During the opening of our recent staff meeting concerning the development of "the family pattern" at Mary Eyre you asked, "Will it [the family design in the educational setting] be better or as good for the kids?" and "Will it be better or as good for the teachers?"

The underlying assumption the decision to implement the family pattern at Mary Eyre involves the potential benefits of it would give our students and staff. I would expect, as you would, that if we adopt this new pattern, the students and staff would benefit from it. Keep in mind that if we adopt the family pattern it will change the relationships between the participants. This is a very important issue (problem and opportunity) and must be addressed with thought and care.

II. The Need For Restructuring Of Educational Settings.

To say something is not working, i.e. producing well educated graduates, is to say the obvious. But to come forward and suggest the paradigm that will transform our educational system into a robust, healthy system is quite another.

A. Budget.

A school district's budget represents only one of several resources that a school draws upon to accomplish its goals, and to develop student academic performance.

Although you have made strong and unceasing efforts to increase the budget, I believe there will probably be no meaningful additions to budget to develop the family design. Therefore what will occur is a rearranging of existing resources to implement the plan.

This situation would be far too daunting to many educators, but I believe that this will add a particularly pointed challenge to those who will attempt to bring this new paradigm of education into being. Being successful, it will point up the capabilities of the design and the administrator.

One of the interesting aspects of budget improvements is that after a certain level of spending is reached, student performance scores do not always go up with increases in the budget. This is easily proven by examining various test scores, typically SAT scores, in districts that are "poor" and those which are "rich."

I also believe, however, that there should be equity in spending among school districts throughout the state. The burden upon each teacher is considerably greater in districts that spend less per student, and their personal effectiveness improves greatly, when the student to teacher ratio is reduced. I suspect that much data could be produced to support a lower student to teacher ratio based on the incidence of sick leave, types of illnesses sustained, in the job injuries, stress indicators, number of career changes etc. sustained by the teachers and their uncertified aides.

B. Materials, Teachers, and the Student.

If the budget will not increase, then what other resources can be developed to provide improvements in performance?

Obviously the materials won't change. I believe that Mary Eyre probably uses some of the best instructional materials available to public schools, though new innovations could be added. From my observations I feel very sure that each teacher at Mary Eyre is doing their best now, and that providing them with more training and related improvements would not be markedly fruitful.

One resource that is not limited, and most flexible, is that of relationships. Of the three prime elements of education, materials, teachers, and students the variable that will make the difference in the family format is the child. (The word child seems more a’ propos for a family setting than 'student'.)

While instructional materials and teachers and teaching techniques directly attack the issue of academic performance, the family pattern will indirectly effect an improvement in performance by improving the relationship of the child in and to the design of the educational setting.

C. The Educational Setting.

The hypothesis for implementing the family design is that installing the family design of relationships will improve how the children, their parents, teachers, and others feel about their part in the educational process, and this improvement will be measurable in terms of improved academic performance, lower incidence of absenteeism in its various forms, less hostile student-teacher contact, lower incidence of tardiness, and so on. If the children and staff, and all participants, will feel better (affect) about what they are doing, then the results in terms of grades, ITBS scores, student behavior, student-parent-school relations will be improved, (effect).

Getting back to the original two questions posed in the beginning of the meeting, how well "it" works will be dependent upon how well the participants feel "it" works ... how well they feel "it" works will be a result of how they felt about themselves and their participation in the family design. Those things are measurable.

III. The Evolving Role Of Education In America.

Slowly over the decades the role of institutionalized education in this nation, has been changing ever so slowly. Many of the changes do not seem noticeable, but have occurred slowly in response to the needs of our society.

A. The Traditional Family In Transition.

The family of our pioneer ancestors was a self-sufficient unit. A unit that, with one educated person, perpetuated the literate culture of our society. It socialized the children, educated them, and trained them to become self-sufficient, civilized individuals. Each family with only one educated person could carry on the culture, traditions, values, and standards of society, much like a time capsule placed in the cornerstone of a large building. And we have seen this happen in culturally isolated communities such as the Amish, and others.

Few families today are capable of being self-sufficient, let alone self-sustaining, either for livelihood, in a pioneer setting, or as a culturally self-sustaining unit of our society.

What happened? How did this tremendous change occur?

Perhaps the most dramatic, and traumatic, influence was the Industrial Revolution.
The trend of specialization of labor did not limit its impact solely to the trades and skilled labor. It introduced specialization to the family and individual level. It took at least one family member away from the family unit, which placed more responsibilities on the members who stayed home. The family unit then had to seek outside resources to take the place of that person.

I believe that one of the first roles and responsibilities of the traditional family to be transferred to an outside institution was that of academic education, i.e. the 3R's.

The Industrial Revolution introduced a trend that paralleled the decreasing socializing influence of the family: the development of the "common" dysfunctional family. That is not to say that dysfunctional families were not existent before the Industrial Revolution. They were. But the pressures and demands to sustain a livelihood from earnings for those who worked long hours, and the pressures placed upon family members who stayed home placed hundreds of thousands of balanced families into a family system of imbalance (see Bradshaw On The Family). Those early years of the Industrial Revolution were cruel to millions of individuals. Millions of families today are still paying the price for the industrialization. One generation learns the dysfunction behaviors of the prior generation. Now dysfunctional families seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

The long work hours virtually made most industrial working families one-parent families. At the same time the long hours dehumanized the individual to the point where many who did not have the internal resources to constructively cope with those pressures, turned to alcoholism, workaholism, and other "isms" to cope.

Concomitantly closeted abuses developed, which only today have we seen the extent: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and so on became more and more common. The common dysfunctional family was born, became part of our cultural heritage in its worst form, and began to be passed from generation to generation, along with the best parts of our cultural heritage.

B. The New Surrogate Family.

What and who have taken up the roles of the traditional family? You have, the educators of America's children. Today, children get their breakfast, snack, lunch, healing hugs, sex education, music instruction, cultural indoctrination, craft and domestic skills, and much of their socialization skills from America's corps of educators. Pre-school, elementary, and secondary institutions have become "The Surrogate Family" in America. As individual educators, we have become surrogate parents taking on many of the traditional roles of parents. Over the decades the traditional American family has lost is skills to socialize its children, let alone educate, morally and ethically indoctrinate, and prepare them for entry into the work force, and become responsible, contributing members of society. Unwittingly, education has become the bearer of many of these tasks. The transfer of many of these tasks has been slow and subtle.

C. What This Means To Educators.

For educators, in terms of being America's new family parent, it means many things. First, it means that we must be conscious of this role that our society has given us. We volunteered, but many of us were unaware of the many, many roles we would fulfill as professional educators.

Second, with this consciousness of our educational, socializing, cultural and family surrogate family roles, we must individually rededicate ourselves to the commitments of education — not to education but to educating the children of our society, and the totality of what that means.

Third, as surrogate parents we must ensure that we are not passing on the dysfunctional traditions and culture of our own families of origin. This is not an easy pill to swallow. The commitment to educate our nation's children also carries with it an ethical and moral commitment to pass on the best cultural heritage of families as well as our nation's cultural history. This will require self-examination, and courage to heal any early life, formative, issues. When disturbed and disruptive children enter our classrooms, we must ask, "How do these issues relate to me? Have I ever had anything in common with these children?"

Yes, it is uncomfortable to look back at our own formative years, looking back at our parents, whomever they may have been. Were our parent's alcoholic, emotionally, physically, and/or sexually abusive? How did that impact me? What issues have I cleared up, and more importantly what have I yet to resolve?

We as surrogate parents unconsciously bring, and share, the most intimate parts of our own childhood experiences in the classroom -- both good and bad, helpful and harmful. As surrogate parents we share 1/3 to 1/2 of the child's waking hours in intensive interactive socializing processes. Like it or not what we think, more importantly as far as being a surrogate parent, how I feel has a tremendous impact upon the emotional development of the children entrusted to our care. How we were raised and socialized has a direct influence on how we educate and socialize the children in our classrooms.

The family pattern in the educational setting simply recognizes and organizes the educational, socializing, and emotional forces that have become a part of the surrogate family in America. It is time to do this consciously, with fore thought and care. I feel that when our society appreciates the ever-growing functions of the American educational institution, that it will provide more, and appropriate, resources to fulfill these functions.

The Mary Eyre "Family Design" of its educational setting provides us with a opportunity to institutionalize these surrogate roles which education has so casually assumed.

IV. "The 4th R".

I would expect that the family design would provide the "laboratory" for a formalized pre-school and K-12 Relationships curricula, similar to the traditional 3R's.

A. "The 4th R" In Perspective To The 3R's.

Historically, to be educated is to have an open window to the world, especially in cultures that share the same alphabet and language. To be educated has always been a cultural and societal achievement that has been highly revered and coveted, especially by those from less fortunate social and economic settings. It is a mark of intelligence, culture, status, and achievement.

ALL positions of power, influence, wealth, social status, and religious position, in the 20th century, have ALWAYS been associated with literate people. NO ONE of local, state, national, or international status in any civilized field of endeavor is illiterate!

Yet there is an irony and paradox of literate, "civilized" nations: many high level leaders in many fields could be evaluated as being "illiterate" as regards The 4thR, which is RELATIONSHIPS. Relationships, as a separate area of learning, is still taught in the same manner that all self-made successful individuals have always taught themselves -- on the streets and in the playing field of hard knocks. But it does not have to be this way.

Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic have provided the core of subjects necessary for individuals to achieve minimal functional literacy in our society. The 3R's provide the bedrock of cultural literacy, and aid the survival and provide for the potential growth of individuals, and are used daily until death of the individual. Yet these are not the only skills needed to survive, and grow in our society.

Just as we use the 3R's on a minute-by-minute basis every day, we also use another 'R' but with much less skill. "Relationships" meets and exceeds the criteria of the 'basic 3R's'.

Of all fundamental "languages" that of 'relationships' comes first in being taught the earliest of the other 3R's. Psychologists and psychiatrists as well as child developmental specialists tell us that the basic personality structure and the kinds of relationships the child will try to establish in the rest of its life occurs before age 5. We call this modeling of role figures: mother, father, sibling, grandparent, neighbor, peer, and so on. This theory is well established particularly as our society is well acquainted with child abuse, sexual roles, provider roles, parent roles, etc.

If the child was sexually abused as a child, it will seek out similarly abusive relationships in the future, either sexually or emotionally. The literature is full of support for this theory particularly as it as it concerns alcoholic and substance abuse families, the abusers and their children.

How could a society be considered as being literate and civilized when "relationships" is not even considered as basic to a person's formal education as the 3R's? Relationships are taught by anyone who can or cannot have children -- virtually anyone who comes in contact with children in the relationship-learning ages. No one even has to be "certificated" to teach this "R" which more importantly, is the main factor for the maintenance of the social and cultural fabric of civilization.

Moment to moment until we die, whether we are with others or just by ourselves, we are always "in a relationship" of some sort. This "4th R" is more intimately personal than the 3R's. Our use of the "4th R" begins far earlier than our use of the traditional 3R's. We begin internalizing elements of the "4th R" during the third trimester before birth, and continues until the individual has completed his or her social-emotional development. And even then we continue to fine tune our relationship skills as we grow older.

B. Teaching The 4th R.

Ideally the first and best place to teach the 4thR is within the family. Yet many families exhibit little capability of doing so.

Why? Because the family, at least in America, has lost its capability (but not its ability) to socialize its young, so that the fledgling offspring become contributing members of society, capable of raising their own offspring in a similar manner. Sex education was once taught in the home, and was not a subject for the educational sector, but now sex education is a vital and important part of student's overall social education.

As an aside, what is missing, too, with academic sex education is the education of relationships. It is one thing to teach sex education. That can be done as capably as teaching cooking in middle and high schools. But to teach the conduct of responsible sexual relationships is quite another thing. That is what is taught in families. Relationships are taught in families. When they are not taught within the context of the individual as a member of a larger community, then the individual can come away from that family setting with a distorted relationship concerning relationships, similarly as sexual conduct, as compared to the whole of society and civilization.

When The 4thR cannot be taught well in the home, it should be taught in day care, pre-school and K-12 and become a required subject of higher education, technical schools, and all formal training and educational curricula.

As our society gets farther and farther away from the family as being the prime socializing institution, the more there is a need for formalized extra-family socialization processes. These are not being provided in a consistent manner anywhere in our society, except those that emulate the nuclear, traditional family system of prior decades and centuries.

Some socialization processes are provided piece-meal in schools, churches, social organizations, and so on, but there is a crying need for each of us as individuals to understand ourselves in relationships. And what better place to do that than in the traditional family, or in extra-family socializing situations, such as schools?

Schools provide an excellent place to begin the remediation of industrialized family an institution of socialization and indoctrination. Schools provide the environment to learn about relationships "by the book", and as an experiential environment, or "laboratory" where behaviors can be measured.

C. Relationships.

Probably one of the most important things we take away from our participation in education as students is the relationships that develop from our educational experience. That experience helps form who we are and how we feel about ourselves, and how we determine our relationship with others.
Therefore the educational process must be a socializing institution similar to the family, but hopefully more consciously aware of its role than so many untrained mothers and fathers. Teacher training, the educational environment, setting, and pattern need to be consciously planned and created to take on the new role of education, that of the surrogate family. This is the new paradigm education in America.

What a tragedy it is when both the school and the family settings are dysfunctional, or detached from the child. On the other hand they can provide for potential personal fulfillment, satisfaction, and achievement when they contribute to the highest development of each individual. What joy people have when they recall the rich texture and depth of meaningful relationships they formed and experienced during their school years. These memories are reflections of the individual's self-esteem, self-worth, and social value in reference to their peers. When educational settings provide for these experiences, even accidentally or incidentally, each child's life becomes much more meaningful and rich.

D. The Family.

A family is principally a system of relationships. While affect is internal to the individual, it is a product of relationships. As educators, we cannot develop it directly, but we can indirectly produce the hoped for affect by carefully arranging the relationships within this artificial, educational family. The hypothesis is that if we can produce a healthy social-emotional environment for the child, that the child's test scores, effect will improve and maximize the child's potential to learn.

When you think of this surrogate family, consciously think of what you do in terms of process and product, and affect and effect. While "product" and "effect" are closely similar to each other in this context, "process" is related to the mechanical, organizational context of the surrogate educational family that we can plan and create.

Although "affect" may also appear to be a bi-product of this whole affair, when we consciously plan and prepare all individuals who are involved in this surrogate family by indoctrinating them with the expectations of this setting and how they can be expected to feel about it, it then is a part of the organization and creative process that leads to the desired effect. (sorry for the long sentence)

V. Implementing The Decision.

Implementing this decision will require two things to enhance the potential of success. First, it will not be a matter of luck if we are successful: we make our own 'luck' and successes, by deliberately striving for success.

Second, since the family design is not a matter of materials or teacher training, it will be most important to realize that how each participant feels about the plan, and knowing what results are expected, and how the results will be developed will be very important.

Whether it is students, certified or classified staff, parents, or others, how participants feel about what they are doing, and knowing what part they will play in the design is vitally important. Participants must not flounder about trying to discover where they belong, what they are to do, or what they are to contribute. How we feel about what we are doing, and why we are doing it will affect the outcome. This has been proven over and over again by educational and industrial psychologists, as well as athletic coaches, and ourselves.

The decision to implement the family design must be seen similarly as a producer of a play with the directors (team leaders) knowing the acts, scenes, and lines in advance; plus knowing intuitively what the "feeling" variables should be, in advance.

As an aside, what are the most important things people remember about their own education? Ask someone, "What do remember when you think about your years in school?" Almost immediately the two topics mentioned first are the grades they earned, and their relationships with teachers and other students. One is effect the other is affect.

Since the family pattern is primarily a shifting of relationships, it will be important to plan out the relationships throughout this family setting. Affect is an individual, internal product of relationships. How we feel about something, including ourselves most often is a reflection of how others perceive us, and develops from our interaction in relationships.

It is very important that we not implement the family pattern in a haphazard way. It will be important to us to clearly understand the underlying assumptions, and to deliberately plan the relationships into the organization that will fulfill our expectations.

E. Self.

It is the socialized self in society that is the front line of civilization. (The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman). Without functional families capable of raising socially adequate and personally healthy personalities, which are in turn capable of transmitting these healthy personal and social traits and behaviors to their offspring, then a civilization begins its slide into historical oblivion.

F. Community.

The family unity is the societal bridge between the individual self of the child and the community. Contrary to the chicken and the egg conundrum family units are the basic building block of civilization. Families group together into larger social and work communities.
And communities grow into larger societal units.

But it is the individual that is the fluid element of a society, capable of moving from one place to another. The point is this: communities reflect the functionality of the families who live there and the functionality of its individual members. Functionally healthy individuals usually do not stay on in a community which is failing, and functionally healthy individuals usually do not stay on in family situations which are failing.

What does this say about large portions of our nation? Much. Does this seem too formidable a problem to contemplate solving?

Yet, dear reader, this problem is not overwhelming to approach and solve. Yes, it may take your lifetime and that of our children and grandchildren, but it is possible to be resolved. It only takes the courage of a few individuals who say, "I make a difference. What I do today will make a difference tomorrow."

VI. Words Of Caution.

There are a number of issues that must be faced in order to keep ourselves from being blindsided and shooting ourselves in the foot, as we move forward to implement this new educational paradigm in Mary Eyre.

A. Competition.

One disturbing and potentially destructive situation may arise, which must be guarded against. One teacher mentioned it in the last meeting we had to discuss the family setting. And that is competition. Competition in family relationships, as in intimate and very personal relationships is an anathema. It's a bit like salt in its ability to help or destroy a good recipe.

Competition must be avoided at all cost because it redirects the focus of energy that develops within a relationship from the relationship to the individual. It is the "us" aspect of relationships which generates positive affect. There is no polarization within a healthy relationship. When competition develops in an intimate, personal, or family relationship there will be only losers, because even the winner loses the positive results of shared accomplishments.

The focus moves for the "us" of a relationship to the "me", which is separate.

B. The Wise Use Of The Educational Setting.

Probably one of the most shocking losses to our society is that of personal responsibility. Some how, some where in the last generation or so individuals have lost their sense of personal responsibility for what they do and what happens to them as a result of what they do. The family pattern within our schools would be capable of reestablishing this fundamental element necessary to maintain social integrity and avoid the disintegration of the fabric of society.

The acceptance of personal responsibility is a fundamental aspect of the socialization of the individual within families, within society. When this is lost the civilizing factor of society will begin to disintegrate, as we see today. Acceptance of personal responsibility was taught in the traditional family setting, but has been lost in a large portion of our society and its subcultures.

Social accountability is the other side of the coin of the acceptance of personal responsibility. If personal responsibility is not taught, then the individual cannot be held socially accountable in the eyes of that individual. When they are held accountable, they vehemently express their disgust, rejection, and anger toward this "unjust" action. I'll bet you can think of many instances of this particular facet as it has occurred in your classroom.

There has occurred in historical times past of America that education has followed the lead of our society, and at others it has provided the leader ship of our society. Now is a time when education as an institution must provide the leadership that is needed for our nation, our society, and for its new and young citizens.

It may sound self-righteous to say that educators know what is best for their society, but in these times when political and governmental leaders vacillate to say what is right, depending upon what public opinion polls have to say, and when it is easier for individuals to be passive than to take a public stand, then educators must become the catalyst of the educational paradigm for our society.

As educators we usually do not think of ourselves as the moral standard bearers of our society. But we are. We usually do not think of the educational process as the primary positive and constructive socializing influence in our society. But it is.

In the absence of strong, traditional family socialization processes and in the absence of a morally influential church indoctrination processes, education must consciously become the primary socializing institution in our nation. Only when the graduates of this process enter into our society to bear their own children, and socialize them, and pass on those socializing influences that were transferred without thought in the traditional family, can education say that its leadership for this task is passed. Then it can follow the lead of mature, responsible, and socially accountable individuals, families, communities, and nation.

When the Congress, state legislatures, governmental executive positions and other responsible positions of public decision making are filled with socially and morally responsible individuals, products of the surrogate family in education, will education as an institution be able to follow the lead of society, concerning this major problem in our society.

C. Should We Duplicate The Koln-Holweide Experience?

YES!! Without delay and hesitation, but with fore thought, care, and concern. The surrogate family must be adapted to peculiarities of each community, but with an unswerving dedication of what is good for the whole of our society.

VII. Closing

A. Leadership in education.

Educational processes which do not contribute to the socialization and civilization of the unformed child are passé'.

On the other hand fostering the development of socially and morally responsible and accountable individuals is not avant garde, but part of the mystique and tradition that education has held for those who have and are working for their teaching certificates and degrees.

Why do educators teach? Because as individuals they yearn to say each night, as they go home, "I made a difference, today. I make my society better. What I do is very important to my students, their families, our neighborhood, and the community."

To be a teacher, an educator, is to be a leader in our society. We have voted with our lives, in this profession. Now is a time, it is time, to fulfill what we profess to be.

B. Willing the paradigm to appear.

This is the exciting part. You see, willing the paradigm to appear becomes a very person experience for each professional educator.

Willing anything to happen is a matter of personal power. If we feel powerful, WE ARE POWERFUL. When we say, "I am powerful," we are powerful. Saying and feeling powerful is fundamental for change to occur. Willing change to occur is as easy or as difficult as saying, "I want to do this. I will do this."

Power and love are very nearly the same in their origination and operation. The more we share, the more we receive.

By sharing personal power with children in school we increase their personal power, which empowers ourselves as individual teachers, and as an important institution of our society.

Children who grow up within the educational surrogate family will feel good about their educational experience, and empower the schools of their children to be effective.

The paradigm of education in America will occur one way or another. The needs of an organized, civilized, technologically oriented society in the 21st century will not allow the paradigm not to occur. By willing it to occur now we can form it, and guide it so that it makes sense to us. And what better way for change to occur than for it to make sense for those who have to carry out the mandates of the paradigm and to have it occur at our choosing?

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The above article had its origin in 1991 as a memo to MARILYN CAMPBELL, Principal, Mary Eyre Elementary School, Salem, Oregon

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Readers are welcome to reproduce this article. Please retain the name and addresses of the author, for those who wish to contact:

Daniel Raphael, Ph.D.
PO Box 3718
Boulder, CO 80307-3718
USA
dr@boulderlifecoach.com

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