This morning, while enjoying a cup of coffee and an unusually quiet start to my day, I clicked on an MSNBC link entitled “10 songs for back to school.” It led me to the following article:

Back-to-school beats
Ten songs to accompany your kids’ end-of-summer blues

COMMENTARY
By Michael Ventre
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2004

Right around this time of year, sweat starts to pour off the brows of young people, while parents breathe a sigh of relief. School bells are ringing.
The summer is over, and it’s time for students to stop lying around, playing video games or watching television, sending text messages to their friends even though their friends are right in the next room, eating their parents out of house and home, failing to do chores, borrowing the car without permission, hosting a “study group” in their rooms with the doors locked, and looking for jobs only in places that they know are not hiring.
For parents, though, the news couldn’t be much better. The abode is again quiet. The little freeloaders are back in class where they belong. Let the teachers deal with them. That’s what they’re getting paid for, isn’t it? Aside from doing their carpool duty, parental units across the land soon will be dancing in the streets during school hours. In fact, maybe a little reward is in order for enduring a summer of chaos. Dad, it’s probably time for a new set of irons. Mom, even though you already have about a hundred pairs of shoes, a busy lady like yourself could always use a few more.

The article goes on to list ten songs that parents can sing to celebrate the return of their children to school, including “Be True to Your School” by the Beach Boys, and “Rock and Roll High School” by the Ramones. No harm in the songs themselves, but I couldn’t help but be appalled at the tone of the article itself. I mean, I know the author was speaking in jest (or at least, I hope there was a bit of jest in there), but it seems to me that the tone and language of this kind of article DOES communicate, and it DOES reach the ears and minds of the children in our society. I decided to re-write the article, or at least a few bits of it, in a language that I hope will soon reflect not only childrens’ attitudes about school, but also adults’ attitudes about children.

Back to School Beats – Ten Songs to Celebrate the Return of the School Year

COMMENTARY
BY Jen Schwartz
Sego Lily School Founder, mother of three
Written September 1, 2004

Right around this time of year, excitement starts to build in the minds of young people, while parents look back fondly at the summer time spent with their family. School will soon be starting.

The summer is over, and it’s time for students to prepare for another year of exploration, creation, and finding their passions. The summer was filled with many adventures, and of course they never stopped learning, but children look forward to interacting with the friends and teachers that they have missed over the summer. Yes, it will be another full year of learning, growing, and being supported by a loving and close-knit community, second only to the family that the child will be leaving behind as they go off to school each day.

For parents, the news is bitter-sweet. Having their children back in school means more time for work and other projects, but it also means that they will be missing out on some of the daily interactions and adventures they have enjoyed so much over the summer. The return to school is both a time of celebration for what lies ahead, and a mourning of the end of yet another wonderful summer.

Somewhere along the way, our culture started relating to children like a burden, to teenagers as freeloaders, and to school as a place to dump our children and get them out of our hair. Somewhere along the way school became a place to be dreaded by children, and fall became an end to what was otherwise a great, fun, and adventuresome life (i.e. the end of summer vacation). So what will it take for our culture to once again relate to our children as our greatest resource, and for children and adults to relate to school as a place in which students further their exploration of the world? This, I believe, is one of the most important questions in which we can engage. The answers to this question is the answers to many, if not most, of the problems we face as a society. I dare us to all begin to answer these questions, and to use our voices to promote positive images of young people in our culture.