[Miscellany]

The shift in Education Leadership lately has been towards a business model of management.  I've never worked in an office but I've seen The Office and as far as I can comprehend the business model basically consists of a complete tosser at the top who has no idea what they are doing/might be good at managing one thing, middle management who don't care and the plebs who do all the important stuff while stealing the highlighters when no one is looking.  It's a money driven system with an agenda of maintaining or expanding a commodity.

In teaching, it is ridiculous to think of learning and students as a commodity.  A commodity implies that there is a direct return on an investment, which is all well and good in theory except that the business world is notoriously impatient and only wants results in one form (economics).  Getting an economic return on the student investment will probably not be evident for 30-50 years if something was put in place today.  This is too long for a political party to wait in order to brag about their effectiveness in government.  Despite allegations to the contrary I honestly do no believe any of the major political parties want to promote anything that won't show a result within their term of governing.  Is this cynical of me?  It's only true.  Furthermore isn't the return we actually want to see is a healthy, happy community of people who are life long learners and critical thinkers?  Isn't THAT the point?  Oh wait, that's not the same as money.. okay.

When compared to the business model the current school model of leadership has some similarities particularly in that there is also a complete tosser at the top, middle management who don't care and plebs.  However while an office pleb has only a small level of authority, a school "pleb" gets to be King of the Castle in their own classroom.  They are the authority in a very real way.  This means that in order to have effective leadership of staff from the top, you absolutely need to make sure that at the bottom line what is being taught in the classroom is always at very best standard possible.  Therefore f you don't have excellent curriculum knowledge from the top then a few plebby teachers can ruin the stability of the school.  A shitty teacher = shitty parents = shitty school.

In my view, good leadership in schools comes not from economics but from exclusively employing exemplary, inspiring teachers with excellent knowledge of curriculum for the top jobs.  Yes, sure economics is important, as is being able to work out timetables and the like but these things can be learnt on the job (and let's face it, don't we all know trained monkeys who are able to work out timetables and meet with the accountant every 3 months?)

My view of leadership is not exactly shared by the Department of Education.  They speak of leading from experience and exemplary teaching but in fact the opposite is what is being pushed into leadership now.  Those on the road to leadership these days are groomed by Department heads more interested in management than Leadership.  There's a difference.  The moment schools become "managed" by business graduates who have an interest in economics rather than knowing exactly how to teach and lead curriculum is the moment schools lose out.

In my opinion a good school has personable managers, a healthy budget in surplus with excellent teachers who carry the load and get the job done.  An excellent school has a leadership team that could walk into any classroom and teach or help teachers plan a lesson in a way that inspires another teacher to be better at their job.  There is no surplus in the budget (perhaps just a rainy day fund) because the budget is used for resources, professional development and mentoring and to pay exemplary teachers extra money for excellent work and Leadership have a good idea of what the needs of staff and students are.

We are moving away from a model of excellent and moving towards 'good'.  This is horrific in my eyes.  I can see it happening right now in my place of work.  The latest promotion to a very senior leadership role at the school is a manager and not a leader and what is the most horrifying is that I know that this was desirable from the perspective of the school.

My idealism is crushed and my heart breaks for the kids and for the good teachers out there in Education.  We are heading down a very bad road by treating schools as companies or businesses.  Hiring a trained monkey may seem like a good economic choice but we are not in the business of economics.  We are in the business of learning and learning just happens to be a money pit politically speaking.  The thing is I don't care about the politics of it, I'm all about connecting the dots here.

If we hire trained monkeys at the top then what exactly do we expect is going to come out at the bottom?

Labels: a case of the leader not wanting to be lead, boss, education, leaders of the world they are, new leader, school, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, teaching, teaching the teacher

posted by M at 1:17 am 9 comments

I'm feeling a little 'under the fire' at work at the moment. I haven't been in the art room teaching art. I've been in the classroom teaching English, Maths and other assorted goodies. This is a temporary change while our school undergoes student testing. I've loved being in the classroom, and felt like my creativity has returned. It's funny that while teaching art I've felt that my own creativity has been stifled but while in the classroom my fight instincts are switched on and I'm constantly challenged to be on my toes, thinking of new ways to make old ideas exciting. In art - everything is pretty much already exciting. I mean how much do you really have to work to make red paint exciting? It's bloody red paint! It's slimy, it's colourful, it's messy and it's sloppy. What's not to love?

The stifled creativity that I've felt in the art room however is made up for by the fact that I am basically my own boss. I decide, plan and execute my program. I pick out the materials. I decide on the displays. I get to say which work goes up and which work doesn't. I get to be as organised or as disorganised as I like and fuck 'em if they don't agree. This freedom is wonderful. I love it. That is, I've loved it until now. Until one particular teacher has decided that she'd like to plan an extension art program for talented children.

This particular teacher is a senior teacher and well respected. She's also a friend. I don't always agree with her professional opinion - that is when it comes to what is considered talent in art. She'd like to work with me to plan an extension art group. I've been thinking of doing the same anyway, so that's no problem. But the issue is that I want to choose who goes into the group and I want to plan what goes on in the group. I know that S's idea of who goes into the group will be a little different from mine. She will pick talented artists (based on my wide recommendations) but her proviso is that their IQ needs to be high as well (since that's the point of her program). I, on the other hand would like to see children who don't get a go in anything else BUT who are also talented at art to do the program. I don't want to choose on IQ. I also don't want to be a strong arm when it comes to this... I feel a bit pressured to create a program now that is going to make the powers that be happy, when all I've been doing for the last year are things that make me and the students happy.

I don't like this feeling.

Readers of cbg will be aware of my little flirtation with public bathroom graffiti. For those that haven't seen cbg, I saw a message the other day on a toilet door that said "you are loved beyond your capability to even comprehend". I thought it was an interesting message for me to have read and wondered if anyone else had seen the message on that day and felt a little like looking over their shoulder, just like I did. I already know that roughly 99% of people who read this journal think that fate or messages or any of that stuff is bullshit, so I won't ask you what you think. But sometimes I wonder whether the universe gives a little tap. Why? I don't know.

In other news, quotegirl!

choir master - Okay kids, I want you to stand up straight and tall and sing the National Anthem - you all know the words to that, right?
8 year old - would you like me to sing it vebratto or Deep vebratto?
choir master - uh..just your normal voice will do...
hahaha, the kid was being serious too

#1 - So, S have you been doing your Pelvic Floor Exercises
me - oh shit, do we have to start talking about this?
S - How do you know you're even doing them right?
me - just stick a squeeze toy up there and if you get a noise out of it then you know you're doing it right.
S, #1, F - ....
I sure know how to stop traffic

Fashion Cousin - He texted me "I'm stressed at work. I need some space". What does that mean?
me - doesn't sound so good...
Fashion Cousin - if he wanted to break up, would he have just said so?
me - um, I dunno maybe but something tells me that men are only forward when it comes to football ...and beer.
What an arse - seriously, TEXT MESSAGE? bah!

C - the only bad thing about getting flowers is playing it up for the guy. They're only flowers but you have to stand there for just a little longer than you want to - admiring, cause if you don't you'll never get them again!
oops, that convo was supposed to be for girls only

C.O - I know this family that had a child called Luke. Then they were granted custody of their niece whose name is Leia. Earlier this year they had a baby and wanted to keep up the star wars theme so they named it Ben.
Me - Freak alert!
H - you think that's bad. I know someone who named their child Philippa Condon.
Me - ....oh. my. god no way!
H - I also know someone called Richard Coch.
Parent's are cruel.

Me - WHAT THE FUCK HAS HE DONE TO HIS FACE?
sly stallone.

Labels: a case of the leader not wanting to be lead, art, quotegirl, school, teacher dramas

posted by M at 9:11 pm 32 comments