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It’s almost back to school time. For most of my life this time of year was always a busy time. Both of my parents are educators. Interestingly enough both my husband and I are educators. Educating and teaching seems to be in our blood and yet education and school can mean different things to different people, no matter if there is a shared cultural background.
Speaking of meaning…
I am going to take a detour here but bear with me as it pertains to the topic…language is a evolving beast that I find to be amazing as it is one mode of communication for us homo sepians sepians. It’s crazy how the same words in different languages can have such a varied meaning.
Take the words education and educated for example. Depending on your operational definition an education is equal to getting a schooling. Yet well all know that book/school smarts are not equal to street/life smarts. In Spanish to receive una educación (an education) is to go to school and to obtain some sort of degree. Ser educado (educated) is to respectful, intelligent, cultured and well mannered. When you say, “Mira que bien educado es ese niño” what you are saying is “look how well mannered and respectful that child is”. As an educator I have heard parents complain about teachers and teachers complain about students’ parents. (That is another story and much more of a detour than I care to take).
As such, language can communicate meaning or confusion. I say confusion because one can say one thing and mean another or we could be saying the same words but in fact we are trying to convey a different meanings.
What does this all have to do with back to school time? “Going back to school” means different things for different people. For parents who had children home for the summer it means having some “free time” again. For teachers and other educators it means having a new set of students to teach. For educators who are parents it means “swapping out” your children for 15-20 new ones. Oh and lest us not forget their parents and all the baggage the students and their parents have.

My child has years to go until he starts institutionalized schooling. As educators my husband and I know what it’s like to be teachers. By the time our son starts school we will be on the other end and yet not. We may start dropping off our child but we will be walking into a room with many more “children” for us to share our working day with.

School is important, whether your child goes to a public school, private school, or is homeschooled. Grades aren’t important as they are artificial and not a true measure of intelligence but they have a way of opening or closing doors. Standardized scores aren’t important for the same reason but they tend to affect schools, teachers and students. Being educated (educado) is much more than what school you attend, your GPA or your ACT/SAT score. Being educado is how you take on life, how you deal with bumps and how you treat others.

For all those teachers, those in classrooms and those teachers of life, I wish you well. For those parent educators I wish you patience and resolve as you gain new children and drop your own at the classroom door. Although what happens in a classroom is important learning continues outside of those walls. You can be learned and educated by more than school teachers.

I don’t know what ‘back to school’ means for you so I will end this post with these parting words: Good luck to you and may you have that glass of wine ready come 5pm.