low enough that all of our teachers knew us and our stories and did everything they knew how in order to help us learn. We played sports, took dual-credit courses, and participated in NHS, Service-Learning, and student government.
Our student leaders attended and participated in meetings of every community entity, including the city council, school board, park and recreation board, economic development commission, and even some church boards. They help organize community improvement projects ranging from annual community clean-up days to community reading nights and distribution of emergency response manuals.
And when the state policy makers addressed potential school closings, our staff and students (and through them, community) were very clear in their stance, and were provided opportunities to speak directly with policy makers about the positive impact our quality education provides.
Our community doesn't claim to be perfect—we are all imperfect people. However, we are a community, not just a municipal entity, and we aren’t fading off the map, due in no small part to the high quality of education we are working together to provide.
