Solving the problem of ‘disappearing’ children

On Feb. 28, American bombs struck a primary girls’ school in Minab, Iran, killing over 150 people, mainly children and wounding an estimated 100 more. This abhorrent attack was carried out by a military whose leadership proudly boasted they knew everybody’s whereabouts, something making it possible to “take out” the rulers of Iran and earlier, Venezuela.

One can only conclude that the violent deaths of children — the height of callousness — are of no consequence to the perpetrators of war. As one of my friends put it, “they just went to school on the wrong day.”

Closer to home, recent reports stated that upwards of 15,000 or more school-age children are regularly not going to schools. As Ken Clark (Lessons from school attendance, Think Tank, March 23) intimates, these numbers are not just “person specific” data to be manipulated carelessly for purposes of finding fault and laying blame.

The large numbers tend to obscure the fact that each one is a real child who is disappearing with some adult’s knowledge from the public consciousness and public conscience. And each absentee child is a unique situation.

That is a moral concern of the greatest magnitude. Children do not decide if and when they enter the world of people. And, as human beings in their early years of life, they are rightfully dependent upon those of us already here to keep them safe and nurture their development, a matter supported by our legal definitions of childhood. As Hannah Arendt so succinctly put it, we “must take toward them (children) an attitude radically different from the one we take toward one another.”

What she meant was that the freedom, rights and political privileges that accrue to adults do not necessarily apply to children. In fact, granting them adult authority over their lives may do them more harm than good, which is exactly why we have laws about compulsory school attendance.

Children are not granted the right under the law to decide whether they attend school or not — and neither are their parents. However, it is the right to privacy which is the main culprit in this story, because it may obstruct the ability to address absenteeism at its source.

The protection of private lives is an increasingly difficult matter in today’s social media-rich society, but it remains an important one for both adults and children. Nevertheless, we already have instances and situations where the protections of childhood override the right to privacy of adults. Those cases include sexual exploitation and child apprehension for neglect and abuse.

And we have, in the past, entertained similar measures when it came to school attendance where parents could be charged under the law for their school-age children’s non-attendance.

Trying to enforce those laws often made matters worse for the children in question and rarely resulted in better attendance. Needless to say, any further public policy initiatives in that direction need to be approached with extreme caution.

However, just continuing our present machinations seems unconscionable. And our current efforts, when it comes to some children and their families, seem unrelentingly futile.

School divisions and schools have spent hours and days discussing ways and means of getting children back to school with remedies ranging from disciplinary sanctions to monetary rewards. And some parents simply seem to manage their children on their own, the home being where absenteeism begins. But others need outside help.

Successive governments have attempted to address absenteeism with prolonged consultations to legislation increasing school leaving age to 18. All to no avail in stemming the tide.

In other words, it’s not for lack of trying or trying to bury the problem, as some critics suggest, that the current situation exists. For over two decades now some of us educators have promoted another approach which, to date, has acquired only passing acceptance.

The Healthy Child initiative, with its goal of integrated, cross-sector focus on the “whole” child, involving education, health, family services and justice was an important step, but it seems to have lost some of its energy and status without achieving its full objectives. However, its collaborative ideals form the foundation upon which to build further work which might have a direct impact on school participation. The key is to ensure that children do not keep on disappearing or, as some people put it, “disappear” them, as in Phoenix Sinclair and Tina Fontaine.

We do have the means — what we need is a willingness to take some privacy risks for the sakes of children.

I would like to suggest that all children, as soon as they are born, receive a Manitoba Education number allowing authorities to start tracking and recording their whereabouts and well-being from birth to school leaving.

I would like to further suggest that their designated public schools, the ones in the neighbourhoods where they live, be privy to, share responsibility for and access to, records of all pertinent health and caregiver information available through public health, family, and social, services.

This does not mean that the records could not be held with other agencies, but it does suggest that schools are in better positions to track children.

And to ensure that children are cared for, receive the necessary health interventions, and don’t “disappear,” schools might also record regular (at least annual) well-being checks which might result in interventions regarding safety, food security, season-appropriate clothing and access to health care, community sports and other activities. These are matters where some homes require sensitive guidance and assistance.

And finally, to ensure children don’t disappear, hand off these records and responsibilities to other schools if children or families move to new neighbourhoods.

I know what I’m suggesting is a tall order, but I trust that a collective moral and political will, with cautions about overreach and overload, accompanied by and appropriate new collaborative means and resources, parents who have first responsibility and schools who have societal ones, could play a major role in ensuring that children don’t just disappear.

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.