Listen To The Affected: Kids And Guardians
I have a guilty parent-secret. I like to pause at the start of the school day and watch guardians and children part company. The most miraculous images of connectedness and love shine forth. Even among that hardest of age-classes, The Middle Schooler, from out of the safe confines provided by a car a whole lot of tenderness shines forth.
It is possible to see a huge burley tattooed bloke embrace a tiny iteration of himself with a kiss reciprocated tenderly. It is possible to see a mom reach past a sleeping sibling to give a squeeze of strength to the elder ex officio. There are together-parents and disorganized-parents. There are shiny children and others who need to cry privately before starting their day.
But the exchange of a child from the guardian’s care to the schools’, is a profound shift of trust. The transfer is predicated on a bond of equal magnitude. Guardians are a force of such profound importance in the child’s life, why are they not more equal partners in the child’s education?
It feels from here as if there is an awful lot of non-listening going on in LAUSD; from the institution toward the guardians.
And while I understand there is great diversity in home life and circumstance, all the same I have yet to speak with a single parent from anywhere across