Connect To How She Feels. Let’s Not Screw This Up.

Can we connect?

This picture was taken on our first born’s first day riding the bus to school yesterday. Her joy and anticipation were both off the charts.

We followed the school bus as it came to the neighborhood using an app called “Here Comes The Bus”. She “oohed” and “aahed” as she saw the yellow circle getting closer to our red hexagon symbol. All you have to do is look at her face below.

She was so happy to go to school.

Remember that, y’all? Learning is first and foremost about wonder, connection. We forget that so easily in our quest to secure the future. What future? The one we have never seen? The one that might be far different than we imagine?

I count myself as lucky to be a person that still enjoys learning, and even going to class (though I have not been able to do the latter for a good while now). I had some amazing teachers, among them my parents (both educators). But I also think about how rare that is. I think about how most of my students see going to class as a chore (at least until I get a hold of them).

They lost the connection.

I see students who have been beaten down by the constant pressure to perform. I see students jaded by the belief that learning is merely a conduit to gainful employment. I spend months and years with them trying to reconnect. I am sometimes successful, sometimes not.

So, when I looked back at the picture of my brilliant, beautiful, passionate, energetic, rambunctious first born, I just want us to not screw this up. I say us, and I mean it. Know also that I am laying my feelings about my own child as simply a backdrop for what I wish on behalf of all our children.

Let’s not screw this up.

We have got to reconsider (read: dismantle) our whole approach to education. This is not an indictment of public schools, nor is it an indictment of teachers. My wife is a schoolteacher. I am a psych professor who teaches future teachers. Our parents are all educators. That is our connection.

What this is is a plea. I want us to remember what we felt like as kids when we are trying desperately to absorb the energy of 20, or even 30, children in a classroom. I want us to stay excited and curious ourselves. I also want us to find ways to subvert the system, preserving joy and learning while satisfying the bean counters who seem to have infected education with a retrovirus.

I want our politicians and administrators to connect to that joy. I want some of y’all to stop thinking about feathers in your caps and more about lighting that match. You want a feather in your cap? How about winged flight instead?

Connect.

I want us parents to stop browbeating children about scores. Trust me, as a professor at the college level, I can tell you this rarely ends in a student who thinks for themselves and relishes learning.

I want us to geek out with our kids. When they talk about something they learn in school, let’s hit the forest, or the museum, or YouTube, or Google. Let’s connect with the history and science right around us. It is there whether you live in the Boogie Down Bronx or Cheyenne, Wyoming. Use your real surroundings to connect. Did your child learn something in school that relates to a friend’s job, or something in their home? You do not need a fancy degree to explore. And degrees shouldn’t be fancy anyway. That is a big part of the problem in the first place.

Connect.

Let’s stop bashing teachers, and think about how we can all support them. Let’s volunteer in our children’s classrooms once every two months at least. How many parents are there in your school? How much help is one parent doing this once every two months? I submit that is a lot of help. Don’t go in and try to take over. Be a helper. If you are a CEO at work, be a respectful assistant to the teacher.

Connect.

Know that every child, teen, bus driver, teacher, aide, administrator, custodian, resource officer, parent, coach, and elected official is important in righting this path of providing access to learning. Isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing, providing access and guidance?

Connect. We can do it together. Let’s stop screwing this up.