Where should we begin?
Public education is a group project—and too many kids are doing it alone
I sat down on the edge of the bed after a shit day—one of those days where every conversation bruises a little, when kids carry more than they should, and when the adults who are supposed to hold them… simply don’t.
And there it was, glowing on the computer across the room: “Where should we begin?” Just a generic ChatGPT screen I’d forgotten to close, mocking me with the question I keep avoiding.
Where should we begin?
Public education is the ultimate group project, and somehow we’re still stuck in that familiar nightmare: two kids doing everything, five kids doing nothing, and a teacher trying to keep the volcano from exploding in the middle of the cafeteria.
Parents need to step the f** up.
There, I said it.
Our kids deserve adults who don’t disappear when things get hard, who don’t outsource their responsibility to the school and then complain about the grade they didn’t help earn. A group project only works when every member shows up. And right now, too many kids are showing up alone.
It’s heartbreaking.
It’s infuriating.
And some days, it feels like the whole system is a house built on top of a sigh.
A few months ago, I asked a pretty random question in a coaching conversation: “If your team were a group of animals, what would they be?” Her answer: Dolphins.
Pods of dolphins survive because they understand something we keep forgetting: No one makes it alone.
When one dolphin can’t stay afloat, the others lift it to the surface so it can breathe. When a calf is struggling, the pod shifts formation. When a predator circles, no one swims off thinking, “Not my kid, not my problem.”
They move together, attune, protect…they carry one another.
Imagine if schools worked like that.
Imagine if our communities did.
But where should we begin?
Maybe right here.
Maybe with us.
Maybe by dragging ourselves out of bed again tomorrow and doing the best we can with what we’ve got—knowing full damn well it won’t be enough to fix the system, but it might be enough to change a morning for a kid who desperately needs a win.
So tomorrow, I’ll walk back into the chaos, and I’ll breathe for the person who’s sinking.
So where should we begin? Let’s start by refusing to let anyone drown.
If you haven’t gotten a e-book copy of Burn the Script, check out the link here.
