Dear Parents (and interested others)

Childhood Education, Fall 2006 by O'Brien, Leigh M

Since I am going to be the new editor for this column, I thought you might want to know a little about me .. . and my views on parenting and education. First, I have been an educator longer than I've been a parent, but I cannot now imagine not being a parent-whereas some days I can pretty easily leave the workplace. When I was younger, I was a babysitter and taught swimming-a background that served me well when I went into the field of education. Although my bachelor's degree was in special education, I got a job in a child care center after finishing my undergraduate work. I absolutely fell in love with early childhood education (ECE). I was one of those rare and lucky people who couldn't wait for Monday mornings! During my years working with preschool-age children, I realized that I needed a stronger background in ECE, and so I went back to school for my master's degree. Eventually, I became a center director and found I loved working with people who loved working with young children (and hated unplugging toilets and doing budgets), and so I went back to get a doctorate so I could teach adults.

I have been in post-secondary education since 1990 teaching ECE, early childhood special education, and social foundations of education courses, as well as doing the administration, research, writing, presenting, advocacy, committee work, curriculum development, and so forth that we who are in higher education do. Most of this is very important work, but all of it took a backseat when my daughter Lydia Lacey arrived in 1993. As I have written in many venues, Lydia is a child with disabilities, and being her mother has affected my thinking about education in myriad ways (O'Brien, 1999, 2001, 2006). Perhaps the most important thing I have learned regarding parenting and education is that parents must be full partners in their child's schooling for it to be effective. With specific reference to educating children with disabilities, I've come to be a passionate advocate for the valuing of all children, not just those who are readily "successful" in school. Here's why ....

In a democracy, we need an education system that helps children find their own voices and communicate their own messages, one that celebrates the hundred or more languages of children (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998). We need an education system that supports the development of students who will become gloriously unique individuals and enrich our world by solving problems in ways we have never tried. And we need teachers who promote improvisation, surprise, and diversity of education outcomes as virtues. In sum, democratic education ought to liberate humans rather than domesticate them; it should unfit them to be slaves, to paraphrase Frederick Douglass.

In a democracy, not only should all citizens have access to the mainstream, but diversity and heterogeneity should be valued as well. "Successful teachers guide and encourage children tobe all that they can be, not necessarily what we expect them to be" (Kulak, 1998, p. 43). I'm arguing, then, for a worldview that includes, that does not label, that treats each individual as just that-a person with potentialities, strengths, and weaknesses; a person who has the right to self-determination.

We don't need more students executing the purposes of another, as Plato once defined slavery. What we need, instead, is a system that views all children as "of promise" rather than "at risk" and builds on their interests and strengths. Each child should be viewed as a whole, special person, unlike any other who has ever trod this earth. Elliot Eisner (2001) writes, "We ought to be providing environments that enable each youngster in our schools to find a place in the educational sun" (p. 372). In fact, he argues, really good schools increase variance in student performance because they promote difference.

I believe we should be less concerned with test scores and more concerned with each child's development of autonomy, individual needs and successes, and happiness. Hove Maxine Greene's (1973) suggestion that it all begins in a sense of wonder, a sense of awe about the world. She writes, "The individual must be moved to ask questions about the universe, to engage in dialogue with him [or her] self about the world as it impinges on him [or her] and about the explanations others provide" (p. 21). This is what Eleanor Duckworth (1972) contends ought to be the core of education: the having of wonderful ideas.

John Dewey said it well many years ago: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his [or her] own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy" (1902/1990, p. 7). And, "in his opinion, the best and wisest parents would want foreach of their children an education that matched his or her needs, capacities, and interests" (Noddings, 1992, p. 44). I want nothing less for my daughter or for others' sons and daughters.