I ended Part I with the question of what we replace the sand with.

I was referring to my belief that we build the foundation for our inclinations too frequently on a house of cards … another way of saying they are fundamentally based on the sifting nature of sand.

We build castles of understanding and complex structures of ideas and programs and assumptions that we way too frequently don’t take the time and energy to dissect. We rush off to expound this or that set of really profound ideas that get us TED talks or assignment as Thought Leaders of temporary import as if we have come up with something unique in the course of human history. I observe as this fact intersects with current technologies that make conversation happen at light speed. This is the reality of current discourse on, you name it, the subject of the moment.

But, presently, I’m here to talk about schools and learning and the point of it all.

We can put our money on creativity or productivity or the creation of critical thinkers or problem solvers or the formation of citizens who are tolerant or appreciate freedom or equality or tolerance or who are prepared to function as responsible members of a democratic society, all noble sounding goals.

But, still, we have to ask what is our principal objective?

As I tried to outline before, in close examination, these values are means towards something that has to be more foundational.

If a student asks, “why is it important that I acquire knowledge?” we should have a very good answer that holds up to layers of precise dissection.

I covered some common responses in my last post. I’m afraid they end up as hollow points.

If that point is Happiness, come on. Happiness is as ephemeral as mist if anyone is honest about it. Nice mist to build a statement that it’s an unalienable right around. Don’t get me started.

Really, what is it that we should want everyone to know and experience and build their lives around? Isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t that be the basis of education?

Or, put slightly differently, of all the things we want young people to acquire in terms of the core things we believe are foundational for leading a good life, what does it come down to?

Of course, we have to determine what the core principles of leading a good life are!

I guess that means we have to define what a good life would look like, in theory.

Absent all of that, I wonder what the point of education is?

Well, here is where the rubber hits the road. Here is where I challenge every policy maker, every parent, every culture to consider what they want from their schools and bureaucracies that support them.

Name it.

And, then, question it to see if it’s truly a foundational value upon which all other values can stand solidly against all obstacles.

Morality gets a bad rap. That wasn’t always the case, of course, but these days it does. As it should in a post-modern world that defines truth as just being honest with one’s self about how you feel. More and more people seem to take umbrage at any suggestion that there are principles extrinsic to their own inclinations. How oppressive! “Who or what has the right to tell me what is right or wrong, good or bad?”

Well, my handy dandy little dictionary app defines morality as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.”

That’s a mouthful. First of all, it’s about principles (defined as “fundamental truths or propositions that serve as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning”) that are actually the guidelines whereby we can make judgments. And, then, it’s about the concepts of right and wrong and good and bad.

So, what we “value” is based upon guiding principles that help us to determine what we believe are good and bad and right and wrong.

What does this have to do with school and learning?

As we’ve seen by dissecting a hypothetical mission statement that says schools are about “producing” creative and productive young adults who are able to demonstrate critical thinking (sound reasoning) and who are prepared to assume a constructive role in a society that believes in freedom and liberty and some form of democracy, we need to determine what we actually “want” about those things.

These terms and concepts are actually “value-neutral” when viewed practically. And, something that is practically value neutral makes a very bad ideal because it tends to collapse.

In other words, we can say that this or that creative expression or produced object or service is quite good or we can say it is quite bad. We do this naturally all of the time. And we can say that this particular line of reasoning has brought us to hope or to despondency. It has brought us to loving others or hating others. This particular act of initiative has resulted in saving thousands of lives or it has destroyed thousands of lives.

So, please no one tell me that they don’t believe in guiding principles or morality. We all do, all of the time. And, in fact, a lot of the actions taken by adults in schools are designed to promote principled living and moral behavior, although most of it is through behavior modifying techniques that, at least to some extent, are meant to keep the place from blowing up.

But I have to say that I have seen little evidence of curriculum built around teaching our young to be good as opposed to bad and why they should be good as opposed to bad. Furthermore, we don’t spend much time at all talking about character traits we believe are good or bad and what right and wrong behavior really look like and how a person develops a set of principles by which to guide the rest of their lives.

Oh sure, we do touch on a number of them. These days, we spend time dealing with the concept of Tolerance (which is taught as a good), although I have real trouble with it as a principle. To tolerate is such a passive concept, as in “I can live with that.” It doesn’t mean support. It doesn’t mean “believe in.” It doesn’t pull me to something greater. Of course, it only gets worse. I can go off on how it’s actually taught and reinforced in some venues, turning it into a bludgeoning tool in the extreme forms.

We do teach character traits that are bad. We teach that racism is bad, however we define the term. We teach that it’s bad to “discriminate” against anyone on the basis of their skin color, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. We teach the histories of discrimination and the battle for equal rights. In other words, we teach that the value of discrimination (really, a form of oppression) is bad while the value of equal rights is good. This is probably the one area we come closest to invoking guiding principles in school. In principle, everyone and their beliefs deserves some kind of respect and everyone deserves equal rights.

As legislatures and school boards who determine what it is we’re supposed to teach, largely, these are the most dominant values-based principles incorporated into regular formal learning. Of course we teach other values, such as it’s good to tell the truth and bad to lie. It’s good to resolve conflict non-violently. Fighting is bad. It’s good to respect one another. It’s bad to use drugs, alcohol and tobacco unless you’re an adult and can control your intake. And, then, it may still be bad, depending.

The point is, we do teach a handful of principles and values, both formally and informally. As those who control the school’s environment (government, administrators, teachers, support staff), we accept these as part of the job. Nearly all schools do this and have been doing this. I should know. That’s where I lived and I’m married to a teacher.

But, I contest, we’re leaving a lot on the sidelines and that’s why I’m writing these pieces.

* * *

Allow me to tell a story. A rather long one that dramatically reshaped how I looked at my job and the job we were all tasked to do.

I had been principal of Grossmont High School in the eastern portion of San Diego County for just less than a year and a half, my first job as principal. I assumed leadership of the oldest school in the region, founded in 1922. It was the flagship school (the first of ten high schools in that district) and had a long and proud history. While the campus was in desperate need of modernization and their academic performance had been slowly falling off, it was a proud school, diverse ethnically and socio-economically. A good staff who cared about their work and a student body for the most part who liked coming to school. It was November 2000 when one of our students jumped from the Coronado Bridge, killing himself.

Now, any student death is mourned deeply on a high school campus. In my experience, we will lose one every two or three years, to either accident, illness or drugs. Suicides, however, are much more rare and especially difficult to process. But, we took all of the appropriate measures, requiring a lot of resources, and started the new calendar year with the event largely behind us.

In February (now in 2001), we lost another student to suicide. I believe it was an intentional drug overdose. This is highly unusual and ripped the bandage off our healing scar and brought us right back into a dark place. Again, we applied all available resources as our community tried to process the grief and ask questions about how these two things could have happened. Where were the signs? What could we have done differently. It was rough.

On March 5 at maybe around 9am, I was down in the band room, meeting with a teacher when I was called on the radio to return to the office immediately. There, I learned there had been a shooting at neighboring Santana High School and it was bad. I had participated in a daylong SWAT simulation as a vice principal in the aftermath of the Columbine shooting and those experiences were fresh in my mind as I rushed to the adjacent campus to see how I could be of support. The principal and one of the vice principals were very close friends.

The principal asked me to stay by her side as the world descended on her school. Law enforcement everywhere. News stations gathering by the dozens. Hundreds or thousands of people milling around in the shopping center across the street. The principal asked me if I would accompany her to the Taco Bell to tell two parents that their son was dead. I sat in the little booth, just the four of us, overcome with the enormity of the tragedy. I quickly learned that my other good friend, the vice principal, had held one of the two boys who were killed that day, dying in her arms. That evening, my friend, the principal, was on national television, under the kliegs, holding the press conference like so many we’ve come to accept. I was a few feet away, still trying to offer support.

The shock wave spread everywhere and school became really hard. Staff, students, parents all overcome by grief. And of course, we had just lost two of our own.

Seventeen long and very difficult days later, on March 22, a student who I had asked be removed from my school, shot up Granite Hills High School, another school in our district, the principal of which was another friend. The shooter wounded a number of people, including a teacher and a vice principal, as well as other students. Fortunately, none died. It was a Thursday.

I received a call late Sunday night that one of my own students had attempted to hang himself in a public park Friday night and was on life support. I went to his bedside in the hospital early Monday morning and was with him and his family for quite awhile. He died that day.

That same Monday night, another of my students committed suicide by overdosing. It was now Tuesday morning. For all practical purposes, my school was ceasing to function. Four suicides in four months. Two shooting deaths. Another school shot up. Students and staff weeping uncontrollably, bomb and shooting threat graffiti appearing on restroom stalls, parents refusing to let their children come to school. I was losing the school.

No words can describe what we were going through. How does anyone describe when the system begins go fall apart? When whatever had bound a community together was now being shredded? We were a good school with good people and good kids, teaching the right stuff. How could this happen? In any event, during that week, we were only in survival mode. The spring break started on Saturday but what were we to do from Tuesday through Friday?

To make a long story a bit shorter, we completely improvised and I made the decision that we would focus on just one thing. Caring for one another. Just one thing. We had but one core value, one guiding principle that transcended or underlay all other values and principles. We would care for one another. So the next days were fevered activity as we put together the elements to infuse the entire school community with care. We brought in scores of resources, from the San Diego Chargers to social services to restaurants to anyone who would assist us with our core value. And, on Friday, after all of the Geometry students had figured out how our entire student body and staff could line up in a circumference around the entire campus (all 2600 of us!), holding hands, we did just that, with helicopters flying overhead, with me on the public address system (holding hands) talking about love and the importance of community and caring for one another. It was an indelible moment.

In the following months, we built resource centers, worked with big foundations and government services, restructured how we spoke with kids and parents and how we could implement strategies for kids to process fears and anxieties. We made it to summer.

We returned to school just after Labor Day and on that first day, we recreated the linked hands and arms to demonstrate to ourselves and the world that we were a community that cared.

Less than two weeks later, on September 11, 2001, school was just starting when I was alerted. I watched as those terrible events unfolded and went on the public address system to tell 2600 people that we were under attack and at war, at the same time trying to calm them and help them to make sense of it.

That night, one of my freshman girls put a gun to her head and killed herself.

10 months. Five student suicides. Two neighboring schools shot up with multiple wounded and two dead. 9/ll.

We can talk all about creativity, productivity, critical thinking, citizenry, democracy, equality.

What’s the point?

Next: I hope to conclude with my answer.