Students are returning to class during a turbulent moment
Even if you are at an age where you’ve already attended a couple of class reunions, it’s still possible to feel a twinge of melancholy when you see back-to-school sales in stores, or when you see the blinking lights of a yellow school bus on a street early on a warm August morning.
Who can forget feeling a little crestfallen at the thought of summer days slipping away? Those sunny days that would be wide open, free of obligations and filled with possibility. If you wanted to perfect your layup on the basketball court, ride your bike from one end of town to another, watch an afternoon movie or stretch out with a book, the day was all yours to do it in. School, with its homework, regimentation and early hours, took all that blessed freedom away.
Of course, that’s an idealized vision of how many young people spend their summers. Many older students have to work to help their parents or guardians pay household bills, or they have to start stashing away money to finance their postsecondary education. For the privileged handful who are aiming to get into top-tier colleges and universities, summer can be a hectic time to enhance credentials, engage in enrichment activities or otherwise bolster their odds of getting an acceptance letter from the school of their choice. Sometimes, the hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer that Nat King Cole sang about decades ago are anything but lazy for a lot of students.
And if you are old enough to have been to a couple of class reunions, you should feel some sympathy for students who are in embarking on the 2022-23 school year. Sure, if you were in school 30, 40, or 50 years ago, teachers, students and administrators were much less attuned to the perils of bullying and discrimination than they are now. Many things have changed for the better. But where school doors were once unlocked and students, teachers and members of the community could come and go freely, schools are now tightly locked fortresses with cameras, identification stickers and active-shooter drills. The easy access Americans have to high-powered weaponry has placed an enormous psychological burden on our children and grandchildren.
Students are also being caught in the crossfire of America’s raging cultural wars. In some places during this school year, they will not be taught about slavery, the civil rights movement or America’s struggle with racism out of concern for offending easily outraged parents or running afoul of pointless laws that ban “critical race theory.” In some of those same places, teachers will curtail any mentions of sexuality, or avoid revealing they are gay or lesbian. School librarians could even be threatened with arrest here and there. And consider the classic books that some school districts are removing from their shelves, or are not allowing to be taught: “Of Mice and Men,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, “Maus,” and more.
Students are also re-entering classrooms at a point where many of their fed-up teachers are heading for the exits. They are burned out on the low pay, long hours, harassment from parents and behavioral problems from their charges. Some states are trying to fill empty teaching slots by lowering the minimum requirements of applicants. That doesn’t augur well for the quality of the education students in those states will be receiving.
The idea of public education first developed 400 to 500 years ago in both Europe and the United States, so it’s been around for a short time when you consider the whole sweep of human existence. It’s played an immeasurable role in improving living standards and expanding our cultural and intellectual life, both here and elsewhere. As we embark on a new school year, it needs to be valued, not diminished.