In 1997 “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” broke the Billboard Top 10. The song reminisces about times gone by, asking where all the cowboys have gone. The song reminisces about the 1950s, a time of great economic prosperity, for certain people, which has been idealized by that certain kind of person ignoring all that was bad with it. The song “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” and the article “Where have all the traditions gone” suffer from similar problems. Max Keller’s opinion piece isn’t without some good points, but almost all of them are utterly mishandled. Let’s take a look shall we? 

Keller wrote, “We return to a school where a microscopic virus has become a weapon against much of what traditionally made Parker, ‘Parker.’” Now I don’t actually disagree with that. For almost two years, we existed in a state of limbo that meant much of the community that Parker lauded itself for was suspended, however, this was true around the country and the world. This is the first year where school is largely the same, and, guess what, things are largely normal. And the rest is not what has not come back is a response to societal changes. 

Two exceptions are the handling of Cookies, Parker’s annual mini-course activity days that were canceled the past few years and were not mentioned in the article, and the Halloween parade. Now, that is if the Halloween parade isn’t happening, which there is no definitive word on. There has been some talk of an alternate parade, however, the reason that the school has to be more hesitant about having the Halloween parade is cultural sensitivity, which I don’t think is a reason to cancel the parade, if they decide to. 

But back to something I disagree with because that’s the fun part. Parents. Keller argues that seeing parents “connected threads between our homes and Our Model home,” and I’m not necessarily disputing that. At my old school, parent’s were a relatively rare occurrence, only to be seen at dropoff, pickups, and special events like field trips. I personally never missed having parents in the building. In fact, it made parents’ presence more of a special occasion. 

Additionally, having parents come every once in a while meant that working parents weren’t at as much of a disadvantage as they knew well in advance when they were going to school and planned accordingly. 

Keller writes “the Parent Partnership Agreement has become nothing more than “send an email” and “please donate.” For many parents who didn’t spend their time hanging around their kid’s school, this is all the Parent Partnership Agreement ever was.  I’d be willing to bet they’ll soon return to the school, in fact in just a month some have. But I’ll go further and say that parents shouldn’t be hanging around school talking to administrators, having “informal conversations,” building relationships which can give them undue influence in matters of curriculum and discipline should the day come when they are displeased with the school’s decision. This issue is compounded when it’s considered that often these parents tend to have some other connection with the school, beyond their child’s enrollment, and tend to be wealthier, creating an even greater divide between students. 

There’s more to talk about with this article, however, I want to end with my own thoughts about traditions. The school needs to be more communicative with the students about beloved traditions, but it’s also imperative that these traditions evolve to adjust to the times, not only disease but societal changes. I concede that this can often go too far and that changing these traditions can often be done in lieu of more difficult but more meaningful changes to address the problems altering traditions claim to address. Despite this, I believe the school places too much emphasis on what it used to do and how it used to be, as opposed to what it is now, and what it could be.