Whenever the conversation turns to education or doing what’s best for our youth, I’m always reminded of a poem from my own youth, “The Bridge Builder.”
An old man, going a lone highway
Came at the evening, cold and gray
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was plowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide—
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head,
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
—William A. Dromgoole
To borrow the poet’s metaphor, we are all bridge-builders. Each of us has a role to play in preparing our youth to cross that bridge.
We want the bridge to be connected to opportunity, responsibility, family and civic commitment. First we must make sure that bridge is supported by a firm foundation; there is none stronger than the one built upon a good education. I’m not an educator; I can’t describe for you all the key elements of a “good education.” But I can tell you there is worth and value in every student.
It seems to me the goal of education should be to help each student discover and develop his own God-given talents and abilities—his own worth and value. To that end, I make three observations:
First, not one of us would disagree that parents play the most important role in a child’s education. Parents should insist on academic excellence. We should expect the best from our children and let them know it, every day.
Second, we must lift up the role of educators and acknowledge their primary role in building the bridge. After all, Georgia succeeds when our youth succeed—and our youth will always succeed when they get a quality education.
Third, every citizen must be prepared to pick up a brick or two. Certainly, electric membership corporations (EMCs) understand that obligation. In communities around the state, EMCs are immersed in the programs of the schools they serve. Many offer scholarship funds to reward academic excellence.
As the new school year approaches, it is a good time to dedicate ourselves anew to the job of preparing our youth to cross that bridge with confidence, because we are building the bridge for them.
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