Assertive leadership...

After a discipline meeting between teachers today...I think I'm developing specific ideas for how the principles of least possible necessary aggression impact organizational and school change...

Assertive leadership entails a commitment to a whole host of principles...forgiveness, and a focus on behavior change...

Self-determined self-governance as the basis for self-discipline...

And facilitation and collaboration being a better model of developing relationships around building those skills...than is a relationship of strict authority to try to force chance -- futily -- on those over which a person has responsibility...

Authority is valuable because it provides better models of better behavior...and because authority figures are responsible for correcting and improving the behavior of those for whom they are charged with authority...

But the limits of an authoritarian or authority-based model...of governance...of leadership...or teaching...or parenting...of whatever...

Is that authority neither can create self-discipline...which must be self-determined, by its nature...

But also that authority figures may have lower standards for self-discipline, self-governance, the thought necessary for both, and the learning and growth involved with both, than those they are charged with authority over...

Many, many, many people are more thoughtful, better self-disciplined and self-governing out of that thoughtfulness, and learn and grow at faster rates than does our current President or any significant head of state in the world, right now...

Many, many, many students are and can be much more thoughtful, self-disciplined, and self-governing than their teachers and often, their parents...

And democratic cultures have developed all sorts of ways to account for the fact that higher standards are often developed outside of the circles of authority...

More freedom and room for disagreement...a thriving academic and scholarly culture...a respect for youth culture, as much as for traditional culture, as a means of dynamic change within the culture...values and institutions dedicated to the notions of disagreement and challenge -- political, legal, social, cultural, religious, and otherwise --- and even civil disobedience as means of expressing serious and profound disagreements around norms that a society abides by...

And a dynamic, active, and changing culture of norms development and acculturation...which is part and parcel of a thriving and growing democratic culture...

And what is the bridge between these often very tense relationships between these institutions and values and cultures and groups...

Is an appreciation of reason and reasonableness...of engagement and difference...of thought and thoughtfulness...and mutual respect...that creates the space for differences to be considered and bridged beyond mere compromise and political wrangling...

But it's more than than...

Reason is the standard against which our ideas of how the world should be are arbited and should be arbited...

Because reason is the only standard, in the real world, that really counts...

Everything else is just assertion...

And reason needs for us to account for realities that we don't understand, whether or not we understand them...or at least attempting to account for them, better...even when we are not sure...or are often "too sure" (meaning, unwilling to acknowledge what we are not sure of), as the case often is...

And the reality about people is this...

They cannot be ruled from afar and be responsible...or self-disciplined...or self-governing...

A free society...a self-governing society...a self-disciplined society...

Requires freedom...

Freedom means making mistakes...and it means a more and more open forum for debates and disagreements about whether or not behavior is mistaken or sinful or whatever or whether it is constructive or good...

And accepting that reality...allows us to see the opportunities that come with that freedom...

Even as we might wish for the "good old days" of more authoritarian, dependent, and less mature individual and democratic development...

That is true for schools...

And that is true for American and international culture, generally...

I've got some work to get on...

But I'm getting a better idea of how I might apply these ideas to schools and child rearing...in more specific ways...that still hold people responsible for awareness of the larger picture of people and their behavior, generally...

I'll be back soon:):)...have a great weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Progress...and rising expectations...

We had a conversation after class, today, that helped me understand, better, the issue of progress and rising expectations...

A teacher was commenting that a kid was getting worse...a common lament in a middle school...though one that is generally just a complaint about how far from expectations their behavior seems to be in the moment...

This kid is actually a decent kid...who is off task a lot...and doesn't take school work nearly serious enough...

And I commented to this really very good teacher I was talking with...that he was doing much better...our expectations in the class I work with him in had just increased pretty substantially...so he was still getting in trouble...for more minor issues than in the past...that the lead teacher was tolerating less...because we had found more effective ways of dealing with problem behaviors...

And...largely...because our behavior, as teachers, had gotten better...we had become more self-disciplined...so we could model for kids, better, what it was that we wanted from kids...

And we are becoming more and better aware of both each our own limitations...and each others' limitations...between the two of us...which makes it easier for me to read when the teacher I work with has just had enough...and this kid was just pushing those limits today...

The conversation I had with the second teacher...helped me put into perspective just what I am wanting in terms of progress in the world...

Just how high an expectation I have...and just how realistic I need to similarly be...about how quickly they make that progress...and what all is entailed with that kind of progress...

I've been seeing a lot of it lately...

George Will and Robert Kaplan both wrote pieces, yesterday, basically conceding that democratic development cannot be force...

George Will and Robert Kaplan in the Washington Post...Thursday, Mar. 2, 2006...

Kaplan basically reverses the position of his most recent book to make the argument that forcing democratic change is not desireable (Kaplan's shifting winds are an indication that he hasn't the faintest clue what is going on at the deepest levels policy-wise and psychologically within the international community, right now...and is a needed corrective to the idea that journalists can somehow replace serious policy thinkers to provide the most in-depth analysis of political trends)...

And George Will appropriately invokes the image of one of the greatest conservative political leaders of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, to face the dissappointing realities of trying to force democratic change in Iraq (Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher two of the strongest leaders of the 20 century, though I think there is arguments to be made for the conservative leadership of Charles De Gaul, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, John Major, and several other very consequential conservative political leaders in the early and latter part of the 20th century)...

Those are two very important concessions from two very important popular conservative thinkers...

Meaning...a consensus is clearly developing...against the idea of forced change, democratic or otherwise...

And what we are waiting for, now, is for the domestic political trends to catch up with the much more sober and realistic analysis of international trends...

Forced progress is not progress...

Because progress necessarily involves freedom...

It is the inevitable basic requirement of progress among free peoples...

Because free peoples cannot choose and internalize values that others way wish upon them...

Without the freedom to do so...

Period...

Everything else is temporary...

And, at best, gives a signal for more long term development...

And, at worse, undermines longer term development...

Of freely chosen values which are critical to self-governance...which is the reason why such freedom is both needed...and why it is so jealously and rightfully guarded by free peoples...

And we are making progress...

Both in creating more freedom...

And in affirming it as a basic value necessary to democratic or any other kind of important change...for individuals...for cultures...for societies...and for states...

Our international democratic culture is making much progress in this vein...

It's our expectations of freedom that are increasing...

And will forever increase...

As long as we remain free peoples:):)...

I've got a meeting to get to:):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben