>I think that the cafeteria people and bus drivers have a lot to offer
>a school system but they are generally excluded --- conciously or
>otherwise.
Perhaps a true school would take advantage of the expertise these
workers possess by making every staffer a teacher and a learner. For
starters, we hire staff to do things that students could do, and learn by
doing. Why not hire a custodial-teacher in stead of simply a custodian.
That teacher could coach the students in the care and maintenance of the
'physical plant'. The food services teacher would coach young cooks. This
isn't a suggestion for career 'tracking'. All students should have a part
in th e care and feeding of the school. It teaches responsiblity,
leadership, followership, attention to detail, safety...as well as more
traditional curricular areas like thermodynamics,
chemistry,nutrition,physics, & etc.
A side benefit would be the students' sense of 'ownership' of the
school and consequent care for it...reducing vandalism.
I also wonder how many bus drivers could be teaching students to
drive. Imagine mechanics teaching students who could then see the fruit of
their labors cruising the streets. This all may be a little more 'real
world and relevant' than schools want to be.
> We are going into a year 2 of "teams"-- trying to be more cross
>disciplinary between the 3 silo's but the core of people who
>partake of the team meetings are teaching staff -- in part due to
>the scheduled time of the meeting (at teaching staff conveience
>rather than dorm staff) and some turf issues I'm sure.
This is part of the cognitive dissonance built into schooling. We say we
want participative management, but we structure it to make that
eventuality highly unlikely. We say we want to produce 'good citizens' for
our democracy, but we raise them up in a system that is at best a
benevolent autocracy and at worst a dictatorship. We wonder why young
people don't vote...well, they've never had to make a significant decision
before, why start at age 18? Actually, our schools produce just the sort
of citizens you might expect; those who believe that the forces of
government are out of their control and that citizenship is not their
responsibility. From a 12 year 'education' we gain the idea that
citizenship means 'staying out of trouble'...or more correctly, 'not
getting caught'. Dare we risk converting our schools to democracy? What a
social experiment that would be.
>I think that we as teachers think that we are learning all the time,
>or that we have already learned what needs to be learned.In our
>regular staff meetings it is still very hard to voice or indicate a lack
>of knowledge about a kids needs, a technique or what have you
>--- to state that you have a need to learn in a learning
>environment can be risky (isn't that what we were supposed to
>already know ? if we don't know it maybe we shouldn't be
>teachers ?)
I have never seen organizations less likely to learn than schools. I
surmise that this is because most teachers are those who liked the
schooling system to begin with. They did well in it, and want to
perpetuate it. One axiom of studenthood which they lea rned is 'don't look
stupid', because you are being graded and judged all of the time. The
worst thing to do in class is to say something that is 'wrong' (or at
least not in agreement with the text or the teacher). So, when teachers
gather for 'professiona l develoment' their axiomatic existence continues.
As in negotiation, 'the first one to talk, loses.' An administrator once
confided in me that his philosophy in staff meetings is: 'You can keep
your mouth shut and have people think that you are foolish, or open your
mouth and remove all doubt.'
Therefore, forget about the kind of collegial discourse which leads to
challenge and learning. Phil Schlechty remarked (I think he was quoting
someone else) that schools are 'a group of individual teachers who are
joined by a common heating system and parking lot.'
>Our team structure (in a nutshell): to have a cross-functional
>group of people with a subset of students who monitor abilities,
>progress across social, academic and emotional areas and to
>identify competencies and strategies to facilitate independent
>learners.
I'm not sure I know what all of that means, but I like the part about
'independent learners.' John Taylor Gatto ("Dumbing Us Down") contends
that children can become competent in reading and math and become
independent learners in about 100 hours...but fo r some reason we keep
them in school for 12 years. The idea of cross-functional (or
cross-boundary) is intriguing. The irony is that we have created this
peculiar functions and boundaries that we must now 'cross'. Dennis Littky,
speaking at last year's Fa ll Forum of the Coalition of Essential Schools,
remarked: 'We don't have to integrate the curriculum, because we never
dis-integrated it in the first place.'
So much of what we want to do in schools is inhibited by boundaries
that we ourselves have established. There are so many 'givens' that we
cannot move forward. At some point, we might consider challenging the
legitimacy of the 'givens'. For years, edu cators approached the child's
mind as a tabula rasa...clean slate. That theory has been debunked.
However, perhaps schools themselves need to take a clean slate (or CRT)
and redesign education without all of the current 'givens'. Imagine.
Grace & Peace,
Scott Ott, Public Relations Specialist
sott@nkcsd.k12.mo.us
The North Kansas City School District
http://www.nkcsd.k12.mo.us
"Do not be conformed to this world
but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind."
--Scott Ott <SOTT@nkcsd.k12.mo.us>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>