Back to School!
The ads bark at me: Back to School! Back to School! Even though it is decades since I went "back" full-time, I have to fight the urge, the craving, to fondle the three-ring binders, to sniff the pencils, and to try on just one new outfit. Although it may seem like the tail of commerce is wagging my dog, the promotion has really "tapped into" my psyche; they understand what makes me tick. Back to School is part of a cycle that is ingrained in me, a ritual that helps me feel alive, a celebration of a return. "New things for a new beginning" is part of every ritual. The school year, originally patterned on the growing season to free children to work in spring and summer, puts students in sync with the rhythms of the sun and earth. But the majority of students today live in urban industrial technological digital worlds. Do schools still meet the needs of the students, of parents, of society as a whole?
History: Schooling was originally the responsibility of parents who taught their own children at home or hired tutors for them. A talented child would be sent to study with an adult who excelled in that skill or knowledge. Trade apprenticeships were another form of schooling; a youngster was trained, in return for his work assisting the master. Organized religious institutions often recruited talented men to be sent to special schools and trained for the priesthood or ministry. Finishing schools trained women in domestic management, productive leisure activities, and community service. Males whose families could afford it went to university where they lived, read under the direction of tutors, networked, and prepared themselves for careers in the church, the military, the public service, or the professions. Universities have been places of higher learning in Europe for over 1000 years. The Seminary of Quebec, opened in the 1660's, became Laval University, the oldest in Canada.
Public school is an American ideal springing from the democratic principle that all men are created equal. Of course, when this statement was proclaimed in the 18th century, "all men" did not include non-White races, non-male gender, non-property owners. But as society changes, so do society's institutions. Public schools accessible to all children for free were one way to assure equal opportunity, to enable the non-privileged (not rich or of noble blood) to enter realms previously denied them. Public schools in the last century also provided a meaningful occupation for gangs of unemployed youths displaced by technology after the shift from an agricultural to an industrial wage-based economy.
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