The pettiness of politics...school and otherwise...

A major district administrator got fired today, it appears...

He was not well liked, it seems...and may have been something of a prick to a lot of folks, from the hearsay I've been privy to, today...

The funny thing is...I spent most of the time listening to the conversations about this administrator wondering...

"What is it that most district administrators are needed for anyway?"...

Money is a reason I hear quite a bit...

Though money and the people who access it would better serve schools if they were closer to individual and autonomous schools and staff, I think, rather than having a monopoly over an entire district...

And I have to say that the money people...

Versus the people who do the real work in schools...and in most places...

Do seem to bring down some pretty hefty bounties for their troubles...more than most other people in schools, in business, in life...

Which is part of the reason...a good one, I think...that they aren't very well liked...

My dad is the money guy in his work...he's a corporate real estate developer...I like my dad...he's got a good heart...and he's got the qualities of money people that make me understand why people don't like money people very well...he doesn't tolerate disagreement or conflict very well...even though the stakes are high...so the need for open disagreement is greater, not less...and he's kind of greedy, these days...which is just kind of distasteful for those of us who do our work to do the right thing rather than to bring down the greatest rewards...it's kind of a petty way to live life...which is why it annoys those of us who live our lives around bigger priorities so much...but being bigger people...we tend to suck it up...and keep doing the right thing for the right reasons...because that's just what bigger people do...

I have a lot of problems with district administrators, state administrators and legislators, federal administrators and legislators, lawyers and regulators and all sorts of layers upon layers of administration and imposition that is generally very distant from the day-to-day operations of school...and which impose all kinds of priorities that are generally lesser than the important ones in schools...but which satisfy someone's pet concern or someone's concern about being sued...

There's so much that goes on in schools...as in life...that has very little to do, at all, with doing our best job...that have everything to do with petty and personal agendas and priorities...a million assessments for kids from a million different layers of bureaucracy...far too many to be useful...a million different behind-the-scenes fears by teachers and administrators that have to do with petty political concerns about whom will be offended by hearing or facing what reality...

It's a really interesting microcosm...school politics...of the problems of the society at large...

The sense of entitlement that so many people feel...the lack of responsibility that many people feel, including the people charged with those responsibilities -- I mean teachers and administrators, here -- for the consequences of decisions made...the fruitless and self-destructive blame games and burden-shifting...the petty personal politics...and the general lack of a sense of purpose in a field that is infused with ideals that carry great purpose...

And in special education, in particular...it is the seemingly endless and perfunctory bureaucracy and paperwork...that satisfies so little real concerns...and so many petty ones...

And all the ways that this collection of petty politics consistently undermines the more important purposes of education and schools...

The sad thing is how often much of this is self-undermining...parents who undermine their children by looking for foolish excuses for their failures...teachers and administrators looking for the same...and far too little realism and understanding by those involved with education of one another...for its own sake, as much as for improving situations...

And everyone...so totally lost in all this pettiness...

That they lose track of the really important purposes of schooling, too often...

The learning...the aspirations...the character building...the nurturing of intellect...and of a value on education for its own sake, independent of how it improves net worth or other less important purposes...

And amidst all of our pettiness and cynicism...

We have really arrogant expectation that our kids be better than we are...or are willing to be...in the face of such smallness...

And that they simultaneously...just adapt themselves to our smallness...

Rather than us...living up to our greatness...and leading them with our examples...

It makes me sad that so much of education in America gets lost in this nonsense...in private schools as well, I'm sure...and depending on the private school, more so, I'm quite sure...

And it reminds me that education...at its best...lives in the hearts and minds of those who take it seriously...more than in the bricks and mortar of school buildings that house its activity...

Why we choose to live our like this...not just teachers and administrators and parents and kids...

But all of us...school politics just being a microcosm of life politics...and by politics I mean all of the pettiness of our existences...

Why we'd all choose to live like this I have no idea...

I hate it...

And yet I don't know what to do about it, most days...

Maybe I'm just tired and need a good night's sleep...

But it would be nice to think that we could put aside our desire to avoid being responsible for bigger priorities...and put the pettiness aside...

I don't know why most people avoid the bigger priorities...or why I feel such a strong sense of responsibility to care for them...

I just know that no matter what we do...

Everyone has choices to make with their lives...

And that those choices affect all the rest of us...

And just feeling kind of disappointed with the human race, rather than cynical about it, today...

I know that we can get better...I just know that we also spend an enormous amount of time choosing otherwise...

I'm exhausted...I need a nap in a major way...

Have a good week, everyone...

Love,
Ben