The wrong question

Coming home from co-op today, we were listening to NPR and a story came on that made me sputter and start talking to the radio. (See? I sputter at all variety of radio stations. I'm an equal opportunity sputterer.) Some children ignore me, some like to check in that I'm okay, and others wish they had some popcorn to eat to go along with the entertainment.

This particular story was on the alarm that people were feeling over the high number of traditional school students who are still not attending classes. It was really rather breathless about the looming disaster if these children who are behind can't catch up, with undercurrents of the world as we know it ending if we can't get these children back in school.

So obviously my first bit of sputtering was to ask the radio, "Catch up to what?" The reporter didn't answer. I've blogged quite a bit about the misguided idea that children can be behind or that there is something to catch up to. 

[If you need me to write more on that topic, let me know. I can always write more.]

From there it moved into a brief discussion about chronic truancy and what a problem it is. It seems a child is chronically truant if they miss more than ten days of school. It was at this point that some of my louder children piped up with, "Ten days?! We take off whole weeks!" thus claiming the honor of being chronically truant. And they're not wrong about taking off weeks of doing formal school work. That whole month of R. being off the rails was the most recent example. 

[Do I really need to pause and explain that even if we took off from formal school work that my children were still learning things? That homeschooled children cannot be truant because we don't have an artificial separation between learning that is considered valuable because it was dispensed by a teacher and learning that doesn't count because the student learned it on their own? Once again, I'm happy to, just say the word.]

But my biggest question by the end of the story was the overwhelming feeling that everyone was asking the wrong question. Instead of clutching their collective pearls and trying to figure out how these children can be "fixed" so that they can attend school again, why is everyone not asking: What is wrong with our schools that so many children cannot bear to attend them? This, to me, is the far more interesting and important question. I have yet to hear anyone involved in mainstream education to ask it, though. 

You want to hear my theory, that I've told to whoever was interested since this became a bigger issue when life started going back to normal after Covid abated? The break from attending school gave everyone a break, creating awareness that there are other ways to do life and to learn. Then, children went back to class and the system remained unchanged. Many people experienced trauma during Covid for any number of reasons. We all know trauma changes brains, making them less flexible. So the combination of a break from normal and trauma means the children who left school were very different than the ones who came back. What may have been bearable before became unbearable. There are many unhealthy things about modern traditional schools are run. When unhealthy begins to feel unbearable it becomes toxic. 

[Do I need to say that I am not anti-teacher, just anti-unhealthy, factory school systems? It's not just children who are chronically truant, more and more teachers are as well. We just call it quitting when you're an adult and have a choice.]

The problem is never going to be solved so long as those in charge are asking the wrong question. And once again, it is the children, usually the children who have the fewest resources or those with the least margin who will pay the price.