Entry #36: Factories don't produce
masterpieces -- craftspeople and artisans do
Issues of democracy in action or the empowerment of teachers, students and
their families are still dominating my waking -- and, it often seems --
my sleeping thoughts. I feel like I've suddenly found myself inside a bubble
and everything I'm working on, reading, or talking about keeps being filtered
through a mesh of questions about Voice and the need to look carefully at
our process and not just at our lofty, desired, end products.
For example, it's time to plan our menu of professional development themes
for next year's staff meetings. Instead of just polling the staff and prioritizing
a laundry list of worthwhile topics, I was suddenly struck by the thought
that laundry lists, while ostensibly democratic (everyone gets to fill out
a survey), are in reality a bit of a sham.
If we don't have the deeper discussions, if we don't identify an essential
question and a year-long plan to address it, we create a grab bag of "talking
heads" sessions. In short, we guarantee an approach which does not
challenge the status quo of active presenters and a generally passive audience.
We maintain the balance of power that we claim we want to change.
If we tried to go a different route and really asked people to get involved
in the larger questions, like democracy or tone of decency, and also expected
one meeting to build on another and have an impact on what we do tomorrow
and how we document it, maybe we'd get a different response.
If staff meetings were places where announcements were minimal and learning
took place, real peer-to-peer learning, maybe we wouldn't have so many people
trying to mark papers, or cut out early. Lots of basically good teachers
act just like our students when they come to meetings. They sit with their
friends, don't pay attention, watch the clock, make lists, talk, squirm,
etc. In January, while a group of us were presenting a session on exit projects,
I even saw two colleagues balancing their checkbooks!
Two schools of thought
There are at least two schools of thought on ways to change this type of
behavior. One approach says the principal should swoop down on the offenders
and demand better behavior. I must admit that when I am presenting and parts
of the audience are inattentive, this "police" model sometimes
appeals to me. I just don't want to be the cop.
However, when I really think about it, I favor the second model. The second
approach says we should encourage people to take responsibility for their
behavior/learning by asking them why they aren't listening and participating
and then push them to help us develop more meaningful sessions.
I don't want my students to pay attention because they're afraid of me or
their parents. I don't want my peers to just listen politely. I don't want
to wield the threat of lower grades to increase my kids' participation.
I want active engagement. I don't want teachers to listen because the boss
is watching, either.
I knock myself out developing lessons for kids and presentations for my
peers. If my material is missing the mark, I want to change it.
Factories don't produce masterpieces
I'm reading The
Right to Learn by Linda Darling-Hammond, and in it she discusses
the structure and role of factory model schools. Darling-Hammond says that
"like manufacturing industries, schools were developed as specialized
organizations run by carefully prescribed procedures engineered to yield
standard products."
She goes on to say that "knowledgeable teachers were not part of the
equation because the bureaucratic model assumed that the important decisions
would be made by others in the hierarchy and handed down in the form of
rules and curriculum packages." In short, democracy and empowerment
were not part of the picture when our educational system was designed.
Watching the news on any given day we generally hear about product recalls
because the mass-produced items are faulty or dangerous. The news often
talks about the failure of our schools to produce critical thinkers, too.
Our children are labeled faulty and the fault or blame is laid at our feet.
Factories don't produce masterpieces -- craftspeople and artisans do. You
can't crank out individualized products on an assenbly line and you certainly
can't support the learning of individuals that way either.
I worked on the line at Keeblers. I'm not much of a baker, but I know that
cookies are supposed to be allowed to set and crisp before you store them.
In the factory the batter is placed on a belt that moves continuously through
the ovens and down to the packers. There is no wait time, no crisping period.
Packing red hot cookies is good for profits, but not for quality and certainly
not for the fingers of the packers.
Our kids are placed on the line and they, too, are supposed to be packed
off to high school, college or the workforce like so many identical cookies.
Treating our kids like standardized products doesn't net the results we
say we want, but it does give us the results we should expect.
Similarly, there are artisans working in factories, but they are not allowed
to offer their expertise. They are forced to perform monotonous steps designed
by someone else -- someone who may or may not know more than they do about
what works best.
A system that continually tries to teacher-proof itself through the use
of standardized, basalized, lowest common denominator materials and methods
is doomed to failure. I guess what I'm seeing is that our system organizes
teachers to act like cogs in the machine and then blames us if we accept
our lot and act accordingly.
Darling-Hammond cites Raywid (1990) in describing this system as having
"a focus on service delivery rather than on successful learning."
How often have we felt or said, "I taught it, but they didn't get it?"
Too often.
The book goes on to say we must create the right to learn and that's as
far as I've read. I'm hoping she gets into the right to teach. too.
So here I am back at the heart of democracy again, caught in the balancing
act between rights and responsibility, the relationship between individual
rights and the common good. I'm going away this next week to work on the
NSRF transition team. I'm really looking forward to the trip. Working with
other teachers from around the country for four days is always exciting.
I know the issues of reform which I'm struggling with will be hot topics
of discussion with this group of educators.
I hope to finish the Darling-Hammond book while I'm away, too. There's something
about being away from home that does free me up for more focused reading
and thinking.
Leaving my classroom's comfort zone
When I get back it will be time to pack up my room in earnest. Knowing that
I'll be leaving the comfort zone of my own classroom has given me a headache
every day this week. Finding a happy home for my resources is a challenge.
Some people see my resources as clutter, but the teachers who value my "stuff"
are the ones that I'm counting on, as I prepare to move.
Maybe it's my impending move that's stirred these thoughts about democracy
and particiaption to such a fevered pitch. After all, if I give up my classroom
in order to work in other people's rooms and they don't invite me in, I'll
be out of the loop. It's the invitations that I'm after. I don't want to
be assigned to people. I don't want to be the tolerated, fixer- upper.
Darling-Hammond talks about our system as one that keeps pulling experienced
teachers out of their classrooms to manage other teachers. I don't want
to manage others, I want to collaborate, and I'm banking on that teaming
as a source of increased learning for myself and the other teachers involved.
More importantly, I still want to help kids learn, and I don't think I can
make as much progress alone as I can in my new position as Program Support
Teacher. Wish me luck!
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