Nine years on

 It's nine years on from the terrible shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, and we still, as I reflected two years ago, have not dealt with that main problem that plagues us. By "us" here, I mean the United States.

I was thinking today, though, not of Friday, December 14, 2012, but of Monday, December 17, 2012, when I and so many other parents hugged our kids a little tighter and then put them back onto school buses or walked them to the door and let them go. 

We place a lot of trust in schools in this country. 

We also place a lot on schools in this country.

We don't place common sense limits on weaponry, yet schools are to keep children physically safe.

We don't provide adequate access and support for mental health, yet schools are to provide for such care.

We don't ensure families have enough to feed themselves, yet schools are to be sure students are fed.

We don't provide the facilities funding needed, yet schools are to have buildings that can safely fit and provide for their ever-changing school population.

We make no massive investment in technology equity, yet schools are to have their students online and technologically apt. 

We don't wish to make changes to overcome the outcomes of systemic racism, yet schools are to ensure their students overcome the consequences of that. 

The list could go on forever. 

And the pandemic has of course just brought this into sharper relief: school buildings must be open to feed children and provide childcare and heal students' mental health crises and provide technology access and overcome the achievement/access/opportunity gap...

Schools have never been able to do it all, 'though not for lacking of trying. We need, though, a societal recognition of our civilization's responsibility for all of our children. 

Not just the ones that look like us or live in our town or speak our language. All our children.