In most early learning environments, a child knocks over another child’s structure they have worked hard on building. Usually it is the best time to address many social and emotional skills. I mean this is quit normal. Also planting seeds in science and guess who accidentally knocks over the entire pot of soil and seeds? 🤦🏾♀️ You guessed it correctly a young scholar who is learning cause and effect.
I often wonder if it feels good sometimes to knock something over. I mean clearly it does to some. I had a college friend who her family owned a demolition company! I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I really just wanted to experience that feeling she described. Anyway when you purposeful knock something over it usually gives instant gratification with a range of consequences. Is it worth it? Usually one doesn’t access the consequences before the action.
Right now, I have the desire to knock over the the educational system! I mean seriously, can we just rebuild it!?! It’s so many cracks, so many bricks out of place, and the foundation is built on injustice, racism, and bias that don’t allow ALL to be served. So before we call in the demolition crew, is it worth it? The answer is yes! For our future, YES! We will continue in the broken cycle if we don’t Rebuild. Our children’s children will have to fight for this if we don’t rebuild now. Many have already began with coops and charter schools which have amazing efforts. For many of our families who don’t understand, or have lack of knowledge, they still struggle in public education. We must rebuild!!!
We are in a pandemic and so much has been revealed while in this pandemic. It’s obvious more than ever that we need to just rebuild and STOP trying to patch things up. ALL stakeholders hold a valuable place in the rebuild process. Much of the patch work has been valuable but it hasn’t succeeded because it’s being patched on top of a crumbling foundation.
The first step to solving this problem is admitting that what was built to begin with was wrong. It was built on notions that never supported ALL. The ALL includes children of All ethnic backgrounds, diverse families, effective educators, courageous community members, unbiased elected political members, and change agent policy makers, just to name a few.
We have the opportunity to restructure public education. We have the ability to rebuild. First we have to admit that it wasn’t built correctly. It is hard to admit things are wrong but this will be the only way to move forward. We began to dig and realized the footing was never sealed. We must rebuild!!! We’ve allowed moisture (racism, sexism, bias, etc.) in the foundation of the structure. It’s not just in the building, it’s in the foundation. Until we rebuild, we will continue to fight this fight! Educators alone can’t desire to rebuild. It takes ALL stakeholders to build a strong foundation! #TheVillage We need our community to rally that public education needs to be rebuilt but also help put in the work to rebuild it, be APART. We need a collective effort in anything we do within education!
Knocking over the block structure seems selfish but in this case it is a unified knockout! #ItIsNECESSARY
