I don’t know about you but this current heat wave requires a late evening visit to the back porch. Even that don’t help that much, where the heat ends the humidity takes over, also factor in older folks and it is not the best environment for some of the ailments we encounter as we age. My goal a while back was to build this porch as a poor man’s sanctuary, as a means of coming to it to clear my mind of the days events. No TV, phone and most of the time just me and the cat. I tried to quit watching the news, any news to ease my lack of discipline of not being the sole arbitrator of the worlds problems, a heavy responsible for someone who sometimes has to be reminded to zip up their pants. Well, this has turned out to be one of those porch nights that for some reason I could not let go of an issue that is and will began to show up in future years and is already showing up in our every day lives more and more each day.

Most of us from all parts of society understand the value of investments, from monetary to working to ensure a sound investment, labour or sometimes referred to as sweat equity. The simple truth that seems to be slipping from recognition in the world today is the fact that, you get back what you put into something. I have been watching an investment that we all have a stake in but are squandering because we have let it become a matter of political expediency. What is that investment?…our children, which as of now are referred to by an overused cliché …Our Future. I want you to know it took more than one evening on the porch to clear my mind of this thought. Using figures from the NCES for school years covering 2020 through the fall of 2021-22 there were 49.4 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools. Breaking that down farther looks like this…1.4 million attended prekindergarten;

  • 32.6 million attended kindergarten to grade 8; and
  • 15.4 million attended grades 9 to 12. (NECS)

I was put back a few steps when I started to look for things that supported my opinion. The numbers are staggering and it was at this point I turned off Google. I come out to the porch to clear my mind and instead I was overwhelmed by things that were beyond my pay grade…as they say. The simple fact is when we moved from the front porch to the back porch we lost sight of the big picture. The comparison that works well for me in this situation is that we have moved the parents, the creators of this investment out of the school onto the playground. They can’t see what’s going on for the slides, swings and monkey bars. We have allowed our teachers, another valuable asset to become the foot soldiers of the unions, school boards, special agenda needs, social warriors and political protocols… these kids, this investment in the future are regulated to Pawns in a struggle for power and influence in the coming years. It hurts to admit it but we are going to have to be out front, even if it is just a small stoop so we can see what’s going on. Our children are being used…while we swing and barbecue on the back porch. I was going to name names, groups and such but that changes nothing…they are still there…we need to let them know…we are too. 

Our kids need an example to look up to not a list of empty slogans. There is no yellow brick road… they need to build there own road, maybe even a highway.

Come back next week, sit a spell…

jk