Through my undergraduate and graduate education courses a large focus has been on educational philosophy. Like most, as I worked more in schools and took more classes my philosophy changed and I became more excited about specific things such as ed tech, data privacy, etc. One thing that hasn’t changed since my first teaching course, is the idea that school should be fun.
I’ve been volunteering at a local Boys and Girls Club and part of our conversations are ways the club, community, and school can support teenagers. In these conversations kids brought up the lack of engagement or school being boring. This is a common complaint for middle and high school kids but one teenager brought a new idea that I had not thought of before. As we discussed community support one teen brought up that things happen at home or within the community but once you got to school you couldn’t talk about it because, paraphrasing their words, school is school and not part of the community.
This blew me away. The thought that school is not a place to share and discuss ideas and it is separate from the rest of the community is something I had never thought of before. As I mulled over this idea, I looked back on my own educational experience. Was school part of the community? Sure, I went to Friday night football games, played sports, and went to school plays or concerts but were these things building a safe and inviting community? While I was free to talk about our schools sports teams or theater program we didn’t talk about the development of neighborhoods, social and emotional programs in the community, and I didn’t turn to any of my teachers, counselors, or principals if I had a problem I needed help with. But on the opposite side of that, while I was teaching I had several students willing to seek advice from myself, the counselors, or principals. Is it a culture thing? Do students know these support systems exist? How do you show students they can turn to school for help?
So, I’ve been stuck on this idea of school being part of the community yet at the same time its own separate thing. Does making school more fun and engaging help to make it part of the community? Do we need to give middle and high school students more credit and allow them to talk about what they see and feel about what is happening in the world around them? How can we get more students to feel inclusion between school, the community, and the world? I’m not sure what to do with this idea but I can’t imagine this teenager is alone in their thinking. How does school become more than just school?
More Questions Than Answers 