Last week, I shared a poem with you: “Prayer for Children Going to School.” (If you missed that post, it’s still available here.) I’ve had requests to say a bit more about this — some of our Merry Mystics found it rather disturbing! So in this week’s video, I talk a bit more my school days, and some of my other prayers for schoolchildren and their parents. There’s a song, too: “Three More Days.”
[youtube id=NdNRRxhhZvc]
(If you’d like to hear all of “Three More Days,” you can find it online here.)
Three more days and we are free … so we used to sing on the school bus, when any vacation was approaching. Do you remember a song like that, something the kids used to sing on your school bus or playground? Your homework for today is to leave a comment and tell us about it.
Okay, so that was the best dang ending to a Merry Mystic period, oh, I mean offering, ever. I definitely felt like I needed to pack this computer in my backpack and get going – right now!
And thank you for explaining your song “Three More Days.” I have listened to it before and puzzled over its theology… Is he referring to Christ? Is this something to do with death and resurrection? Ah, I figured, it must be. That Adam is sooo profound. Or not. I guess I needed the feeling of bumping up and down on a school bus seat to really place the:Three More Days” sentiment…
So, aside from singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall” (mostly on field trips), I have no memory of songs we sang on the school bus. The only other song that I remember (partly because it was so painfully long, partly because it was played so often on the radio, and partly because the bus drivers cranked it up loud to drown out us kids) was the Eagles’ “Hotel California” which did have one line that resonated deeply with us teenagers in the sense you are sharing:
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
I was pretty sure that summarized the system as a whole for some of us.
But despite being an introvert, shy, nerdy, awkwardly tall and lanky and having to run a gauntlet of bullies between every two bell rings, I have mixed feeling about school. I couldn’t wait to leave (I did succeed in leaving high school and home – both oppressive environments) one year early, but I also met friends there that I remains profoundly close and at ease with after multiple decades. Because it was a public school, I also learned a great deal about class, race, gender, drugs, poverty, violence and many other issues that I could have been more isolated from if my parents (basically on Christian principle) hadn’t insisted that public school was a public good. (That value is one of the few from my parents that rubbed off on both me and my brother and make us both strong advocates of wanting our kids in public school and not at home or in some private enclave.) So, I guess I’ll come down mixed on this one.
But on the other hand, the person who I’ve always most admired in their radical approach to education was Jiddu Krishnamurti, and I loved that he often spoke directly to the young students he met…
http://www.krishnamurti-and-education.org/for-students/the-new-generation
Thanks for the Krishnamurti link. I need to read more of his stuff.
I too have mixed feelings. When I was a child (and thought like a child) I used to say that I hated school, but I’ve learned not to call it hate. It was, of course, love — frustrated love — that led me to be a student, and a teacher, for more than half of my life. Some of the institutions I most reflexively distrust are public schools, yet I always vote in favor of school funding, and I would agree that public school is a public good! And some of the people I most deeply admire are public school teachers. Mixed feelings, indeed.
I totally agree that our children need prayer. I like badly teased to the point of tears and dread. So was one of my daughters. Today children have it coming not only in school but on line as well. Many of my friends are teachers and they feel powerless. They have made it so hard to discipline the children who are causing problems. also the parents blame the teachers and do not take any responsibly for the actions of their children or make the children take responsibility for their actions. We need to pray for wisdom for parents, strength for teachers, and protection for our children.
The song we used to sing “No more school, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks!” Have a blessed week.!
Thank you, Nan. In my work as a pastor, I’m sometimes overwhelmed by the depth of dysfunction in the families I see. I see these kids, abused and neglected in so many ways, and sometimes I think, “They’re so much better off when they’re in school.” But then, when they’re in school, it’s the teachers who have to deal with the damage. — I agree completely with your prayer: “wisdom for parents, strength for teachers, and protection for our children.”