Christmas, the New Year and Schools…

I had a wise teacher say to me, and I’ve repeated it many times, “You should realize that this is the last, best place where people care about your doing well or not…”

He was talking about school. I was pouting about something, or grumbling about something in school that we do so freely now days –and couldn’t do so freely in the “old days”.

He was pointing out that schools and the people in them, care about the kids doing well.

Of course it is not everyone, some might say, but it is in the high 90’s percentile. It is almost everyone that I know in the Fennville Schools. It is where people, not just teachers, but staff in general really care if kids are happy and doing well; that they are prospering; that they are growing to be what they should be, namely, happy citizens of this republic.

Later in life, as we go on to jobs, occupations and careers, we find that there are other concerns and reasons for our well being, namely if we are contributing to the organization; are we helping them make money. The concern is not if you are you happy, but that they are getting their money’s worth out of you. That, as they say, is life. It is how our society works.

But in Schools, for a brief time in our lives, it is near perfect, although we don’t of course realize it at the time. It is a world of genuine concern for our outcome. We leave it quickly. That time is indeed brief and fraught with many other concerns, but upon looking back it is the longest stretch of time where someone(s) cared about me, besides family. They cared about me, whether I deserved it or not (often didn’t) and they were forgiving of my mistakes and transgressions.

We living in the United States are lucky that public schools provide, not just an education, but a time where others care for our children with such devotedness and passion that they literally give their lives to do it.

It is a Christmas present from us to our children that keeps on giving every new year the school opens.

I’m grateful.