Corporate Education

BUREACRACY:
1. excessive multiplication of, and concentration of power in, administrative bureaus or administrators.
2. administration characterized by excessive red tape and routine

Every year around March Madness time, the media publishes calculations of how much money and time is wasted by people who are paying more attention to basketball than to their jobs.

Now, with the proliferation of the internet, I think that type of calculation comes out fairly often. How much time and money is corporate America wasting on employees who are not doing their work?

I am sure the figure is in the billions of dollars. I don't really feel like googling the answer at the moment.

My questions is: Why don't these grand councils of waste calculation ever figure out how much money businesses are wasting by having their employees do stuff that is ostensibly for work purposes, but certainly just as useless to productivity as surfing the web for good youtube videos?

In the education world, we have a lot of names for this useless work. Here are some of them:

-Aligning department curriculum with state and nationwide standards
-Creating measurable schoolwide learning tasks with applicable rubrics (Really, almost anything having to do with a rubric is just useless.)
-Applying authentic instruction methods
-Anything to do with mission statements
-Creating action plans that coordinate with statewide standards
-Developing an Individual Professional Development Plan

and my personal favorite. . .
Developing professional learning communities

How does this relate to bureaucracy?

Well, in an effort to validate the fact that they have jobs, many administrators (see: BUREAUCRATS) spend most of their time coming up with plans that ask the faculty to do one/many/all of the above tasks during the course of a school year.

Usually, there are very expensive books, videos and powerpoints that accompany these tasks. The school system pays for these because the superintendent, in an effort to validate the fact that he/she has a job, has created district-wide goals that mandate these tasks are given to us.

The school district spends, and I am not exaggerating, tens of thousands of dollars on these useless tasks.

However, there is just not enough money to hire enough teachers to make class sizes manageable.

Glad to see they've got their priorities straight.

Thanks Mom!

"The Manager at Little Caesar's gets paid more than I do to teach public school," -my colleague's comment while talking to his mom about the importance of unions

"Well, think of how hard he works. He deserves it. Teachers just can't make it in the real world," -his loving mother's response

As I have said and will continue to say: if it's so easy, come do it.

A Poem From My Colleague

Dignity

They attacked the building
an angry mob
bearing phones and axes.
'Devils," they cried,
'bandits. We've had enough'

As they beat down the doors
most of them wheezed
Their soft hands blistered
and bled and one by one
they dropped to their knees
in perfect pose
It'd play well on Facebook
at least
or the nightly news:
citizen uprising
people power
taxpayer revolt.

Meanwhile, barricaded inside,
the teachers drew their blinds.
The few bad ones cowered
under desks, but the rest
carried on with their work.
They'd learned to ignore
the circus outside
the taunts
the constant carping of
those who depict them as
selfish, lazy, inept-
who blame them for
society's ills
for the consequences
of poor parenting
of empty promises

'Teachers suck,' somebody
shouted from behind the
bright new bank. 'Fucking thieves.'

And the students snickered and
slouched deep into their seats.

Don't Blame (Just) Me

One of the things I am finding most frustrating (there are two parts to this "thing") is that society is unwilling to address the underlying social problems that are the main contributor to the lack of success on the part of many of our low-achieving students.

I understand that not everyone is a red-eyed radical like I am, and therefore providing assistance for basic necessities (food, clothing, shelter) for the low-income and poor among us, providing resources/outlets for single parents, encouraging responsible sexual behavior (in the real world, with real knowledge), the list goes on; these things are not the priority of most people in our government (or even our school district.)

However, the longer society continues to blame the results of underlying social problems on teachers, the closer I am getting to leaving this profession.

Part II:

I, for one, am aware that we cannot address these problems though emphasis on common assessments, PLC time (as it is structured), common grading practices or longer lunch periods.

But, I can address these social issues by fostering an environment in which all students feel safe, cared about, and feel like they are worth something as individuals.

The most important thing I do in my job is to be a caring adult and a positive role model.

I would like some acknowledgement that THAT is what is most important. I would also like to spend less time on esoteric, theoretical crap and more time on doing what matters.

What do you remember from high school? The main causes of World War I, or the teachers who treated you with respect, who made you feel like you mattered?