The problem is coming from inside the house.

Today I saw this meme, shared by Progressive Maine, and it bothered me in a way I think we might want to talk about.

My first reaction, as a teacher, was “where is the responsibility of the parent in their child’s development here?” And sure enough in the comments people we posting that exact thought. Putting the responsibility, and the blame, on to parents. Others agreed that it was the school that ought to own this and liked and shared it .

But the division isn’t really between the parents and the schools.

The question isn’t even who should be raising children. It’s why explicit development of these skills are needed, what kinds of conditions produce the problem?

Why don't we have a culture that includes these skills by default?

Where is the responsibility? It’s not the school building. At the foundational level its not the parents either.

It’s between the poor and the systems that “serve” them and the wealthy and powerful that manage those systems. The reason parents can’t teach their kids these things? The reason folks don’t get to raise their kids? They’re working.

The reason these things get pushed into the realm of school responsibility? Everyone is busy and the school is the last place that there is some kind of (nominal) equality of access. The school is the last compulsory community left in America. It’s the only ground we all have to stand on together. That has meant it has become a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s the place where students get their food, medical care, social work services, counseling, OT, PT, targeted academic intervention, toys at Christmas, turkeys on thanksgiving (my school has both thanks to community members), it’s where kids learn to read, write, express themselves, how their body works, how the government works, how the world around them works. Its one of the only places that offers exposure outside the community for some kids in the form of field trips to places like Portland,Boston. It offers experiences in sports and drama and music.

It’s the only life line out to the world many students have and its more and more crushed by increased expectations and dwindling resources.

This is all a product of the society we live in and the structures it creates. As the last place where students can get services in a society that crushes the working class to extract the maximum amount of value from their labor school HAS become the de-facto parent for lots of students.

If I work 3 jobs that all pay minimum wage not only do I not have enough money to live, I don’t have the time to spend with my kid. Inflation destroys my wages, the work destroys my health, the stress destroys my mind. It doesn’t matter how much I love my kid or how well intentioned I am. I am not going to be giving the child the full attention of a parent they need and deserve.

This is why “ school reform” without “societal reform” is always doomed to fail. Until we have a serious conversation about the behaviorist, capitalist, instrumentalist social mindset of society (this is both parties by the way. I think most politicians would classify school as a means to a capitalist end rather than an end in itself, even the ones who were teachers) We will not have any kind of meaningful reform. The schools are a reflection and continuation of society and the weight of that crushes those without the resources to insulate themselves.

But those things are big and amorphous and hard to think about with many interlocking structures and systems and histories and motivations. School is the last place everyone has in common. We all have some experience of it and so we think of it as an island to itself We see it as a place where the future is made so we try to impact the bigger system by fixing a small part hoping for knock-on change. But the problem isn’t inside the school its everywhere all at once.