It takes a village to raise — and educate — a child

The oft-quoted saying, “it takes a village to raise a child,” resembles an African proverb. In the Yoruba language, the saying goes “two eyes birth a child, but 200 eyes raise it.”

Over the past several decades, that saying has come to mean something entirely different from what villagers meant, in Africa and in the small town where I grew up. The saying meant two, equally important things. It meant the community has a stake in ensuring that children are properly cared for, but the saying also meant that children must be taught and understand their obligations to the community at large.

The 200 eyes raising the child in the village did not look away when the parents or a child failed to observe community standards. When a child disrespected someone in the community, they were corrected. The village had a clear code of conduct that governed what was expected behaviour. These mores, or societal expectations, were understood and enforced by both parents and community members.

Everyone needs to understand their society’s written and unwritten rules. It is our obligation to teach our children the expectations we have of each other.

When someone in the village is not following the rules, whether an adult or a child, the village, often collectively but sometimes individually, asks the person offending the community mores, or expectations, to honour the village’s behavioural expectations.

In my village, that happened often. When I was just a teenager hanging around town one evening, I chose to sit on the hood of a parked car. The car wasn’t mine, but I sat there anyway. A villager passing by simply stopped and asked, “Is that your car?” I said no, and he said then I probably shouldn’t be sitting on it. Then he asked, what was I going to do if I dented it? I jumped down, and moved on — but I never forgot the lesson.

We have forgotten that before we can ask people to follow the rules, they have to know what they are. We need to do a better job of setting expectations for both public and private behaviour and share those — unabashedly and clearly for young and old alike.

The need for setting parental and community expectations when it comes to going to school is urgent. The recent community meeting on the issue of school attendance was both timely and needed. It is not clear, however, whether the discussion included full consideration of the role and obligations of both students and parents in solving the problem.

One participant noted that, “This is not a school problem. This is a societal problem.” It is definitely a societal problem, but the first and most obvious solution to the attendance problem relates to the adults in the child’s life. Children cannot fully understand the consequences of non-attendance — adults can.

Having students attend school is a parental obligation — a legal one. The Public Schools Act requires school boards to appoint truancy officers to deal with attendance for students aged seven to 18. They can charge parents for violating the law if they fail to comply.

As a superintendent many years ago, I discussed with a parent what the law required. It had the desired effect. Some parents do not know that getting their kids to school is, in fact, the law. Some school boards and school administrators seem to have forgotten this important fact as well.

Who exactly is being harmed by ignoring this obligation? Not the parents, but the child and the rest of society who will be dealing with whatever consequences flow from that student’s continuing absences.

Why the reluctance to enforce the Public Schools Act? Why the reluctance to use the tools we have to improve attendance? Notwithstanding the difficulties a single parent or troubled families might face, the obligation to protect the child, in this case by getting them to school, should be a priority for parents and schools.

We are not helping children by ignoring the consequences of non-attendance. We are not helping the children by ignoring the obligation of parents, or by avoiding asking the parents or adults in their lives to do better, because it would offend them. We are supposed to look after the children. That is what a village is supposed to do.

In terms of attendance, getting teenagers to high school is sometimes very difficult.

Although some school divisions are withholding credit if students miss more than 20 classes in a course, some divisions have no minimum attendance requirement for a credit to be earned. At least until the age of 18, teenagers must attend school, unless they have been excused by their parents or guardians.

What is the message to our children if we ignore this obligation? What is the message to teachers who are expected, by parents and sometimes administrators, to find a way to make it possible for these absentee students to pass?

High school students can think for themselves; they can chose to attend or not. If there are obvious consequences for their absence — forgoing credit, for example — they may recalibrate their desire to skip classes. If school divisions avoid taking a stand on attendance, it creates a gap that is easily exploited by high school students. Students’ parents are also capable of explaining the consequences of missed credits due to absences.

Withholding credit is a logical consequence for non-attendance, like losing pay on your paycheck when you miss work. Some school divisions have implemented credit recovery programs, so that if students miss too many classes they can do extra work to catch up. There are ways of making it possible to overcome mistakes.

It has been said that the purpose of all education is to get you to do what needs to be done, whether you want to do it or not. It does indeed take a village to raise a child, and for the sake of our children, the adults in the village must be prepared to act, whether they want to or not, when it comes to school attendance.

Jerry Storie has been involved in education for many years, and writes from Winnipeg.