"Unity is the Way" Part 1

So I'm in the process of writing a post by the name of the title quotation.  However, I had to write a reflection for a class on the educator's role in accommodating for, and preventing, domestic violence in their students' families.  I felt this was a perfect introduction to the things I will discuss in the forthcoming post.  [As always, names, course codes, and locations stripped for confidentiality]

Adam Hill – [course code] – Reflection #9

            I think the key question regarding educators’ role in accommodating for, and preventing, violence in the home, is one of degree.  I.e. to what degree is the individual educator, within a specific context, responsible for accommodating for, and preventing, such violence?  Further, to what degree can, and should, they do anything about it?  After all, those children only spend a small portion of their time in your class, and in your school; likely even less time in the former if it’s a public high school in Ontario.  Further, the educator, in almost every instance, isn’t the child’s legal guardian, so there are many expectations and assumptions baring or inhibiting any action on the educator’s part, other than reporting abuses when legislated to do so.

I’ve been confronted with these issues myself already, even in my short two months of volunteer educational assisting at [an elementary school].  After the principal decided to employ me upon a co-worker’s recommendation and my word, I was given the responsibility of three “developmentally delayed” 6 year olds from, a recently zoned into the school, low-income housing complex.  
Although the one never confided in me directly, many of their behaviours and attitudes suggested issues outside the school.  However, even though there were rumours constantly circulating about the three, and especially about the parents of the one with serious behavioural and attitudinal issues, I never reported anything, because that student never gave me anything substantial to report.

Regardless, I still thought daily about ways I could further help those kids, even lost a little sleep over it.  As of then, and still now, I know if I had stayed with that school, I would have made deliberate efforts to integrate the families, and their members, of that school community together: to engage them by encouraging their communication with the school, and with each other.

Getting back to that vital question, I still ask myself where professional responsibility ends and altruism begins when you’re an educator.  Would I expect an educator to do the same thing, to make deliberate efforts to build a school community?  And where does that responsibility begin and end?  I honestly don’t know.  But I feel that if the educator is aware of an issue, and more importantly, aware of an honest, respectful, and meaningful, method to ameliorate it, I feel it’s their responsibility to do so.  I know I’m still rather alone when arguing as such, but I believe this will change with time.  At least I hope so.