School Sit

 Society, especially city society, depends upon schools as babysitters. And why not? Schools are safe environments for kids, as well as  places where they socialize, learn, play, are entertained and very often, eat. Teachers are expected, not only to teach according to government laid out programs, but also do add their own personal "colour" to make the experience for kids, palatable. They teach, but they are also surrogate parents. I know that teachers have codes of ethics, but what else? Children learn not only what they see on the board or in a book, they also closely observe their surroundings, the behaviours and appearances and all sorts of details that we adults often know nothing about. Families are with their children a good part of the day, but actually, how much of it? Do families ever add up the time in actual hours, they spend with children? Do they plan mother and father or whatever combination their family is comprised of, family time together as a unit. And we shouldn't count the sports activities outside or the paid-for lessons or the play dates with other families, but the person to person time when your family gathers as a family, around the meal table or other place you do it. Do your children have much of this kind of time with you as models of life that they can take away to use as their future lifestyles? Ever think about it? When I look back many years ago and my mate and I both worked, there wasn't a whole lot of time as family together. And we lived in a rural area with not a lot of distractions. There was always a rush in the mornings and when the end of the day came, there were home things to do and homework for kids and everyone's out of the home social life as well at the end of the day. Lots of pressures. Working parents have to work to own a house, but it also means building a home of a house. Or does it matter? I hear some parents speak about their concern as gangs seek to enlist members. The gang age is reaching down to pre-teens. Are children needing to look for something like a family in a gang. Is it the place where they can share openly, their thoughts and plans  and dreams and concerns and themselves among people, other than their own, who say they be trusted?  How much of their time is spent away from parents, with other people who are not family at all? Just asking. Teachers are with their classes of children probably for more time than the parents of those same students in their own homes. And that's fine because the teacher is with the child for ten months of the year. The teacher is safe, the child can go to the teacher for support and reassurance as well as lessons in the academics. The teacher spends a lot of time learning what a teacher is, and does, and how to do that in a professional manner as well as conferring with the parent, not just score numbers and letters, but any personal needs of the child. They both "care" about that young person. We need health care in our world, but we also need the kind of care that is now largely expected of teachers as surrogate parents. Do we put enough interest and money and time into where our children, spend much of their day and are influenced in that place by a school's mandates and their teachers as models of adulthood?