Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

In many parts of the world, today marks the official end of summer. Vacations and holidays are over and it’s back to school for our children. But on September 2nd in Chicago, Illinois, on the first day of school, parents are being asked by Rev. James Meeks, who leads Salem Baptist Church in Chicago, and by other area pastors to withhold their children from school in a symbolic show of support to help end the inequities in educational funding in Illinois. Rev. Meeks, who also is an Illinois state senator (D-15), has long been an advocate for educational equity for our children and has the support and respect of many people and organizations that believe all of our children deserve equal opportunities for success.

All of us who care about children certainly have to give Rev. Meeks credit for raising awareness and persistently and courageously challenging our state legislators and governor to do something now about changing educational funding in Illinois. Rev. Meeks call for reform reflects the sentiments of families and educators in every district in our state who know it is truly time to end the shameful inequities that exist in our Illinois schools. These same inequities exist to an even more dramatic degree in countries around the world and have garnered the attention of a variety of educational advocates who care deeply about the future of our children in every country.

Yet, parents and educators here and all over the globe will hopefully do more than just listen and applaud Rev. Meeks call for educational reform. Ideally they will respond by joining together to create a new global P.T.A. – Parents and Teachers Taking Action.

Just what effective action can parents and teachers take that could possibly change anything right now without adequate funding? Actually, there is much that can be done that will enhance Rev. Meeks’ efforts as he works to bring about much needed change to create long overdue educational equality in Illinois.

Parents and educators around the globe can join an active and vocal network of educational advocates who are speaking out on behalf of children everywhere. They can join the Whole Child Initiative, a respected international program started in 2007 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (wholechild@ascd.org).

This program is designed to re-focus the attention back on the holistic needs of our children – the social, emotional, spiritual, physical, moral, civic and cognitive – instead of zeroing in on individual test scores in a few subject areas. With the Whole Child Initiative, the diversity of our children, their individual strengths and their unique capabilities and gifts are affirmed and celebrated. Their individual learning differences are accepted and barriers to learning are removed. Test scores are seen as one small piece of a much larger picture of life-long learning. The local community of parents, neighborhoods, schools, support service agencies, businesses and places of worship all work together to support the whole child.

By working together, we can then succeed in achieving the goal of the Whole Child Initiative: raising whole children who are “healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged.” Yet it cannot be emphasized enough that family involvement is key and is an area where all parents have so much potential to make a difference. This difference is intensified when parents join in with teachers and community members to support and nurture the love of learning in all children. With this type of community collaboration, in addition to equitable funding for education, our children will be able to reach their true potential as life-long learners.

Chicago’s Rev. Meeks has boldly challenged our state legislators here in Illinois. Now let’s hope he will issue the same valiant challenge to parents, educators and all community members in Illinois – and around the world – to work together, speak out and take action to support the education of the whole child.

Reforming educational funding will be a crucial factor anywhere in improving education for all children. It might even lead to raising test scores. Yet with just more money and higher test scores, we will fail miserably at what really matters – raising and supporting a whole child whose health, physical and emotional safety, access to and acceleration of the curriculum and love of learning is at the very core of the educational process.

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