My good friend Dave Moore has been working with schools and communities for many years, engaging the one with the other.

He recently wrote an important article that is a meditation on all the different things people mean when they bring up “parental involvement” — you know, as in, We need more parental involvement.”

He identifies five things:

• Parents as first and best teacher. Many believe from a variety of experiences that there is no substitute for a parent who is thoughtful and engaged in the role they play in nurturing learning, motivation and basics skills.
• Parent involvement as schools not welcoming parents. In this situation the participants in conversations are really talking about whether or not schools are welcoming to parents.
• Parent involvement as individualism and personal responsibility. Another strain of the discussion is the participant who says parents need to do their job because schools are too bureaucratic and do too many things.
• Parent involvement to avoid responsibility. . . . As if the schools are doing all they can, the reason things are still bad is the parents.
• Parent involvement as blame. Finally for some, the problem of parents not being involved is a politically correct way of talking about the failure of “others” to make sure learning is going on.

This is interesting on two levels. First, and most obviously, it’s a great guide to understanding what you hear in community meetings on education.

Second, it’s a great reminder in general that listening to and understanding what people say in public contexts is not always as easy as you might think. People use the same words to mean different things, and sometimes use different words to mean the same things. Every utterance in public has a whole web of ideas and connections behind it.

In most difficult public issues, I’ve found that there’s a similar term that everyone says they are after — but about which people mean very different things.

In my case, it’s very often the word “responsibility.” Perhaps because I give talks on ethics. Many times, after a talk, someone will sort of slide up to me and tell me how glad they are that someone is “talking about responsibility.” They often mean that they think the Bush administration made a hash of needed regulations and it’s time to reinstitute some controls.

But then another person will walk up and tell me how glad they are that someone is talking about “responsibility.” This person might mean personal responsibility and integrity when it comes to personal issues like honesty towards family and friends.

One word. Many meanings.