James Earl Jones’ statement “… the one constant throughout all the years … has been baseball” (Field of Dreams, 1972) is even more properly said about public education. The one constant throughout all the years, spanning prosperity, war, and crisis, has been a local public school. This is an inarguable truth in our nation, state, and local communities. As we labor into a third year of covid, school remains the indispensable factor in the lives of children and adults in every community that it always has been and always will be. Let us not forget this truth.
The experience of school, like beauty in the eye of the beholder, may be different for each person. With appreciation we acknowledge the stories told by great-grandparents and grandparents of their schooling during the Depression and World War Two. We hear stories from Baby Boomers’ experiences in the 50s and 60s and from Generation X and Millenials leading up the present. The life and times of our nation during each generation is reflected in the life and times of their schooling. World War, Cold War, Vietnam, civil rights, terrorism, school shootings, and pandemic permeate the culture of their times and the residuals of each and all affect how adults view their school experience.
At the heart of schooling though are commonalities that make every public school graduate more alike than different.
We showed up and persisted. Some walked in the school doors because they were drawn to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Some were drawn to the gym and stage. Others to the shops and special subjects. First generation children strove to learn English and use school as a ladder to assure second generation success in the community. And, some walked into school because attendance was mandatory. Some attended because of compulsory attendance laws. Whatever the reason, we attended thirteen years of school. Employers tell educators they look at school attendance records as a predictor of persistence. Employers want to hire those who can stay the distance.
We became literate. Illiteracy in the US, like smallpox and polio, still exists but it is rare. Reading is not a natural function for Homo Sapiens; the senses of hearing, seeing, touching, and smelling are. Reading and writing are learned skills. All children in school are taught to read, some more proficiently than others. Across the years and all populations, schools maintain a literate United States.
We have a 4K-12 liberal arts education. Core subjects of language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and health are spiraled and scaffolded across thirteen years of schooling to cause every graduate to have generalized skills of communication; thinking quantitatively and solving mathematical problems; knowing our world through biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science; the history of people, civics and government, and principles of economics; an appreciation of art and how to express ourselves through art; appreciation of music and enrich our lives musically; and, the elements of a healthy life. This is a long and compounded sentence because that is the nature of a 4K-12 education.
We are socialized. School commingles and socializes children. School analogies of the past were that children in school were like ingredients in a salad tossed and taking flavor from each ingredient. Or, school was a kitchen blender through which all children pass coming out as a society more alike than different. Few children pass through thirteen years of school attendance without being influenced by their peers and influencing their peers. We are social animals down deep and school attunes each student to the community around us.
We are readied if not prepared for life after public school. The funneling of school curriculum aims the majority of children at post-high school education and work. In our local school 95% of graduates over the past 30 years matriculated to a college or university. A few sought trade schools or the military. Every graduate had a self-proclaimed “next” for what they would do after graduation. Today 75% of our graduates go directly to colleges or universities, about the same numbers enlist in the military, and more grads attend tech school or go to work immediately after high school. Every graduate still has a “next” and the trending of next is changing. School is all about “next”.
We learned about ourselves. School is more than academics. Our school experiences in athletics, the arts, and school activities allow us to explore who we are and who we want to be. Each school child is unique and athletics, arts, and activities are pathways for uniqueness to be explored. Whether a lead in the school play or musical, an extra or stage, a role on the stage crew, a musician in the pit, or the student who makes the posters publicizing performances makes no difference. Exploring one’s talents and comfort level for involvement is one of the unspoken values of schooling. And, learning who we are not and the talents we do not have is just as instructive.
We fulfilled our community and generational role. Whether we recognize it or not, each graduating class meets need of the local and regional community for young adults moving into the world of work, community involvement, and next taxpayers. Consider the graduate at one end of a continuum and retiring senior citizens at the other end. The Class of 2021 begins engagement in the working life of a community and the Class of 1971 begins disengagement. Healthy communities need this continual renewal.
We dispersed and cross-pollinated. More than 700 classmates and I graduated in June 1966. I knew many but not all. We immediately dispersed to Vietnam, colleges and universities, and employments everywhere. For graduates who left town stories would circulate over the years of classmates but before social media these were few and far between. Social media has sewn classmates back together. FaceBook et al allow us to say “I know about… who lives in …” though we may not be able to say “I know him or her well”. Now, I am aware that my classmates live in every state and across many nations. Graduating classes are meant to disperse; it creates cross-pollination of regional varieties throughout our society.
School is responsible for these things and keeps on doing them year in and year out. School is the constant engine of our nation. If you doubt this truth, consider how else 50.2 million children aged 4 though 18 and enrolled in public school today would be educated and prepared for adulthood. A daunting task, eh!