observing. changing.

I spent the middle part of my day yesterday at an elementary school down on the southwest side of Chicago.  The school is located in an industrial part of the city, so many of the students are the children of third-shift factory workers.  As a result, these parents are not involved in the day-to-day life of their kids, nor are they involved in the child's schooling.  The students are not achieving up to their potential partly because they do not have support at home.

Notice the chain reaction here:  Parents work in a factory, therefore their children don't get the most out of their education, so the children end up working in the factory too.  The cycle of drug/gang families is similar.  As is the cycle of college-educated families.  Money breeds more money, drugs breed more drugs.

I observed a 7th grade language arts teacher who talked to me for a long time during the lunch period about just how messed up CPS is.  For being such a massive school district, it's not wonder that it is run like a corporation that is too focused on money to see the bigger picture.  As we talked, we wondered together what the ideal Chicago Public School system would look like.  While we shared grand ideas, we could not come up with the steps to get there.  And thus the failing school system will remain until someone comes along with big dreams and enough practicality to make it happen.

Is this what I need to do?  To look at the big picture, look at who and what I want to be in fifty years.  Then backtrack and figure out how to get there?  Is it better to plan ahead, to have goals, or is it better just to take one step at a time in faith?  Oh, the questions that arise when a biblical worldview collides with the world.