Community Education Journal, Vol XXIII, Nos 1 & 2, Fall 1995/Winter 1996, pp 6-8
School and Community
By John W Gardner
In the largescale organized systems through which the contemporary world gets its work done, dispersion of initiative and responsibility downward and outward through the system is absolutely essential. The larger and more diverse the system, the less likely that a centrally-designed onesize-fitsall solution will be widely applicable. There must be individuals in every segment and at every level authorized to take leaderlike action to solve problems in their part of the system. Centrally designed programs must leave ample room for groundlevel creativity. Corporations have learned that lesson over 20 hard years of restructuring. The Federal Government is just beginning to learn it.
The lesson portends a substantially more significant governance role for the cities and their metropolitan areas in the years ahead. Observers of the political scene should not allow themselves to be confused by Congressional voices that are promoting devolution for their own shortterm political, budgetary or ideological purposes. Some are using the banner of devolution to camouflage their intent to weaken or destroy social programs. Such contrivances should not turn us against the reality that a measure of devolution is necessary, indeed inevitable.
We are already seeing encouraging signs of a new viability and sense of purpose in some of the more forwardlooking cities. Cleveland, Phoenix, Chattanooga, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and others are beginning to take charge of their own future.
All over the country at the grassroots there is an extraordinary wave of innovation in every field of social problem solvingfrom prenatal care to parent education, from dropout prevention to job training, from affordable housing to communityoriented policing. It represents an astonishing burst of vitality. The innovators represent a great diversity of racial, religious, and occupational backgrounds.
But there remain immensely difficult problems for the cities. With respect to the tasks of community building, the most serious problem is fragmentation. Affluent sections are not in communication with impoverished sections. The city is separated from its suburbs. Municipal agencies are often in poor touch with one another. Government generally has uneven relations with the business community. The mayor and city manager are often out of touch with neighborhood leaders. And nonprofit groups that could play a significant knitting-together role are too often rivalrous and territorial. Whipsawed by the elements of this fragmented scene, the city flounders.
It is not particularly hard to create a sense of community in a small group of people who see each other every day, but in human groupings the size of cities, the difficulties are substantial. The possibility of extensive mutual acquaintance drops precipitously. Diverse cultural or economic groupings can exist with little understanding or even awareness of one another. How, in cities, can one even approximate a sense of community?
There are four main resources: (1) city government, (2) the media serving the city, (3) the schools, and (4) the "civic infrastructure" the rich institutional variety of the private sector, in both nonprofit and for profit segments.
First, city government. just by existing and functioning with moderate effectiveness, city government makes a considerable contribution to community. This is not recognized by many of those who are enamored of the idea of community and it is a serious misjudgment on their part. Officials of city government preside over structures and processes that can be immensely valuable in community building. If the city's governing processes are not working, they must be made to work. Citizens must hold officials accountable. And recognizing that today government cannot possibly do the job alone, citizens must help it to form effective partnerships with all elements of the private sector.
With encouragement, city government could do more than it is now doing. City officials could be trained in the techniques of collaborative problem solving and could employ those techniques in working with non-governmental groups and with other levels of government. They could foster communication among diverse elements of the population and avert emerging polarizations. They could represent all stakeholders fairly and scrupulously.
The media constitute the second major resource for building community in the city. Here, as in the case of city government, those most concerned to build community are apt to be quite defeatist. They think of the media as a negative rather than a positive force and they have reason. But, again, the defeatism is not justifiable. Something is stirring. More and more of the media are experimenting with the new "civic journalism," which seeks in a variety of ways to build community and encourage citizen dialogue.
I'm sure any reader would gladly advise the media on constructive steps to be taken. I shall limit myself to four items: (1) Television, radio and the newspapers could resist their tendency to exploit polarization on key issues. (2) They could report on all elements that make up the city's diversity, giving each group the chance to be heard. (3) They could encourage through Editorial and OpEd pages a continuing dialogue on the city's problems and its future. (4) And they could report faithfully on all the individuals and organizations that are striving earnestly to build community.
Schools are the third major resource for community building in the city. As Eric Schaps of the Developmental Studies Center has demonstrated, the schools can educate for social responsibility from the elementary grades on. High school programs of community service can contribute importantly. But the most valuable contribution the school can make is to be a community in its own right. I shall have more to say about the schools in a moment.
The last major resource for community building in the city is the extraordinarily diverse array of institutions in the profit and nonprofit segments of the private sector: churches, corporations, neighborhood associations, community development corporations, unions, foundations, service clubs, cultural institutions, and the like. Some call it the civil society. In a city it provides the nearest thing to a substitute for the web of mutual acquaintance that characterizes the neighborhood and other smaller groupings. It can do much to make the city an authentic community.
Unfortunately, many of its institutions are not living up to their potentialities. Some have become so specialized that they have lost sight of their duty to the larger community. Some have failed to renew themselves and are fighting the battles of yesterday. And some no, many have little enthusiasm for collaboration with others toward a common goal.
The civil society is the arena in which citizen action and community service take place and these are not to be thought of as marginal activities to be performed by a few publicspirited citizens. They are important sources of morale and should be widely shared. A large and complex society tells the individual in a thousand ways, "You aren't important. What you do won't make a difference," and as a result many feel powerless. To take action on a community issue or to perform a community service strengthens citizen confidence. It is the best medicine for alienation. It moves the citizen toward a sense of ownership, and cuts through the sullen, disengaged, "What are they going to do to me next?" attitude. Tackling a community problem with one's own hands doing something doable in one's own community, something with visible consequences counteracts the citizen's feeling of having lost control.
Given that newfound confidence, citizens can honestly experience some measure of responsibility for the fate of their community and their nation.
The old definition of good citizenship was all too apt to be "election day citizenship" informing oneself on issues and candidates and then voting. The new conception is more demanding. Citizens should be expected to join with others in deliberation on key issues (through town meetings, forums, etc.) and should be involved in some form of citizen action or community service. They are responsible for their community not just on election day but year ‘round. They are never off the hook. An old farm proverb says, "The footprint of the owner is the best manure." The foot prints of citizens should be all over community affairs. It's worth a try. The politicians have tested every other kind of manure.
Of all the resources that I have mentioned for building community, why focus on the schools? There are several reasons. First, there is no more dependable stimulus for community building than a common task some objective that can only be achieved if diverse elements join in shared action. And there is hardly any common task more deeply rooted in the nation's soul than the future of our children. Second, the schools are dependably present in every American community and represent the one institution through which all must pass. And finally, creating a sense of community must begin virtually at birth- and after the crucial infant and toddler years, school is a vitally important early experience.
As someone said, "Children are our best known source of adults; " so the first step in building community is the nurture and development of children who will grow into communitybuilding adults. It begins in the earliest days of life when bonding occurs between the infant and one or more loving care providers. Infants with drugaddicted, earlyteen parents may never experience that bonding and consequently never develop the trust, the sense of security, and the caring interaction that such bonding engenders. They are disabled, and there are no ramps for their particular disability. Research has shown that the consequences are serious.
Beyond infancy the child should experience and participate in the web of reciprocal obligation and interdependence that characterizes the healthy family. Such an environment will give the child everything that a sound community will give later the basis for selfesteem that comes from a sense of identity and belonging, the confidence that stems from security.
Ideally the next step is a school which is itself a healthy community, a network of caring individuals. Many schools, of course, are not communities in any sense. The school should continue quite explicitly the child's education for responsibility and the other values that characterize a sound community.
I single out responsibility as a key ingredient: responsibility for the group, for "the other." Early childhood education and kindergarten involve many group activities; but it is a curious fact that from. firstgrade on, group activities in the classroom are progressively phased out. With each succeeding year, it is more firmly impressed on young people that the issue of overriding importance is their own individual performance. It is a question of how well I solve that equation, how well I write that essay, not a question of how I relate to others. Me and my SAT score! It is a system designed to produce solo performers. It is not a system that produces community builders. Or for that matter, leaders: leaders must, after all, have a keen sensitivity to the group. The emphasis grows steadily more obsessive through high school, college, graduate school and beyond, so that junior executives or law firm associates in their late 20s are still pirouetting for some imagined scorekeeper, giving virtually no thought to the group.
A school which is itself a community will not only teach responsibility for the other, it will foster habits of empathy, tolerance, and understanding for people who are "not like us."
Ernesto Cortes, in his article in this issue provides a valuable description of how difficult it is to create the partnerships so crucial to the emergence of a school community. It requires slow, patient, dogged effort to build something that will last.
The school can be an immensely important institution at the heart of tomorrow's community. It can contribute more than its share toward the important goal of social cohesion. But there are those in the educational world who believe that this however desirable is simply asking too much of the schools. I cannot agree. If the schools help to build community, the benefits will not all flow in one direction from school to community. The task of building the larger community will revitalize and renew the schools themselves. It will pull them out of their insulated place in American life and make them a part of the vital mainstream.
John W Gardner is the holder of the Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professorship in Public Service at Stanford University. He also is the Chairman of the National Civic League.