Essential Questions

Village Advisors
It is not only the case that parents always fulfill their role and responsibility in the context of community because there is no way of escaping it; it is equally true that parents need community. They need the village to advise, encourage, and challenge them. There will undoubtedly be areas in which parents are weak – and it is in precisely these areas that the village plays such a vital role. In some cases parents are aware of their need and can seek out advice. I, for example, would make a miserable music teacher for any child. Knowing that I need help, I seek out people in my community who are gifted in cultivating a love for music and proficiency with instruments.

Village Encouragers
In other cases, parents are uncertain of their abilities, and need encouragement. Friends of ours recently adopted an eighteen-month-old from Taiwan. Over the past few weeks they have been, as first-time parents of a toddler who doesn’t yet speak English, replacing dangerous objects or activities with others. They told me sheepishly that they didn’t know whether this was the right thing to do, or whether they should be more firm about warning her of the danger of electrical cords and choking hazards. They weren’t concerned enough to seek out advice, but they needed encouragement that what they were doing was, in fact, developmentally appropriate and exceedingly helpful for an adopted child making the transition to a new continent, culture and family.

Village Challengers
Perhaps the most vital, difficult, and indispensable role that the village plays is in challenging parents. In every family, there will be blind spots with may never be recognized and addressed unless someone in the village has the courage to lovingly ask questions and offer support. When I taught in the New York City public schools, I encountered parents who strongly believed that education was the responsibility of schools and not parents. In their view, the responsibility of parents was to get their children to school and pick them up at the end of the day. In my capacity as a teacher, and therefore as a member of their community, was to question that assumption. Could the school alone provide outstanding education for their children? What if the school wasn’t very good (as was the case in this particular school)? Did parents’ words and actions at home have any influence on what happened in the classroom?

Who can you build the village?
Wherever you live, you have the ability to both invite and influence your village. You can ask others for advice. You can offer encouragement. Best of all, you can invite trusted friends to challenge you when they see you doing something unhealthy or unhelpful. In all of these ways, you contribute to, and benefit from, a supportive community of parents. Your children will not be the only ones who benefit.

In the past decade, the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” has become part of our cultural vocabulary. Its acceptance is not without reason: childrearing is always an effort in the context of community. Does the bold claim that “parents play the primary role in shaping the lens through which their children understand and make their way in the world” contradict or undermine the importance of the village? 


Responsible people live and act in community
It is important at the outset to recognize that there is no contradiction between claiming that a person has primary responsibility for a given task and that the responsible person is always in, and always needs, a community to fulfill that responsibility. On the contrary, in most instances we assume that the responsible person needs a community. Take for example those who work as community organizers. Their task is to engage, empower and catalyze change in community by working with others. It is, by definition, impossible for them to fulfill their responsibilities without being in, relying on and participating in a community. Furthermore, we would measure their success as community organizers not only merely by their own actions, but in many ways by the work that others do as a result of their participation in community. In a similar way, parents play the central role and bear the primary responsibility for shaping the lens through which their children understand and make their way in the world, and they do it in the midst of - and with the help of - a community.

Saying that parents play the primary role in the nurture of their children doesn't deny the importance of community; on the contrary, it assumes the importance of community.

There is one question that everyone engaged in social action ought to consider: What is it that communities of poverty possess? In discussions of education and poverty, it is a common and understandable blunder to focus on liabilities rather than assets. However, an asset-based approach to problem-solving often proves far more effective.

Local Assets
There is one thing that outsiders can never bring to a community, and that is social capital. Social capital is built over time within a community in the context of relationships. Take for example my friends' landlord in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Martha is an African American homeowner, probably in her late fifties, who moved from the South to Brooklyn years ago. She built relationships in the neighborhood and carries herself in a way that commands respect. Martha has the ability to resolve disputes and quiet the neighborhood that no one else has - including the police. Thugs and drug dealers listen to her; children who wouldn't think about obeying their parents would obey her. It is not the force of her voice or threats, but the force of her character. She has social capital on that block that couldn't possibly come from the outside. It can only come from within, and must be built over time.

Buy-in
In order for meaningful change to occur, you need the right investors - the people who have social capital. They may not have money, or property, but their name and experience is more valuable than either property or money. Sometimes, as in Martha's case, they are already using their social capital in ways that benefit the neighborhood. In other cases, they may be contributing to the cycles of poverty. In either case, they have influence in the community that can be invested wisely.

Dignity and Respect
One of the great realities of meaningful social change is that it can't be bullied. The way to get the buy-in of those who hold social capital in communities of poverty is to treat them with dignity and respect. Although no one on the outside may think so, they are important people - and they need to be treated as such. In some cases, individuals are completely unaware of the influence that they have for good or for ill. In many others, they are aware but unclear on how to wield that influence in ways that are good for the community. Acknowledging their capital, and respectfully inviting them to invest their social capital in the good of the community is the only way to long-term community change.

So why don't we do it?
I would suggest that the reason that the leverage of local social capital happens so infrequently is due to wrong valuations. We over-value money, organizations and plans, and under-value the people who have the greatest investment potential . . . precisely because they don't have money, organizations or plans.

Social Capital and the Educational Crisis
So who holds social capital in the educational crisis? Parents. They are the investors who have more influence over their children's character development, skill acquisition and educational achievement than anyone else. If they invest, children learn; if they divest, other influences will fill the void. Whether they recognize it or not, parents have critical social capital in their family and community. Will we treat them with dignity and respect, and invite them to invest wisely?

We created tumblon to solve a problem: high quality child development is hard to get, yet pays enormous dividends when put into practice. To find and apply the right information at the right time has had a tremendous time and energy cost (and is least accessible to parents with the lowest educational levels). Tumblon "solves" that problem by providing simple, customized, reliable, actionable child development information to parents - at precisely the time they need it. By technology, we have "solved" the information/time problem.  Information, however, is only part of the problem. Andy Crouch wisely observes:

"The record of technology as science - relieving human beings of specific burdens and diseases - is splendid. The record of technology as a metaphor for being human is disastrous. . . The biggest cultural mistake we can indulge in is to earn for technological 'solutions' to our deepest cultural 'problems.'" (Culture Making)

Technology like tumblon can only be part of the larger solution if there is a human component. Parents must use this tool as a tool to nurture responsible, reciprocal relationships with their children. These are the "dividends" that parent involvement pays: enriched relationship that creates new possibilities for families and communities. It is not ultimately about raising test scores or improving graduation rates (although those will certainly be affected where parents engage and enjoy their children). The dividends will be greatest in meaningful  relationships that form the context for learning, creativity and problem-solving, which is to say in re-establishing a civil society.