Two views

Two views of school.

I overheard an interesting discussion today during lunch.

Every day during this time you can find, right in front of our main doors, several students, of varying minorities, hair lengths, and baggy/shoddy attire playing hackie sack.

One teacher brought up that it is no coincidence that since this has been allowed to go on there has been vandalism. Likewise, what would a member of the public think if they were to walk into our respected school and the first thing they see in this institution of learning are these hooligans playing hackie sack rather than doing something constructive.

I agreed.

Another teacher brought up the point that maybe they would be impressed with the liberties our students are given. Maybe they would compliment the kids on their hackey sack abilities. After all, aren’t the kids at least being productive during their lunch break. I mean they could be out smoking in the alleys or tearing around town in their cars.

I agreed.

So where does that leave me?

I think one of our problems here is that too many people (and I’m no exception) have ideas on what should be done or what needs to be done.

The problem is that as I see it many staff members want to see the school run as their classes are. So if you are a concrete/sequential teacher, you want order and structure in the halls and school atmosphere as well as immediate and clear consequences for infractions. If you are a random/abstract teacher, you want the flexibility and openness as well as flexibility and the “treat every case differently” approach to discipline.

As for me personally, and this is ironic, I don’t think I’d like a school run the way I run my classes. Isn’t that odd? I have structure to my classes, but I treat students as individuals and don’t apply the same rules to every students. I believe there are always exceptions. For instance, I’m staring right now at a junior who has his cap on in my class. Open defiance of my class policy and school policy. However, he has it on 95% of the time when I see him in the hall. Every day I ask him to take it off, and he graciously does so. He is a charmer. He knows to ask the questions that matter because he knows this is what I want and he knows I will be impressed by this. And I am. He also knows when to be a leader in the classroom and when to push the envelope with his behavior. He gets his work in, though it’s not of the best quality. But he gets it in and seems to care about what we’re learning. All of these are why I let him keep his hat on today.

But I personally don’t want the school run that way. I’d like it to be old fashioned fear and loathing out there. Where I am scared to not tell a kid to take his hat off or where I am scared of what will happen to me from administration if I don’t confiscate a cell phone.

Odd isn’t it?

But at least I recognize this and it eases my frustration. I know too that I wouldn’t do any better as an administrator because I’d run this school the same way I run my classes, which would pretty much be how it is run now.

Then again, if we had overlords or a totalitarian administration, maybe I would actually detest my work (which I most certainly don’t – but you can tell that from my blog). I don’t know how I’d feel if I had an administrator monitoring me every week.

I know I’d hate it if they were asking for confirmation of my standards covered, of my classroom rules, of my curriculum, and of my test scores. God help me. I’d quit and manage our local paper if it came to that.

But then again, maybe I’d adapt and find myself loving it.

Who knows. I don’t.

I do know, though, that all you can ask for is a great feeling about what you do inside your classroom every single day. And I have that here. Without a doubt.