School is out. Students and non-students alike shouted with glee when they poured out of Marysville school buildings late in June. The last week was short on education because books had to be returned, tests taken, grades calculated and turned in and classrooms readied for the evacuation. High school seniors finished earlier than that.

In a village in Kenya, students sleep in their schoolroom on rough-hewn desks because trekking home for an hour or two through the bush is too dangerous, time-consuming and tiring. So after preparing a meager meal of steamed millet they huddle around a kerosene lamp each night, studying. They feel let down when classes end at the end of a term.

Norma sells knitted finger-puppets on the streets of Cusco, Peru (I’ve mentioned Norma before). She lives and attends school in the city’s slums. Norma is thirteen years old and super-bright. She asked where we were from. “The State of Washington,” we said. She said, “Yes, Washington. First president. Then Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe …”

I carefully explained that my state, Washington, was in the northwest corner of the United States, on the Pacific. Norma paused for only a split-second before saying, “On the Pacific Ocean. First is California. Capitol, Sacramento. Then is Oregon. Capitol is Salem. Washington is next but I do not know the capitol.” Wow. How many Peruvian or even Mexican states might the average Marysville thirteen year-old know?

Four years ago I sat in on a world history lesson being conducted in a girls’ high school in Monduli, Tanzania. Having spent the past two years researching for a book on the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, I was pretty well versed on the causes of WWII. So I was startled to find university-level teaching and learning happening in a high school in what we like to call a third-world nation.

For children to feel that level of motivation there must be a number of conditions in place. First are expectations. And there are both soft and hard expectations. If kids’ parents lecture them to do well in school without modeling the quality of life that education delivers, then forget about it. It is just words. It is a soft expectation.

But if children witness their parents advancing in careers and enjoying aspects of life that might be unattainable without education, and if those parents take active interest in their children’s education, then expectations are hard to ignore and easy to accept.

Expectations may come from a school principal’s address to the student body at a first-of-the-year assembly. He or she says, “You are here to learn. Taxpayers are investing $6,000 per year for each of you so that you can use this opportunity to raise yourself up to be a creative and productive member of society — and a better human being. This is your job this year. When you come to school you come to work, to work your mind. This is your workplace, not your play-place. What your teachers and society in general ask of you is that you justify the investment that has been made on your behalf. If you will not do this, then you must step aside so that you will not be a burden to the education of willing students.

It comes down to this: Any child who is not a willing student is not being patriotic. While older brothers and sisters fight and die overseas to protect our nation, each student who wastes his or her educational opportunity weakens the nation from within. Children are America’s greatest resource and only hope for a bright future so any actions or inactions that diminish their worth cannot be called patriotic.

From bush villages in Kenya and the slums of Cusco in Peru, children are giving 100% to achieve some measure of advantage. Children from Astrakhan to Zanzibar are involved in a sort of Olympics of the Competitive Spirit to see who will become masters of their fate and who the servants. Becoming masters of text-messaging, video-gaming and I-pod archiving won’t cut it.

Parents do have a litmus test that tells whether their children are with the program or wasting educational opportunity. They need only keep an ear on what children talk about with friends. If a good part of teen-chat has to do with studies, subject matter, pending assignments, or how to elevate their level of performance, they’re on the right track. But cut them some slack. As children they deserve time and opportunity to be off-track and a little nutty now and then.

We can throw more dollars at education and make marginal improvement but for significant gains a renewed respect for education and what education provides has to permeate families and faculties. Blaming schools for low performance is a little like blaming a bad scatter of holes in a target on the target itself. It is homes, not schools, that point children toward or away from learning.

When Marysville-Getchell High School opens it will offer an expanded spectrum of Small Learning Communities (SLCs). And MPHS will still offer a traditional program by the name of Pathways of Choice (POC). Supporters love SLCs. Critics hate them. But whether SLCs or traditional high schools deliver improved test results depends first on the measure of dedication students bring to the classroom.

Unless children’s mission is to be in school to learn, to justify the $6,000 per year invested in their behalf, and agree to be raised up to become creative and productive citizens and better human beings, something is amiss. The core of the problem will not be found in schools but in parents’ soft expectations for children.

Comments may be addressed to: rgraef@verizon.net.