eighteen. Poor Schools, Poor Kids, Poor Health, Short lives.

It has become undeniably clear that business has intersected with almost every other social cause in the United States today. From politics, to education, to the organic food industry, the big business agenda is one that shoves its personal interests through the agendas (and betterment) of the masses. I am writing today about this collision, and more importantly the grave consequences for youth culture if our society continues to use money and selfishly motivated funders/donors as the compass for forward motion in these places (particularly in education) who support the unreachable and hollow and factory like procedures of No Child Left Behind and Race to The Top. In America, this compass to move forward should by guided by those who have spent their lives learning along students in the classrooms of this country; the teachers and youth workers who dedicate their lives to deeply understanding how to empower the new generation of thinkers for this democratic society. 

I will begin with a learning moment from last week. On Thursday, I sat crying for an hour after softly closing my laptop in surrender. My thoughts were fixed on a new research study (one that took all of my courage to finish) dissecting effects of the “privatization” (or big business) of foster homes in America. As an adult who lived a childhood with this fate, and one who finds herself constantly enveloped in the struggle for new laws, standards, and actions on a policy level to improve the current pathetic conditions for foster youth, the only option was to cry.  I think the world would be a better place if we all spent more time crying or at least noticing all of these blatant and obvious injustices we put on our children, especially poor children.  Even I, someone deeply committed to the cause, was unaware and uneducated about the mass scale of this privatization. This was some of the reason for my sadness, but most of it fell on the words in that study that repeatedly pointed to pain, the neglect, and the BIG money that became the impetus for “taking care of”  these children.  In the daily national news, headline after headline scripts stories of death, and abuse proving that we in fact are failing these children of any "care" at all. I would argue what’s worse is suffering through a childhood that is seemingly giving them no options, no hope, no love needed to develop a whole -hearted person leading to an incomplete life laden with continued suffering. If you feel as if my words are dramatic, research will lead you to the reality that there are many around you who are experiencing this right now- we simply do not ask or look do we? Myself included. Or, maybe it is that we intentionally look away because of the complexity behind all of this with the weak hopeful hearts that maybe they will pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I would ask you and I to think about why there are 72,000 invisible children in these privatized foster homes and in the USA (this is only a guess count for 8 states since still no one knows). These are the homes of children we are talking about where they learn and discover in every moment who they are. This space is sacred, yet we treat these foster homes as a fast food business on a shorten lunch break, and treat children as products sold to the lowest bidder.

The night before I had finished Why School? by the ever beautiful Mike Rose.  His words echoed the tone of the foster care article in describing the business we have also built behind children in this country surrounding the spaces where we educate them; our schools and in our classrooms. I say this so loudly, and with so much regret I beg you to listen one more time. We have used CHILDREN to BUILD BUSINESS IN THIS COUNTRY.  These are the learning spaces of our children, where they go to discover who they are in this ever- changing world around them in efforts to participate fully in it. This space is sacred, yet we treat it as a fast food business focusing on how efficiently to get them in and out and how much it will cost the people who are not even involved in the journey.

I realized quickly Why School and the article are connected in so many ways. The double bottom line is simply that this country is failing the majority of youth in the spaces they exist in. It became clear that in the past, part of my subconscious found some comfort in the fact that foster youth may at least have an opportunity to find love and the tools they need to grow whole at their schools and through incredible teachers that never get enough credit for their hard work.  Rose made this point over and over in his pages. The USA is failing teachers too by asking them to take relationships and experiential learning out of the classroom. After all, it only takes one positive adult or one teacher to change your life… I am a testament to that.  But, it is clear to me now that unfortunately these two arenas (home care for poor youth, and schooling) are in the same grim place. Both are falling short of  cultivating spaces where “we hear about intellect, aesthetics, joy, courage creativity, civility and understanding (Rose, Pg.29).”  It is exactly these components that are necessary to create a whole child, which is absolutely and directly tied to developing a better world for all of us. Instead, it is money and business (and tests, tests, tests) that run our schools like factories stripping the classrooms of these very important pieces.

Furthermore, these injustices are happening to a certain kind of student over and over. The ones who the elite suggest offer least to our society partially blamed on their lack of “education”: the poor. Poverty matters a whole lot. Rose talks about the increased pressures specifically for kids from poor neighborhoods down to the “tense navigation of walking from home to school.”  Now we can add the pressures at home. If you do the math-school kids, let’s say one who grows up in a foster home, a normal day  adds up to the following.

Tense navigation when you wake up.

Tense navigation through breakfast.

Tense navigation to school.

Tense navigation for the entire school day.

Tense navigation walking home from school.

Tense navigation for an entire night at home.

Tense navigation to fall asleep, stay asleep, and find rest.

What chance are we giving kids if every space where they are supposed to learn is now inhibiting them from doing just that?  What are chances for happiness or healthiness are we giving them if we do not find (or allow) joy here?  To bring this discourse one step further into a dark closet that would be easier to just shut, the ACE studies that came out in the 90’s proved a strong correlation between these “tense navigations” that they call ACE factors (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and life span. Not to anyone’s surprise, this research has been largely ignored. The ACE studies state that when we put kids in positions of increased high stress for sustained periods of time they are 4 times as likely to develop heart disease and cancer as adults=shorter life spans. 

Just to recap: We are not allowing children to live full childhoods while simultaneously decreasing the time they have to figure it out for themselves in their adulthood.

It is unexplainable, as well as unforgivable how purposely the world inhibits the youth culture. We allow minimal support and agency in these schools and home where youth are developing, once again because it is driven by matters of the pocket book rather then tackling the complexity of building inclusive, loving, and whole classrooms where kids come to learn and create themselves in the relevant context of  the world around them.

Is it at school that we hope to catch some of the gaps kids in more impoverished homes may be experiencing, but instead we are again shoving their pencils, their minds, and their chance for creating self esteem through discovery into tiny shallow boxes.  If you don’t fit or pass the test, you are not valued. You are NOT VALUED.

My hopeful end to this lies in the children. In ten years of my work I have discovered how little I know about youth. However, what is very clear is how resilient, smart,  and innovative every one of them are by nature. Especially kids who come from harder times. I know our youth can make it with very little and navigate their way through all of these challenges that we throw at them. I just wish we didn't make them.