Whenever a primary grade youngster asked me in all earnestness, “Mr. Lakin, do you own the school?” it never failed to stir the youngster in me and brighten up the moment and the day. I would respond by explaining that all the moms and dads, everyone in our town, including the kids and teachers too, owned the school. This vague and unexpected reply would leave the child a little baffled. What he or she wanted to know was who really owned the school—his teacher, or me, or maybe Mr. Kittle, the custodian, who was always chatting with kids in the hallways and reminding them to take care of the school and keep it clean. Nevertheless, regardless of the unsatisfactory answer, the child would skip down the hallway towards his destination.
Truthfully, I kept asking myself the same question throughout my 16 years as principal of that, my first and last, school. However, the “principal” reply I gave those children did not exactly match the reality that I encountered when I arrived as a young novice principal in 1968. What I had found instead was a school owned by the professionals—the principal, the teachers, the curriculum directors and the central office personnel. The parents, well, they were just the parents! Don’t misunderstand me; excellent teachers are the backbone of the school, however,
NO PARENTS/NO KIDS
NO KIDS/NO SCHOOLS
NO SCHOOLS/NO TEACHERS
The school is, of course, an extension of the home and family and I hoped to bridge the gap.
As I look back almost 40 years later, it appeared as if the parents’ job was to send children to school and the school would take care of the rest—educating the parents’ children. The school was “owned” by the professionals, well educated, well trained, creative, caring and hard working professionals. Communication between teachers and parents/parents and teachers was kept to a bare minimum and much of it had a critical, if not angry and blaming, tone.
In September 1968 I found myself at the center of an out of control school with its laissez faire approach, where aspects of the curriculum did not meet the needs of some of the children and where the social-emotional side of children’s development was being neglected. Concerns such as nurturing self confidence, encouraging fair play and cooperative living, teaching responsibility for one’s actions towards others and towards the feelings of others did not fit into the framework that focused primarily on the cognitive development of the children to the exclusion of just about everything else. While much progress had been made by curriculum specialists and the teachers of the school district to incorporate into the classrooms a more modern and intellectually challenging curriculum, the time had come to align the curriculum with the human factors. As one principal was fond of saying, “the tail is wagging the dog.”
It was time for teachers and parents to begin a dialogue as to what was best for their individual children and the school community as well. Neither the professionals nor the parents own the school. The school exists to assist the family in educating and socializing the young child. The school cannot do the job in isolation and neither can most families, notwithstanding the homeschoolers.
During the following years a process developed whereby school and home were drawn closer together, parents participated more in their child’s school and education, and a closer bond was forged between parents and teachers resulting in a greater degree of trust and goodwill. Teachers became very open to listening to parents’ concerns and input, and vice versa. By listening to one another, by collaborating together for each child’s benefit, a perception developed among most parents, teachers and children that it was their school -- that it belonged to us all.
Excerpted from Teaching as an Act of Love: Thoughts and Recollections of a Former Teacher, Principal and Kid © 2007 by Richard Lakin
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