Resolve to involve yourself in child's education

Resolutions we all make them and often they are uttered as a prayer that things will be better, that we may do good and that we might accomplish more.

For the past week, people who make resolutions at the beginning of a new year have been busy. This year we are starting a new decade, century and, depending on one's point of view, either now or a year from now, a new millennium. This should give the New Year's resolution business a special emphasis.

If resolutions are taken seriously, they can be powerful incentives for improvement and change. This is true for individuals as well as organizations. The process can be useful.

Perhaps even more important than making a one-time-per-year resolution is the business of counting our blessings. There is a line in a hymn which captures my concept of how to look at our blessings. "When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done."

When I add up my blessings against my good works, I fall far short in the works department.

Not only should individuals count their blessings, but organizations, states and nations should, as well. One of the rich blessings we have in the United States is the public school system.

Just imagine, a school system that provides an educational program designed to suit the needs of all the children of all the people. This is a uniquely American dream that includes programs for college preparation, vocational pursuits and special programs for every kind of developmental disability we can define. No other nation in the history of humankind has been able to sustain such an effort.

As imperfect as this man-made system is, and even with the terrible violence we have seen in some school settings, it is without peer in the world.

We provide a clean and safe bus ride to school; meals for those needing them (for some children in our nation the school meal is the best, and sometimes only, real food they will have all day); attractive and safe buildings; learning materials offer a broad and strong curriculum; cocurricular and athletic activities designed to meet a wide variety of student needs and interests; lots of love, care and attention; and, most important of all, the best teachers in the world.

However, as we count this special blessing, which is provided by the taxpayers of our state and school districts, we find some children and youth who do not thrive in the school environment. Why? Why, with the best schooling opportunities anywhere, do some do so poorly that they feel more failure than success?

This issue is complicated and may defy a simple solution, but one part of the answer is crystal clear. There are families who do not adequately support their children during their school years.

The family that fails to keep in touch with their children's teachers to find out how they can participate in the learning process; that fails to provide time at home for supervised homework; that fails to keep close tabs on the behavior of their children; that does not know and monitor their child's friends; that fails to see that the child has a good night's rest and a nutritious breakfast; that does not attend school events involving their children; that fails to review what their children watch on television; that spends precious little time in discussions with their child about important issues and has little time to listen to their child's concerns has failed the course and the child gets the D-.

Too nosy? Not really. No family will be pleased with the school if the family is not involved in the day-to-day work of educating the child.

The single most important duty of the family is to raise the child. This involves being engaged with the schooling process. The parents are more responsible for the education of the child than any others.

One of the best New Year's resolutions to make is to know more about the school and be productively involved, to help see that every child has the advantage of parents, caregivers and a community who care enough to take part in every aspect of the schooling process, and then next year when we count our blessings, we will be more pleased than ever with the results.

I pray that God will bless us throughout the new year.

(Arthur L. Mallory, EdD, is a former president of Southwest Missouri State University and former commissioner of education who resides in Springfield.)