How Was School Today?

It is probably the most commonly asked question when families gather around the dinner table these days. It is not a question about the stock market or the weather. It is not even a question about sports or religion. It is a question about school.

The most commonly asked question is the one posed by parents when they ask “How was school today?” It is an innocent question. The child can share as much or as little as he or she desires. But behind the question is genuine concern. Parents are interested in the activities of their children as well as concerned about the quality of the educational experience available to their children.

Across Alabama, schools are back in session. Hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are in classrooms. And the opening of school doors refocuses the concern of parents and the community to school activities. Beginning  in August, what goes on at school becomes one of the most important activities in the lives of families everywhere.

Churches also are concerned about what transpires in the school classroom. Historically, churches have been champions of education. The early motivation for the church was to help people learn to read the Bible. Later the motivation was to help people, especially children, develop their talents and abilities so they could live obedient lives serving God.

In the United States, the church was an early advocate for public schools. The schools were viewed as “a great equalizer.” Through public education, every child, no matter one’s social or economic background, was offered the opportunity of achieving. The church saw public schools as an expression of God’s concern for every person. Church and school were almost inseparable.

Today, public schools are not viewed in such noble terms. Court decisions have lessened the influence of organized religion in the classroom. The ills of society find ways to express themselves in schools like they do in other places. Violence and drugs are realities young people face. And, today, schools have been assigned a number of tasks in addition to teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

These and other changes have caused some people to give up on the public schools. Increasingly, negative and hurtful things are said about public education and people who work in public schools. The result is that public education needs help in facing the challenges confronting it as never before.

Across Alabama, churches are responding by forming partnerships with nearby schools. In some places, churches help spruce up the buildings and grounds. In other places, church volunteers staff tutorial programs. And in other areas, churches undergird their public schools with concentrated intercessory prayer.

There is no substitute for involvement with the public schools. Where parents are involved, working cooperatively with teachers and administrators, problems decrease. Where communities support their public schools, the whole culture of public education improves.

One of the clearest ways churches support public education is through the tens of thousands of active Christian teachers and administrators who work in Alabama’s public schools. These are the same women and men who teach Sunday School classes, who sing in church choirs, who serve on church committees.

They are not the negative straw-man stereotype some people construct so they can have a target for the stones they wish to throw. These are real people who love the children, who work hard, who enforce the rules, who try to be good role models, who demand the best from the children. They are people who prepared for their tasks and who prepare each day to be good teachers and administrators.

Alabama is fortunate to have such people serving in the public schools. It is through their service and the service of others that parents, grandparents and other friends and neighbors get excited about what their little ones have learned at school on any particular day.

These teachers and administrators deserve support. They deserve a word of appreciation, a word of encouragement, a word of intercessory prayer.

Our forefathers were not wrong when they helped establish public education. Its benefits are too important to be lost through neglect or hostility.

One cannot help but wonder what kind of difference it would make if teachers and administrators heard as many words of prayerful encouragement as they hear negative criticism.