Copyright © 2011 by P. A. Ritzer

25 October 2011

I spoke to Laura Ingraham on her radio program today about the importance of the distinction between what is appropriate for the family and home and what is appropriate for the school.

There is a tension here. In my experience, most professionals in education want to do the best for their students. But as our culture tends to take more and more authority and responsibility from parents and the family and place them on schools and other institutions, we find that even the best principals and teachers are under increasing pressure to do more. In fact, it is often the best professionals who are inclined to do more, to go the extra mile, to make their school the best. And that is great. But as the principal from Michigan whom Laura interviewed concluded, there are some areas where it is best to do less. So, due to concerns (including saftety concerns) arising from her experience, she removed Halloween parties and parades from instruction time and moved them to an evening for those who chose to attend. I can understand why. I remember how we teachers had to give up all or the better part of an afternoon for students to change into their costumes and then transform the classroom into a rec room where they listened to music–which caused its own share of problems–ate and drank sugar concoctions and carried on in a way more appropriate for friends at a hangout than for students in a classroom. And of course, parents had to take time from their responsibilities to bring in the sweets and help supervise.

Should all schools follow suit and do as the principal in Michigan did? Not necessarily. But her example does give them an opportunity to consider whether or not some activities at school are not better conducted outside of instruction time at home among the family or in the neighborhood among the neighbors. This is a real balancing challenge for schools, as so much of this is going on all around: the Halloween parties, pajama days, and all of it. And regarding so much of it, the question forces its way up from the very depths: What is the point!

But here again, we parents need to take responsibility. Are we placing these demands on the schools? Are we pushing them to do more than professionally educate our children? Are we demanding the school field trip rather than gathering together and taking an outing as a family? Are we demanding that they interrupt instruction to allow our children to costume and sugar up?

Opinions on the proper balance in all this will vary, but those opinions must be reviewed and sometimes challenged so that we do not supplant the parents as primary educators of their children and the family as the fundamental social unit and the domestic church.