Who’s Teaching Your Children?

I remember growing up seeing the commercials that asked parents the infamous question, “Do you know where your children are?” Well, now that we know where our children are located, the all important question that most of us failed to ask, “Do you know Who is teaching your children?” Why are we allowing strangers to teach and mold the minds of OUR children, our babies? If our children are a testament to our legacy, why have we failed to seek this fundamental truth? Who are these “teachers” given to us from our local education system? Do we know how teachers are trained? Who decides what makes a “good teacher”? Let’s put aside the term “highly qualified” because a child molester can be smart, with all the right credentials, but it doesn’t indicate whether or not he/she is a “good” person or a “good” fit to educate our children.

As an educator, we are required to take a few psychology-based courses on child development. These classes convey how humans grow and evolve based on the stimuli in their early child development to adolescence. It only sounds right, huh? However, the business of education tends to negate these teachings because we all know that the idea of standardized tests is a faulty checks and balances system that forces schools to compete for money from the government. In addition, this governmental system curves the national scores based on the highest score attained, which doesn’t say much for our educational standards. Inasmuch, these standardized tests are not based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, which lends itself to more inductive (creative) thinking, rather than deductive (systematic) thinking. Neither is right or wrong, but what are we “training” our children to be: creative beings that are encouraged to create a better world and love themselves in their journey of life or robots that can only do things within a specified paradigm? Most of us have been trained in the latter. This is the reason some of us have difficulty seeing beyond our literal sight. If we can’t see it, we don’t dream. For instance statements such as, “that’s just how the system is” or “we have to do things exactly like this” or “we can’t change this.”

The bible states, “where there is no vision the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18) and we wonder why many students loathe coming to school? They do for the same reason most of us loathe going to our jobs. Simply, creating more people like ourselves who will live “quiet lives of desperation”-Henry D. Thoreau. This is why teens tend to rebel because where before they believed the words of adults, then they begin to see the hypocrisy of it all. Their feelings of frustration grow because they can’t articulate it and their anger sets within them when we fail to admit the truth. It is so sad because we don’t realize how much we hurt ourselves, but we’ve been train to think this is the “way out” when this deductive thinking keeps us “trapped inside” like rats in a barrel of cream, competing. This is why “inner city” “urban youth” don’t respect most authority figures. It is because they see more than we give them credit. The thing that many of us sacrifice (“our righteous mind”), they refuse to do. They do things their way, right or wrong, they follow their minds. They choose not to compete in the system the same as we choose to do, but needless to say, we are both fighting the same fight, just differently. However unified in goal, the adults choose to accept the paradigm that does a dis-service to our youth and sacrifice what we know to be right or “make sense” to what the curriculum states that “the learner will….” It is not appropriate for us to judge how our youth have learned to adapt in a corrupt world when we have not adequately provided any protection for them. First thing first, don’t do that. It is unfair. Second, Socrates stated, “a wise man admits he knows nothing,” and if we admit this we can learn so much more. We can listen to our youth and discover how we can solve this problem, but again, I ask, what are the teacher’s duties? As Denzel Washington’s character in “The Great Debaters” defined the role of the educator, we “…are here to help you to find, take back and keep your righteous mind because obviously you have lost it.” Even in this statement, Washington’s character understands the meaning of education. In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was about bringing out what was already within the student. The word education comes from the Latin e-ducere meaning "to lead out." Many contemporary teachers aren’t encouraged to do this because of the importance placed on state standardized tests. As an educator who has taught in the public school system, it is not because they don’t want to, but a simple case of mis-education.

How can we say we care about our children when we know what most of them really need to succeed--Love, Security, Identity, Acceptance. We know they aren't getting it at home. If we want our children to pay attention, we must first satisfy their basic needs. No Child Left Behind isn’t helping; our children are still being left behind. For some, if those basic needs aren't met, then that’s another barrier to keep them from achieving. I ask myself constantly, "What are a teacher's technical duties? And how do these "duties" correlate with the reason most people decide to become teachers?" Or, are the technicalities distracing us from what's really important?

I have seen great teachers bombarded with paperwork on top of the everyday stress of working in "inner city" schools. Let's stop and evaluate OUR situation--what kind of school do we want to have? We all discuss the flaws in the system, but it is OUR fault because we perpetuate it. Our participation sustains it. If we get what we attract, then what are we asking? According to God’s words, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matthew 21: 22). So when are we really going to ASK God for what we really desire? If we don’t like our current circumstances, then how are we proactively instituting change? If we want to locate the problem, we need only look in a mirror. Oddly, it is usually the youth who challenge the verity and integrity of rules. Maybe their eyes are still naive and hopeful. I realize that a lot of adults transfer these feelings of failure to our children because we don’t want them to get hurt. However, it is our lack of hope and faith in change that cripples our children, not necessarily the system itself. We must remember not to compete because when we do, in that sense, we lose. The only limitations in life are the ones we create in our minds. It’s strange; as many of us get older, we accept what we once fought against because we have to afford the lifestyle we always dreamed and have acquired. In the day, we transform into robots (“robo” greek for “slave”), however at night, we return to ourselves. Zora Neale Hurston illustrates how this transformation occurs in Their Eyes Were Watching God, “...now, the sun and bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things….They sat in judgment.” We sit at home or amongst our peers and complain, hoot and holler about what ills us, but when will we be ready to make the sacrifices to create real change in our lives? We must delight ourselves In the LORD, ”…and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart,” so “let your requests be made known to GOD” (Philippians 4:6). Therefore in all things, “pray without ceasing,” (Thessalonians 5:17) so that we may have the abundant life that Jesus has promised us in John 10:10.

Furthermore, why must we allow strangers to determine how we educate OUR children. Who decides what is taught in the curriculum? What is tested or assessed? What is important for our youth? Who do we allow to decide this? Is it the people who use the education system as a stepping stone for corporate advancement? Is it people whose limited classroom experience prevents them from truly identifying with the grassroots teacher in the classroom? How can an administrator help if they really don’t understand or identify with my struggles? Many try, but the real question is what are we being trained to do? Regardless, we cannot blame them because they are doing the same as us, following the guidelines of a system that we do not really agree. Yet, many of us can hear the snake in the grass. The implementation of public education was to keep children out of the job market. Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle depicts the rigors of child slave labor in America. Now, I agree that children shouldn’t have to be subjected to work in those harsh conditions, so what do we want for them? Have we ever stopped and thought about what type of training or education would be required to produce well-rounded, happy human beings? Or, is the goal to simply compete?

However, these public schools trained the students to have "sufficient" knowledge and “critical thinking skills” to be a future worker in the new corporations of the Industrial Age. The tycoons of Carnegie Steel and Rockefeller's Standard Oil are the examples of corporations that funded public education and HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges & Universities). In the novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison refers to the "unveiling statue," he states, "I wonder if the founder is removing the veil (symbolizing "ignorance") or making sure it’s firmly in place." Ellison alludes to his experiences at Tuskeegee University and questions the motives of his patrons, and their reasons for contributing money toward the poor man’s education. Simultaneously, I recall Spike Lee's message in the film, “School Daze.” His ending message to “Wake Up” resonates the conflict in Ellison’s The Invisible Man. The same question, “are we being trained or educated?” More importantly, if you don’t know the difference, then “wake up.” All in all, we still find ourselves chasing the proverbial carrot, while we are losing the real battle with our children.

I believe that we all have more power than we assume. To whom much is given, much is required, and yes, we must do what we have to do, so we can do what we want. Moreover, the speech I heard so much from teachers and community leaders was "go to school and you can be whatever you want to be." Therefore, I went to college to be educated, to be free, yet I, similar to many of my peers find our dreams mocked by the stress of making money and losing the thing that is most valuable--Time. If education is supposed to "free" us, then why do most of us feel "trapped" with our degrees and jobs? Why are our hands tied from doing what we know makes more sense than a rule or procedure? At one time, teaching African Americans to read was against the law, allowing African Americans to vote was against the law, but we identified them as unjust laws. St. Augustine understood that, "An unjust law is no law at all." If we feel that something is unjust, then WE decide to be reactive or proactive. Instead of being reactive, we must unify and decide proactively. It has been said that "The truth shall set you free." Nevertheless, if our education doesn't allow us to freely decide for our schools and communities, then are we truly free? And better yet, has what we've been taught the truth?

© C. Lynn Johnson