2019 seemed like any other year. Then 2020 arrived. When school closures began, students in the northern hemisphere were midway through their academic year. For students in the southern hemisphere the academic year was just beginning.
Almost all students across the globe have had their education affected by lockdown. In other words, Covid-19 cannot be used as an excuse for local political gain.
It has been said that the first public school began in 459BC. Its purpose was to give fatherless boys the opportunity to achieve a standard of education equal to that of every other young man. There was more involved than the provision of schooling, however. The boys also had to show responsibility, discipline, application, practice, mastery, and gratitude if they were to benefit from this opportunity.
Public schools have been with us for centuries. Nations have been built and destroyed, wars have been won and lost, and public education remains. Just as that first school offered hope for those young boys, today’s schools must offer the same.
Whether we live in the northern or southern hemisphere we can make one important choice: to become heroes of our own making. Whether we’re schooled at home or in a public building we must do so with passion, optimism and gratitude.
Now is not the time for petty local politics. It is time for us all to take the lead in achieving a just, fair and responsible local communities for peaceful across the global for now and the years ahead. Only a genuine education can provide that. And, above all else, we must use our knowledge of the past to improve the future, rather than use the present to erase the past.
We are living through this year right now but, before long, it will be history. And when a future society looks back, how will it judge 2020?
Here’s my email if you’d like to reach out.
cheryl@cheryllacey.com
Copyright © 2020 Cheryl Lacey All rights reserved.
Parent, educationist and agitating advocate for change in Australian education.
By raising the bar we can challenge and overcome any global challenges facing Australia and Australians.
