Who is School for?

We need belonging, not accommodations

Click the ♥️, friends.

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Imagine if a bunch of apples met an orange. But instead of calling it an orange they said it had an apple deficiency disorder.

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Who is school for?

I think about this question a lot, especially when I look at my own boys.

One’s in the middle of middle school. The other just finishing high school.
Both are bright, curious, full of ideas that come spilling out when we are sitting at dinner with just about anyone. They love solving problems, playing strategic games, having conversations, noticing patterns, dreaming up inventions.

And yet, school has not always felt like a natural fit.
The structure of traditional school, as it exists, wasn’t built with kids like them in mind. (At least the public schools I attended.)

For my older son, it started with the side conversations. (We heard about those all the time.) He wasn’t trying to disrupt; he just had thoughts he couldn’t keep to himself. He needed a “smart seat” near the teacher. He had opinions, lots of them.

Luckily he was in a school with engaging, thoughtful teachers who saw his spark.

But we were constantly thinking, What if he was in a school that did not value his unique qualities and instead saw him as disruptive?

And then came the chronic medical issues. This was what felt like an invisible layer of difficulty that made it hard to get to school. Eventually, he just… stopped going. School became something he had to recover from. Despite his ability to understand content, accomplish projects and be creative, he could not be present.

We had to again and again find a way to make it work in places that called themselves progressive. (Thank you to Revolution School for seeing who he could become!)

Pay Attention to What You Pay Attention To

My younger son? A crafty little mover when he was small. Constant motion. Always bouncing, climbing, and also punching, sitting under furniture instead of on it. He was the kid who couldn’t stay still during morning meeting time, who got redirection after redirection.

I recently found an old list of school goals his teachers created “with” him. One stood out:

“Be safe with my body.”

That was considered a goal, being safe with your body. Imagine how that feels to a child who simply experiences the world through movement.

(When I read to him at night, he used to tell me, “Just because I am moving around doesn’t mean I am not listening.” It was completely true. He knows himself.)

He wasn’t trying to be difficult in school. He was trying to exist in a space that wasn’t designed for his rhythms, his needs, his way of being.

We were in partnership with the teachers in the preK-8 school. They stuck with him. They participated in getting him to where he is today, even if his way of being didn’t fit ‘traditional school.’

And those struggles haven’t gone away completely. Every now and then, they bubble up; restlessness, a moment of impulsivity, a flash of frustration. And underneath it all, the experiences of years spent being told he was doing it wrong.

Because those messages stick.¹ When a child hears, again and again, that they need to be smaller, quieter, easier to manage, it doesn’t just bounce off. It becomes part of how they see themselves.

And for what?

For behaviors that are completely natural. For instincts that aren’t flaws, but only become “problems” when they run into a system that wasn’t built to flex.

Here’s the part I don’t take for granted:
I happened to go to school. I happened to get a degree. I happened to land in spaces where I could be close part of conversations about how school systems work and how they could be different.

That proximity gives me a voice. It gives me access. It allows me to advocate for change, not just for my kids, but for others, too.

This isn’t just a personal story. It’s an equity issue. Because the kids who don’t fit the mold are everywhere, but the ones who get heard, who get accommodated, who get second chances often come from families with more margin, more language, more privilege.

That’s not okay. And it’s not sustainable.

So when I think about school, I think about them. And I think about all the kids like them, brilliant, creative, deeply human, who are navigating a system that too often asks them to contort.

Kids are not standard-issue. They are unique, dynamic, and worthy of learning experiences that meet them where they are.

Humans are complex and come in a lot of different models. Some can sit at desks for long periods of time, but some brilliant, creative, soulful, caring individuals who make the world go, and make it full of new ideas and art and joy and strength and kindness do not fit that mold.

And we lose them when we try to fit them.

We need cultures that shift the question from:

“Why can’t this child sit still?”
to
“What does this child need in order to learn?”

(This is inspired my son’s 3rd grade teacher, Miriam, at The Philadelphia School. Miriam is a veteran educator and who LIVES in this space and question rethinking. She didn’t simply say leave the class, she asked herself “what can I do to include you so you can stay and learn?” ♥️)

That’s a radically different starting point. And it leads to radically better outcomes.

When I imagine schools of the future, I imagine places built for belonging, not just accommodation. Places where being different isn’t something to be fixed, but something to be understood. Places where every child, not just the ones who fit the mold, gets to feel like they belong.

When I’m rethinking what school is for, I’m thinking about my sons who have thrived in school because it has been flexible, creative, inclusive and personalized.
And I’m thinking about all the kids like them, who are waiting for a place that finally feels like theirs.

Because school should be for everyone.

And that means we have to start with people.

1. Not just with the child, but with the adults, too.