School has started, but not really.

The school can’t get schedules together

can’t communicate with teachers

who only want the best for youth

who only want to support and guide

And bring them into a life of learning

and creating with grace, even joy

Five weeks into the semester

We still don’t have students connected

with content, with lessons, with each other.

Is it any wonder they all are bored,

they hate school as useless to them.

They want more, they know there is more

How can we give it to them if the school

can’t get it’s act together and work for its students?

Is it any wonder youth say school

does no good

does not teach what they need to know

does not feel like a safe place.

We hear statements of “its a prison”

Or “we can’t use this in our lives”

We are losing them,

even those who want to learn.

They want to learn, to explore, to find themselves

And all we do is throw up new barriers

They find a subject and teacher they love

We cancel the class or we cancel the teacher.

Consider, if students don’t care about gender orientation

Why should we care?

Forcing the issue just makes it worse and irrelevant

Our youth consider us irrelevant.

Leaving them to forage for success on their own

instead of taking advantage of our collected wisdom

No longer learning from our mistakes

Because we lost them, made ourselves enemy to youth

Somewhere we lost the ability to communicate

Without that communication, we lose our connections.

Without connections, we lose our youth

They don’t go feral, most of the time.

But they are none-the-less lost, at least to us.

They can be saved, if we are willing

To relate

To become relevant

To reach out to them where they are.