Just do the right thing.  It sounds so simple, something anyone and everyone wants to do, right?  However, it depends on your ideas, your philosophy, and/or your beliefs  in what is right and what is wrong which may completely differ from what I believe is right or wrong.  It depends on your upbringing, your culture, what you read and hear in the news.  It’s the type of research you read and support, whether it makes sense or not.  Even common sense is up for grabs. And somewhere in the middle of you and I, and our personal philosophies, children are being hurt.

Where do I even start?  We’re hurting kids in every way possible.  When I say we, I’m talking about adults in general and I’m including myself in this group.  It occurred to me that we’re doing this by working backwards down the Maslow pyramid.  For those not familiar with Abraham Maslow, check out this American psychologist and his hierarchy of needs, a literal step by step process as to how people reach their full potential.  Where we should be beginning at the bottom with physiological needs, many adults, in the quest for kids to achieve more, seem to begin at the top of the pyramid.  We’re seeking fulfillment for our kids before we’re taking care of their basic needs.  We fail to recognize that despite advances in technology and the availability of so many material things and multiple opportunities, kids still develop in the same way kids have always developed.  And that means beginning at the bottom of the pyramid.

In a very simple example, a group of teachers was trying to figure out why their students were struggling at certain times of the day in a way that was negatively affecting their behavior and engagement.  Beginning at the bottom of the pyramid, a simple answer might be the need for a snack or perhaps some fresh air playing outside.  And yet, these teachers, who I have no doubt care deeply for their students, opted for something way up towards the top of the pyramid and opted to offer more opportunities to respond in the classroom.  The problem is, it’s difficult to respond to questions if their tummy is rumbling or if they’re wishing they were outside playing.

So let’s say we’re taking care of all of their basic physiological needs.  This would assume that students in Title 1 schools have all of the food, water, sleep and warmth they need.  Right. Then we move to safety.  Can we talk?  And is anybody listening?  I would bet there’s not a kid in school today that really feels safe.  If we’re not talking bullying, we’re practicing a myriad of drills for fires, tornadoes, and shootings.  I was reading a post from a friend who teaches near a school where a young man brought a gun to his high school and when he wouldn’t put it down, was shot by a policeman.  Tell me these students feel safe.  It happens often enough that most don’t make the news anymore. And we expect them to feel belonging and a sense of connection?  Kids don’t know who to trust.  Teachers are too busy following all the latest trends in education or reading from scripts with no down time to build meaningful relationships with kids and who knows when one of your friends is going to bring a weapon to school.  But are we doing anything as adults FOR THE KIDS?  Or do we continue to just argue among ourselves, making everything an “us vs them” instead of doing the right thing for the kids, no matter what our political/religious or whatever affiliation is?

Going backwards down that pyramid, we start by wanting respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom for our kids, but we’ve not given them the tools or the experiences from the bottom of the pyramid for them to understand what these are.  What tends to happen is that these unprepared kids can become disrespectful, arrogant and entitled.  It’s an expectation of how they should be treated, not something they’ve earned with time and experience.  We end up with kids in higher education or their first job completely upended because this is not how the world works.  They’ve been fooled by their elementary and secondary education, by the adults in their lives, all with the best of intentions, into making them think that the world belongs to them, that rules will bend for them, and will excuse them for their lack of motivation, poor attitudes and work ethics.  They quit school and jobs because we’ve not moved them up the pyramid in a way that prepares them for the hardships that life will bring.  I see it day after day after day.  Is anybody listening?  Is anybody going to say anything?  Is anybody going to do something meaningful to fix this?

Perhaps it’s too late.  Or perhaps the answer is so easy that we’re looking right over it.  It would mean that adults in the lives of these children would actually take on the role of adults and allow children to be children and not little adults, taking care of their basic needs, making them safe by whatever means possible, building trusting relationships, and then providing opportunities for them to build a healthy self-esteem and a strong work ethic, helping them to recognize their strengths and how they can contribute to our society.  It’s time for adults to speak up loudly for children and do the right thing.