A note to Buffalo, NY

It takes a village to raise a child. This adage is older than I am, but I question if its still around.  Charity Vogel’s commentary “Dream dies, taking toll on children,” in May 25th’s paper answered my question.  As a resident of the East Side and student of North Buffalo private schools, I’ve seen various sides of the education conundrum.  I’ve watched as economic disparity, de facto segregation, and blindness have left many children at great educational disadvantages, much more so than their affluent, suburban, and/or privileged counterparts. Further, I have also seen many other students left in the dust. They are the invisibles: poor White children who go unaided as the outreach programs and scholarships in existence mostly cater to non-white youths. All the while, funds that could be used to deter this debilitation get funneled off to places and projects that are not in such critical need. A fine example of this is the diocesan’s decision to close the progressive, and according to the diocesan too expensive, SS. Columbia-Brigid Montessori School on the East Side, but keep their large suburban facilities and the bishop’s mansion running at full speed.  It leaves room for one to wonder about the price comparisons.

What strikes me the most is not this type of decision-making (it’s really not all that surprising), but more the lethargy with which we as citizens have responded to such injustices. We complain of unmotivated Buffalo youth, of urban degenerates, of a stagnant economy and the exodus from the city of young professionals, but when has this village made the effort to protect and support its children? Perhaps we are unaware of the importance of education. Children go to school not just to learn arithmetic and literacy; they go to school to learn how to be people. I would have never fell in love with learning without my 7th and 8th grade English teacher, and I wouldn’t have thrived as an individual without the atmosphere of my high school.  Yet at the same time, other students who also grew up in poor neighborhoods but didn’t share my luck went to schools that only taught them to strive for the bare minimum, where they were never offered leadership roles, were told that any college or passion above the poverty line wasn’t worth their hopes, and that in the end were encouraged to be mediocre more so than ambitious. I’ve even taught these students in classes, and have been moved to tears by the stuntedness of their intellectual and personal selves--their obliviousness to the fact that yes, more can be expected of them and yes, they can certainly do more. As Vogel said, the dream is dead.  

Maybe we just don’t see the connection. It is, if you haven’t figured it out yet, that schools that limit intellectual growth limit personal growth.  Yes I am aware that not every student can afford a private high school experience or to have dreams of attending top tier universities with tuitions that are exceeding $50,000 a year, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be encouraged to think that way; encouraged to go above and beyond with what they have and to think of how to excel instead of just get by. And when the funds and resources are given to the already privileged, who are encouraged to go do bigger and better things at bigger and better schools in bigger and better cities, where are we to hold the decision makers responsible and pick up where they left off? Where are we to question the overall disadvantages to the city of such choices and to care about the outcomes?  When you have a whole garden of ripe minds at your disposal, yet you fail to harvest it, then you cannot complain when your villiage goes starving.

 The political achievements attained by politicians and the federal handouts from presidents who seem to care are worthless if citizenry don’t care either.  Beucracies can only do so much execution, and school officials can only do so much fighting. When will we the citizens, the life force of any town, city, state, or country, wake up and do our part? When will we realize our civic responsibility to make demands of our leaders and community? When will this village start raising its children and hoarding its future?  Until it does, don’t you dare shake your head at the lost hooded youth robbing a West side convenience store. Recant your dinner conversations of sympathy for the family of the dead little Black boy in the street, or compassion for the futureless group of teenagers on the porch stoop. Instead, hang your head in shame and sorrow that we have lost another child, or more children. Muse not on gang violence, or poverty, or bad parenting as causes, but instead on how we as a village failed to protect them. Then, think about how we can begin to fix it.