If you REALLY want to help kids…
With August now arrived, thoughts come to many of us of helping children get off to a good start in the school year. But what if instead of doing another school supply drive, you went a little deeper and identified a school near you - whether it is 5 minutes away or 25 minutes away - that has had difficulty helping children to get to grade level in reading or math?
For 30 years, I have read about how strong of a predictor it is for future success to be at grade level in reading by third grade. Yet many of our country’s children are performing WAY BELOW those levels, and my guess is that you will be able to find a school close enough to your home where less than 5% of the kids can read or do math at grade level.
If you really want to help kids, find out what that school needs the most in order to educate the children there. Is it a Technology Center? Do they need more after-school programs in the Arts or in Recreation? Do they have opportunities for you to be a mentor?
In other words, let's not continue to just treat the symptoms. Let's get to the causes. See if you can be part of solutions. This likely requires you to make a commitment rather than a contribution. And that’s the opportunity here for you, your company, faith community, or any group with which you associate.
We live in a time where our humanity is what we need to bring out more than anything else - more than money, more than donations of backpacks or pens and pencils. I know we like to say that “every little bit helps,” but I am not sure it does. It may just lull us into thinking we are helping when, in fact, the lives of the kids who get those backpacks are more unstable than ever. We continue to treat symptoms while the causes of economic hardship overwhelm the kids and thier families.
Is “every little bit” all you got? I bet it is not.
Do you actually want to help kids? I am betting you do.
Follow that instinct. Find a school near you that can’t seem to educate its kids at the level it needs to do so. Don’t worry about whether or not you have enough time or energy to give; this type of commitment gives you a whole heck of a lot more than it takes away. Follow the instinct you have to get involved and don’t stop until you hit a root cause. Go to work on it there - at that level.