Noam Chomsky Reflects on Contemporary Education

Despite the fact that it was fraught with a marking load I would not wish on anyone, my career as an English teacher offered many satisfactions, not the least of which was the opportunity to explore issues that are increasingly considered off-limits in the classroom: contemporary politics, the use and abuse of language for manipulative and sinister purposes, environmental degradation, etc., all within the context of the literature we were studying. However, by the time I retired six years ago, thanks to curriculum changes in Ontario, many disciplines became locked in a race to cover the material at the expense of what I would consider an essential part of learning: an open and informed discussion and the concomitant development of critical thinking skills. Structure began to supplant imagination, and I think students became the poorer for it.

I recently came across a very interesting interview on Alternet with Noam Chomsky, the famed linguist, political commentator, activist, and iconoclast. A man rarely heard these days in the mainstream media thanks to his seemingly endless capacity to challenge what passes for conventional wisdom, Chomsky reflects on his own upbringing and education, and has some very pointed observations about the current overemphasis on test results:

...the great educational innovation of Bush and Obama was 'no child left behind'. I can see the effects in schools from talking to teachers, parents and students. It's training to pass tests and the teachers are evaluated on how well the students do in the test - I've talked to teachers who've told me that a kid will be interested in something that comes up in class and want to pursue it and the teacher has to tell them - ' you can't do that because you have to pass this test next week'. That's the opposite of education.

Chomsky suggests that at its best, education is essentially subversive, in that it challenges the corporate demand for trained but passive and submissive workers. The cultivation of such an education model is regarded dimly by the elite, a fact he demonstrates by reference to a report and book produced in 1975 for the Trilateral Commission called The Crisis of Democracy. Its conclusion? ... the problems of governance "stem from an excess of democracy" and thus advocates "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions."

Says Chomsky:

[The] commission that put together this book was concerned with trying to induce what they called 'more moderation in democracy' - turn people back to passivity and obedience so they don't put so many constraints on state power and so on. In particular they were worried about young people. They were concerned about the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young (that's their phrase), meaning schools, universities, church and so on - they're not doing their job, [the young are] not being sufficiently indoctrinated. They're too free to pursue their own initiatives and concerns and you've got to control them better.

That an independent-thinking citizenry should be regarded as a threat speaks volumes about the power of a real education. I'm glad I was a part of it for 30 years, and while I ardently hope that a reasonable balance can be struck between the needs of industry and the larger needs of society, I must confess that I am not especially hopeful about education's future.

Cross-posted at Politics and its Discontents

Education and the Digital World

The other day I wrote a post commenting on an article by Doug Mann, a University of Western Ontario professor who calls into question the wholehearted embrace of all things digital in the classroom, arguing that efforts should be made to curb its distracting potential.

A good letter by David Collins appears in today's Star advancing that discussion. Since it makes eminent sense, expect it to be ignored by educational authorities.

I reproduce it below for your consideration:

Re: Unplug the digital classroom, Opinion, Oct. 7

When many whose level of education should make them know better are towing the party line equating use of the latest technological devices in the classroom with “progress,” professor Doug Mann's straightforward account of the actual effects of this thinking in education is most welcome.

Having been both a TA and a college instructor over the past 10 years, I can confirm there has been a dramatic drop in literacy, numeracy, critical thinking and basic verbal comprehension among college and university students in that time, coinciding with the rise to ubiquity of mobile/digital devices.

While no cause can be definitively proven, the amount and type of use of such devices by students in the last few years is the only real demographic difference between them and students eight to 10 years ago.

More important than proving a cause is the recognition that mediating education through computerized devices is actually less engaging, more passive (students become mere users of programs, while the programs do the work!) and, by reducing education to content delivery, promotes the uncritical acceptance and regurgitation of information far more than traditional approaches.

To say today’s learners learn differently is a cop-out; if students show difficulty understanding via listening, reading and in-person discussion, the answer is surely to give them practice in these skills. Handing them computerized crutches to make up for lack of ability while ignoring the fact they're using them to surf the Internet and “chat” in class is not helping — it's manufacturing artificial disability.

David Collins, Toronto Cross-posted at Politics and Its Discontents

Psst! What's The Latest On TMZ?

In the latter part of my teaching career, I had the feeling that those in charge of education, especially on the local level, were suffering from a kind of drift that was largely absent when I started my career. More and more, administrators were embracing technology, and the next 'big thing' that it promised on a regular basis, as the solution to student underachievement.

The process started off mildly enough, with the introduction of video (reel-to-reel was actually the first format used in the classroom) as a supplement to instruction, but by the time I had retired, whiteboards, school wi-fi networks, etc. were starting to gain currency. As my last administrator said, we have to hold their interest with new technology, a statement I took as sad evidence of pedogogical bankruptcy.

All the while, I was dubious of each new marvel; any reservations I openly expressed were readily dismissed, the assumption being that I was some kind of Luddite naturally resistant to change. And of course, for those who harboured notions of advancement, objecting to any new 'paradigm' would have been tantamount to career suicide, the institution of education quite Machiavellian in imposing its own brand of control on critical thinking.

It was therefore with some satisfaction that I read a piece in today's Star entitled Let’s unplug the digital classroom. Written by Doug Mann, professor in the sociology department and in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, it argues that the ubiquity of digital technology in educational settings is not an unalloyed good, and suggests what some would regard as drastic measures in an effort to curb the distractions students fall prey to whilst in the thrall of that technology.

Cross-posted at Politics and Its Discontents.

The Positive Side of Failure

There is a thought-provoking column in today's Globe and Mail by Roy MacGregor, who offers his reaction to a high school principal considering banning 'F's' because it 'hurts kids' feelings.'

Many teachers, especially the veterans, will find much truth in his views on the potentially positive results of failure:

The Fs in my past stand for first-rate life lessons

ROY MacGREGOR

From Monday's Globe and Mail
November 17, 2008 at 12:36 AM EST

Just my luck.

Not only born in the wrong century, but in the wrong province.
Were I heading into high school this year in Saskatoon, there's an excellent chance I would escape ever receiving that report card that sits in an old folder in the filing cabinet: History F… Algebra F… Chemistry F…. French F… Latin F…each “F” written and circled in red ink – just in case my parents might miss them.

No, if this bright young lad were headed for Nutana Collegiate, there wouldn't be much fear, as the “F” letter may soon be banned there.

Apparently, it hurts kids' feelings.

“We don't need to degrade the student by giving them a number,” the school principal was quoted this weekend as saying. “Incomplete” or “no mark” would amount to the same thing, but not so “demoralizing” as an actual “F” – so as of the end of January, the “F” may be dropped from the Nutana alphabet.

I could have used that a hundred years ago in that small Ontario town as I dragged my sorry way back up over the hills to a home where family members were already practising their fist pumps in anticipation of much earlier letters in the alphabet.

Back then, I would gladly have traded my place in the vice-principal's office with those of Nutana, but not in retrospect. Over time, I came to mark that slap-in-the-face kick-in-the-seat-of-the-pants as the best thing that ever happened. It was about discovering you just couldn't slide through without paying the slightest attention. When the school let me back in after some inappropriate snivelling, I had learned a lesson that didn't have a classroom – and I like to think I never forgot it.

We don't spend enough time on the plus side of failure.

It was interesting to watch Michael Ignatieff this week as he announced he was once again running for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada and practically boasted about his spectacular flameout in the same quest two years ago. And the reception among pundits this time round seemed curiously warmer, as if failure first time round had somehow made him a more rounded and more attractive candidate.

Certainly failure did not hold back Saskatchewan's most famous politician. John Diefenbaker ran six times before he finally won an election, then ran, and lost, twice for the Conservative leadership before finally becoming Prime Minister of Canada with what was then the largest majority victory ever.

In Peter C. Newman's instantly celebrated new book Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Newman points out that Asper's magnificent failure in politics (he was once leader of the Manitoba Liberals) drove him back to business, where he eventually built his massive media empire.

But that's just politics, where ultimate failure is a given – at least in a country like Canada where the citizens tend to eat their own grown-ups.

The arts are no different. British mystery author John Creasey was rejected 743 times before selling his first novel – and went on to publish at least 500 more. Pearl S. Buck had a dozen rejection slips before The Good Earth found a publisher.

British author J.K. Rowling is the world's most successful living writer – a billionaire who has sold hundreds of millions of her Harry Potter books – and yet her convocation address this past June to the graduates of Harvard University was entitled: The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.

Harvard grads, she said, might not be very well acquainted with failure, but before they come up against it – as we all do – they might like to look at it in a different light. She wasn't claiming failure was any fun, but she did think it sometimes necessary and often helpful.

There was a time, Rowling told the puzzled students, when “by every standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.” Seven years after her own graduation, her marriage had failed, she was a single mother and unemployed.

She began scribbling away in coffee shops on a book about wizards.

“Failure,” she said, “meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”

Setbacks, Rowling argued, make one stronger, not weaker. Knowing you can survive a setback and move on makes one “secure in your ability to survive” and teaches you more about yourself than any examination can.

“It is impossible,” she said, “to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

She was speaking to Harvard University, but I hope her words are heard by Nutana Collegiate, which I'm sure is a fine school with a fine principal.
The principal might, however, like to reconsider.

The only school letter I ever earned was an “F.”

And it was richly deserved.

Good Staffrooms and School Morale

Although this month marks the beginning of the third year of my retirement from the classroom, September has always seemed to me to be about both new beginnings and reflections on past experience. With that in mind, please indulge my thoughts on something that I believe is vital to teachers, a supportive staffroom.

For me, a supportive staffroom is almost synonymous with, but not necessarily identical to supportive and nourishing colleagues. In my last 17 years of teaching, I was truly blessed to work in a collegial environment that emerged in part no doubt by both the geography of my school and the physical arrangements within the staffroom. Our school was a large one, divided into what was known as the East and West Wings. Fortunate to be a member of a department in the West Wing, I was part of a cadre that nurtured, supported, debated and sometimes vehemently disagreed with each another. For me, the staffroom was a refuge, an oasis, and a nexus of fervent ideas.

Why is the staffroom here not merely a metaphor for collegiality? Part of the answer lies in the fact that in this staffroom, which, over lunch periods, was the meeting place of between 20 to 30 people, dominated by the English Department but including staff from science, co-op, drama and art, had only one long lunch table. This meant that anyone seated there had to be prepared to join in the discussions or simply adjourn to the sofa, recliner, or computer workstation. Few chose those options. The majority lingered and participated. More on those discussions later.

The other reason the staffroom is not intended as a metaphor or metonym (I’m sorry, once an English teacher, always an English teacher!) is the fact that there was no administrative presence in the West Wing. In the early 90’s, the then principal moved her office to the East Wing, the main part of the school, which, of course made eminent sense. Although we sometimes complained that student behavioural problems in our wing were exacerbated by the absence of an office for one of the two vice-principals, I think we ultimately benefitted from their absence for a number of reasons.

To explain those reasons, a contrast with the East Wing staffroom is necessary. That room, serving the majority of staff which at one time numbered close to 100, was merely a few steps from the central office and the school’s administration. Indeed, the principal and the vp’s used it as their eatery as well. This fact, coupled with the arrangement of tables, worked against the development of the kind of collegiality I am talking about here. There were a number of small circular tables in that room, capable of accommodating probably six at the maximum, and the tables were not especially close to one another, so that each group or clique was essentially self-contained. Granted, in one end of that staffroom there were a couple of couches, but in occasional visits there, few sat after completing their lunches. Most tended to simply return to their ‘workstations.’ As well, I can understand how the presence of administrators nearby might have dampened people’s enthusiasm for voicing and debating strong opinions.

I believe the above two factors strongly militated against the development of the kind of culture that we enjoyed in the West Wing. Our discussions, ranging from pedagogy to politics, religion to remediation, domesticity to divorce, administrative traits and shortcomings, etc. knew few bounds; coupled with the resultant camaraderie, this atmosphere represented, for me, what effective education is all about; through the nurturing of the professional soul and the cultivation of the spirit of inquiry and healthy skepticism, I like to think we helped each other to become better teachers.

Viewed in the later years by administration as some kind of repository of discontent, our staffroom, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, seemed to make the administration feel threatened; hence 2 out of the 3 administrators present when I retired seldom visited. We were seen as a problem, and often times the principal would make sure that young teachers did not have classes on that side of the school, so as to minimize the risk of ‘contamination’ with non-corporatist thinking.

And the latter is to me what much of education has become; where independence was once fostered or at least tolerated, compliance to every last detail of educational orthodoxy, whether locally or provincially generated, is demanded.

So while the West Wing still exists, and former colleagues retain independence there, I know the clock is ticking very loudly. I salute them, I commend them, and I mourn the inevitable passing of a noble tradition.

My Letter to Margaret Wente

Since I enjoyed Margaret Wente's last two columns on education so much, my wife suggested I write her a letter. The following is what I sent her:

Dear Ms Wente:

Although I have rarely agreed with your perspectives over the years, as a retired high school teacher I very much appreciate the truths you’ve addressed in your last two columns on education. As well, I respect the fact that you chose not to ‘crank out’ a couple of quick pieces by blaming the usual suspects, teachers themselves.

The theme of your column today reminded me of something that happened around 1990. Although a veteran secondary English teacher by that point, I was relatively new to the school, located in an affluent community. During an early departmental meeting our head reminded everyone to make sure that we evaluated our students’ reading ability within two weeks of the semester. I then asked her, “What do we do with this information, Joanne?” She replied, with a laugh, “I knew you were going to ask that question, Lorne.” That comment was the end of the discussion of the issue.

Over the years I had often wondered about that ‘answer,’ and the conclusion I ultimately drew was that the directive toward early semester reading assessment was my department head’s subtle way of conveying the idea of making ‘accommodations’ without actually saying so. Having retired in 2006, I can assure you that there is no longer any such subtlety or ambiguity in school policy.

What deeply troubles me now is that the combination of political, parental and administrative pressure leaves new teachers little opportunity to develop their professional integrity. The problem is compounded by the fact that those teachers with knowledge and experience of the past who could provide some context for younger colleagues are rapidly disappearing through retirement. As well, I am sorry to say, although I am a supporter of unions and federations, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation has, in my view, become simply another political entity. The system now demands unquestioning acceptance of political and administrative fiat, and that is exactly what it will get. Unfortunately, such a result, while politically expedient, is anathema to real education.

One other aspect that you might want to explore is the role that ‘careerism’ plays in public education’s malaise. In the last portion of my career, it was rare to encounter either a principal or a superintendent who didn’t put his or her own career ambitions above the well-being of education. To question in any meaningful way the educational orthodoxy generated either by the local director or the Ministry of Education is, as they say, a career-limiting move. Yet is the latter too cruel a fate to endure, given the broader good that is at stake?

Once again, congratulations on your thoughtful education columns. I am still in fairly regular contact with several of my younger former colleagues, and will be emailing them to recommend the pieces.

A Hit, A Very Palpable Hit

Apologies for the arcane, perhaps even pretentious title of this post, but being a retired English teacher, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to use a line from my favorite Shakespearean play, Hamlet. While the Bard’s work has nothing directly to do with today’s topic, it does relate to its subject: education.

I mentioned earlier that I have seldom agreed with Globe columnist Margaret Wente’s perspective, but her column today, just as her earlier one, speaks real truth in its exploration of causes of public education dysfunction. While obviously not the final truth, it is well worth considering, and I suspect few experienced teachers (other, perhaps, than those currying administrative favour) will disagree with her observations.

EDCATIONAL ROMANTICISM

For whom the bell curve tolls

Students vary widely in academic ability, but we pretend everyone can be above average

MARGARET WENTE

September 6, 2008

Whenever I write about higher education, I get letters like this: "A large percentage of our students come into college woefully unprepared. Close to half of our first-year students in business are unable to maintain a 2.0 average in their first year, the standard required for advancement and graduation. ... A large percentage have poor note-taking skills, below-average reading comprehension skills, and an inability to solve problems and complete projects without being given step-by-step to-do lists."

The letter comes from a teacher at a local community college, where the first-year attrition rate - to say nothing of the costs in money, time and student self-esteem - is depressingly high. We all think we know what's wrong. It's the public education system. They're handing out high-school diplomas to just about anyone who bothers to show up.

But the education system (for all its shortcomings) doesn't really deserve to take the fall. The real problem is the cult of educational romanticism, which holds that students' abilities are far more equal and far more malleable than they really are. Educational romanticism has led us to believe that every student can become at least average, and that the right teaching strategies can close the achievement gap.
Not so, says Charles Murray, author of a provocative new book called Real Education. You may also know him as the much-loathed co-author of The Bell Curve, and stop reading right here. But hang on, because the central truth asserted by this book is one that is self-evident to every teacher (and every student) I have ever met: Ability varies, and it varies a lot.

Most teachers can tell within a week how their students rank in ability. (So can the students.) These rankings barely budge between 8 and 18. Neither do students' test scores, and neither does the spread between highest and lowest. In terms of academic ability, people stay pretty much where they started out, no matter how good the schooling they receive.

No one likes to talk about this fact, because it sounds both elitist and defeatist. So let's talk sports. A few of us are Mats Sundin, and a few of us are so clumsy that we walk into walls. The rest of us are widely distributed in between. Not all the practice in the world will get us into Junior A, because we simply are not Junior A material.

No matter how hard we try, argues Mr. Murray, "some people are just not smart enough to succeed on a conventional academic track." What this means is, we are asking schools to do the impossible. In the real world, even the best schools will always have students who perform below grade level. The ambitious goals we've set for raising academic achievement across the board are unattainable - unless we water down the tests. And the only way to reach a high-school graduation rate of 85 per cent (that's Ontario's ambitious target) is to grant diplomas to kids whose reading and writing skills are barely more than rudimentary.

So don't blame the schools for watering down their diplomas. The system made them do it. That's why a BA is now the entry-level credential for so many jobs, and why a postgraduate degree has become the new BA. It's a sorting mechanism for employers - a crude certificate of cognitive ability.

Educational romanticism does the most damage to kids who are the least able. For students with low levels of ability, toughening the standards (by, say, forcing "applied" students to take more demanding math, as Ontario recently tried to do) doesn't raise their ability. It just dooms them to certain failure. By forcing them to try work they can't do, we've condemned these kids to 12 years of frustration, misery and humiliation. And by forcing them to share classes with kids of much higher ability, we simply reinforce their sense of failure.

"Educational romanticism pursues unattainable egalitarian ideals of education achievement at the expense of attainable egalitarian ideals of personal dignity," Mr. Murray writes. How do we get out of this? Restructure the curriculum for vocational students in a way that prepares them for the world of work and channels their abilities toward work they can succeed at.

Educational romanticism has also led us to believe that a BA is a ticket to success - and that many, maybe most, kids should be capable of getting one. Both beliefs are wrong. The job market is exploding for skilled technicians of all kinds, in health care, entertainment, hospitality, and so on. Good community colleges and trade schools - not more second-rate universities - is where we should be investing. Good electricians are harder to find than good lawyers, and not badly paid. But middle-class kids and their parents have been brainwashed into thinking that, without a BA, they're doomed. Even guidance counsellors now see their role as encouraging everyone to go on to higher education. Too many of them don't talk straight with their students about their futures - and if they do, the parents protest.
There's more than one reason why so many kids arrive at business college or university so woefully unprepared. Maybe their high schools really did do a lousy job. But maybe their abilities are marginal. Maybe, no matter how hard they try, they can't do the work.

If you read The Globe and Mail, I guarantee that you are comfortably on the right side of the bell curve. (Don't be flattered. You did nothing to earn it.) You take your reading and calculating skills for granted. All your closest friends are more or less like you, and you probably have no idea what it means to be of average or below-average ability. Real Education might convince you that educational romanticism is the worst thing that ever happened to struggling kids. We don't live in Lake Wobegon after all. And the truth is, we never did.

Margaret Wente on Education

Although I rarely find myself in agreement with her views, Margaret Wente recently wrote a column on the impact of political interference on education with which I found myself in complete accord. The only thing she didn’t address is the effect such interference has on the integrity and goodwill of committed teachers everywhere.

High-school daze: In Ontario, failure is not an option
MARGARET WENTE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
August 30, 2008 at 1:10 AM EDT

When I was a kid, everybody knew the rules and the penalties for breaking them. When the teacher walked into class, you stood up. If you arrived late, you got a late slip. If you were late a few times, you got a detention. If you handed in an assignment late without a good excuse, you were marked down, and if you were caught plagiarizing, you got a zero.

The teachers were expected to be fair but strict. I had one who used to prowl the classroom and whack our desks with a yardstick if we were daydreaming. "If you don't shape up [whack], you'll wind up selling ribbons at Kresge's," she'd warn.
Kresge's is long gone, and so is that teaching style. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. The world is now a more complicated place. The student body is far more diverse, and the education stakes are higher. Today, school boards and governments have decreed that schools must do everything in their power to help every kid succeed - even if they have to redefine "success" to do it.

In Ontario's secondary schools, teachers are told not to penalize students for late work. The Ottawa public school board has decreed that students who plagiarize will be allowed to do the assignment again. In some schools, students are allowed to stroll into class whenever they want. And a provincially mandated system of "credit recovery" means it's so easy for them to make up failed courses that they don't have to do much more than show up.

"Credit recovery" was devised as a strategy to help "at-risk students" (as they are now known) to stay in school. As one expert explained it, "Too many students are short credits and lose interest and hope." Instead of having to repeat the whole course, students are now allowed to make up only the parts they've failed. They can do this in different ways, including something called "experiential learning." The usual way is to attend a credit recovery class once a day for a few weeks. He doesn't have to pass a test. All he has to do is persuade his credit recovery supervisor (not the teacher who failed him) to give him a 51.

"There's a lot more leniency and a lot less work in credit recovery," says a teacher at one middle-of-the-pack Toronto school. "Kids know that, if they fail, they can do the class again in six weeks." Credit recovery is also a convenient way for some teachers to shuffle the losers out of their hair. "It has turned into a huge program here," says the teacher, who, like most, won't speak on the record for fear of professional consequences. "As long as you show up, you're not gonna fail."

The "success" rate of students in credit recovery is amazingly high, a fact that may or may not be related to the relentless pressure on the schools to boost their graduation rates. But teachers worry that credit recovery has watered down the meaning of a diploma.

"A credit for Johnny is not a credit for Janey," says Neil Orford, a history teacher and department chair at Centre Dufferin District High School in Shelburne. "The integrity of the credit is in trouble across the province."

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has declared himself the education premier. He's investing hundreds of millions more in the system. He's raising the high-school exit age to 18 and plans to introduce all-day kindergarten. He has also pledged to raise the high-school graduation rate to 85 per cent by 2010-11. (It's 75 per cent now.) To meet this target, large numbers of "at risk" students will need to be salvaged and given every chance at success.

One controversial part of this strategy is to stop penalizing students for late work. The reasoning goes that lateness is a behavioural issue, not a pedagogical one, and that students should have as much time as they need to do the work to the best of their ability.

Not surprisingly, teachers regard this policy as idiotic. It's something only an educational romantic could dream up, because it doesn't work in real life.
"The late issue is a real hotbed," says Mr. Orford. "We're really struggling with the ethical dimension of it."

The ethical dimension is obvious. Some kids can get away with murder, and all the other kids know it. The teachers have been pushing back, and the result is that every school (and often every teacher) has different practices. After much struggle with the authorities, some teachers at Mr. Orford's school have adopted a work-around known as "windows of opportunity," which means that students are given one provisional deadline and one real one.

At other schools, chaos prevails. "At the end of the semester, I have kids who say, 'What have I missed, what do I need to do to pass?' " says the teacher who asked not to be identified. She is younger and less experienced than Mr. Orford. "It drives teachers crazy. But a lot of them say, 'Oh, just do what the policy says.' "

Talking to teachers, you get the overwhelming sense that many of them are on their own, caught in a Kafkaesque world of bizarre policies imposed from on high that they can't do much about. "There are no tardiness policies at our school," says the younger teacher. "Kids are late to class more often than not, but you can't do anything about it, and they know it. I've tried giving them a quiz at the beginning of the class, but then parents say you have to give them a chance to make it up. You can't deduct marks. You can ask them to stay for a detention, but they don't come. I'm always asking teachers, 'What do you do?' But there's nothing."

Thankfully, most teachers still like their jobs. "I love what I do," says Mr. Orford, who adds that only a minority of students abuse the system. The younger teacher says, "The good kids make it all worthwhile." But both of them worry about what lessons their students — including the good ones — are learning about fairness and respect, responsibility and self-discipline.

Coincidentally, these qualities — fairness, respect, responsibility, self-discipline — are the very ones that Mr. McGuinty has promised to instill in every child across the province, in another of his big initiatives known as "character education." Which raises the tantalizing question: Why not make a start by rolling back the late policy?

"The teachers are desperately looking for moral leadership on this," says Mr. Orford, "and, in many cases, they can't find it."

Bullying in the Workplace

For any teacher that has ever been bullied by an administrator, or is currently being bullied, there is an interesting article that provoked over 400 reader comments on the New York Times website. Check it out if you get the chance.

The Culture of Concealment Part 1

Thanks to the recent publication of the school safety panel report investigating violence in Toronto schools, the general public has received a rare glimpse into some unpleasant truths about contemporary secondary education. One of the newspaper headlines, ‘Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence,’ was followed by the revelation of a board–wide staff failure to report problems due to fears that revealing anything reflecting badly on the board would be “a career-limiting move.” Unfortunately, however, people living outside of Toronto have little reason to feel smug. This culture of concealment is widespread in public education today.

Although now retired, as a teacher for thirty years I witnessed my own share of questionable decisions and behaviour based more on political expedience than educational principle, and most seemed to spring from the almost pathological fear many administrators have of dealing with unhappy parents or having their schools look in any way less than perfect. Sadly, such a short-sighted philosophy incurs both immediate and long- term consequences. A few of my own experiences may help to illustrate.

Years ago I broke up a game of hackey sack in which one student was being physically assaulted by two others; after delivering them to the office with a full report, I was dismayed to later learn that no discipline had been meted out, as the physical abuse had “been part of the game.” When I insisted to the vice-principal that suspension was warranted, he protested that such action would require him “to answer some hard questions from the parents.”

For several years now, smoking has been banned on school property. It is the practice of bylaw officials to inform schools of the date they will be visiting for enforcement purposes. For a time at my school, however, when such a visit was pending, daily announcements were made warning the students that the ‘smoke police’ would soon be arriving. The common perception amongst staff was that these announcements were made to ensure that no student would receive a citation, thereby minimizing the chance of parental outrage.

A strategy of containment is at times practiced by wary administrators. On one occasion, a student who had urinated on the floor outside of the school’s photo developing lab was apprehended by a custodian. I subsequently learned that the perpetrator was ‘punished’ with a week of cafeteria clean-up duty, and when I complained that such an egregious violation of the school merited a suspension, I was shocked to learn that the offender’s parents hadn’t even been notified, as administrators were concerned that there might be “home issues.”

Bullying, despite board rhetoric about zero tolerance, is another problem compounded by administrative ineptitude. In one incident, a vice-principal told me I would be receiving a new student, three weeks into the semester, as she had been the victim of bullying in one of her classes. When I inquired as to why the administrator was victimizing her a second time by revamping her entire academic schedule instead of punishing the bullies, I was told that the identity of her tormentors was unknown. Two days later, I learned from a very reliable source that the administration did, in fact, know who they were.

Perhaps the worst example of administrative indifference to school safety occurred several years ago. A colleague was threatened with death by one of her students, which she immediately reported to the office. The student who made the threat was told that if he ever did it again, he would face suspension. The victim suffered tremendous psychological distress as a result of this event, and was off on a sick leave for a significant amount of time afterwards, fearful that the student would, in fact, carry out his threat.

In Part 2, I will discuss some of the effects of decisions prompted by policies of parental appeasement, avoidance, and concealment.

School Safety - Part 3

Once more, I have included in bold print the parts that seem particularly pertinent to teachers. As well, the politically expedient comments of Gerry Connelly, the Director of Education for the TDSB, have been bolded. One fact the article fails to make clear is that any criticism of your employer can be grounds for dismissal, undoubtedly another reason for the culture of fear and concealment endemic in education.

SCHOOL SAFETY: UNREPORTED ASSAULTS
Violent incidents hushed up, union says
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
January 12, 2008

Toronto's high-school teachers' union confirmed yesterday that educators are told by administrators to keep safety issues quiet for fear of damaging their schools' reputations.

Simultaneously, principals moved to tackle the hundreds of unreported violent assaults taking place on school grounds in the wake of a damning report on school safety.

Doug Jolliffe, president of the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, said union members are reluctant to speak out about violence because they are rarely protected by their superiors.

A culture of fear permeates the TDSB, Mr. Jolliffe said, echoing the conclusion drawn by criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, who led a high-profile investigation into the issue.

His panel heard from employees of the Toronto District School Board, who said that revealing violent incidents in schools, including robberies and sexual assaults, would be "career-limiting" because it would reflect negatively on the board.

Mr. Falconer was asked to report on school safety after 15-year-old Jordan Manners was shot to death at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in May.

The panel's final report, made public this week, describes the country's largest school board as rife with violent attacks swept under the rug.


"The principal's argument would be if this stuff gets out, it reflects badly on the school," Mr. Jolliffe said. "If it reflects badly on the school, then we'll have fewer students here. If we have fewer students, then we're going to lose jobs here."


The union chief added: "I don't agree with that, but that's what they say to people."
Meanwhile, principals met with the TDSB's director of education, Gerry Connelly, to discuss the report. Principals were asked to speak with staff, students and parents about what can be done to rectify the problem.

"One of my main priorities is to ensure that we have a culture of trust and openness," Ms. Connelly said.

"Fear of reprisal ... was most unfortunate."

Unfortunate, but very real, Mr. Jolliffe said.

"We can't afford to do that any more. We need to figure out what we're going to do about it," he said. "We need to make our schools safer."

School Safety - Part 2

The findings of the school safety panel investigating violence in the Toronto District School Board were reported in today’s Globe and Mail. Teachers, I think, will see the almost universal truth expressed in the section I have placed in bold print.

Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence
CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND OMAR EL AKKAD
From Friday's Globe and Mail
January 11, 2008 at 4:01 AM EST

Teachers and school staff are too intimidated to speak out about violence in Toronto's public schools, a damning report charges.

A school safety panel revealed yesterday that employees of the Toronto District School Board told them they feared that revealing school safety issues or anything that would reflect negatively on the board would be "a career-limiting move."
As a result, hundreds of incidents that should have been reported were not. This "culture of fear" led to a failure of the system and its overseers to protect students from violence, including robberies and sexual assault, on school grounds, the report said.

"Jordan Manners died on May 23, 2007, of flat neglect, pure neglect," panel chair Julian Falconer said yesterday, referring to the 15-year-old whose shooting sparked the inquiry.

The panel's findings had officials at Canada's largest school board facing uncomfortable questions about why so many violent incidents go unreported, and why it took the death of a 15-year-old to prompt a review of school safety.

"I think that until [the Jordan Manners shooting] happened, we probably thought we had a pretty good handle on it," said John Campbell, chair of the TDSB. "And I think what that did is it really drew attention to the fact that we didn't have a very good handle on it."

Mr. Falconer said many officials within the school system are too intimidated to report violent incidents. Many of the school officials interviewed by the panel refused to go on the record for fear of reprisal.

"People are afraid and it's not just students; it's teachers," Mr. Falconer said.
Toronto District School Board officials hastily convened a press conference yesterday. Both the School Community Safety Advisory Panel's final report and the press conference were scheduled for early next week, but the report was leaked to virtually all the city's major news media outlets on Wednesday.

The panel - led by Mr. Falconer - was asked to report on school safety after Jordan was shot to death at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in North York.
The report, which is almost 1,000 pages, describes the country's largest school system as rife with violence, including robberies and sexual assaults - all unreported by school officials.


The lack of reporting is the biggest problem the board must deal with, according the Manners family's lawyer.

"That is one of the greatest concerns," said Courtney Betty. "That code of silence continues to be maintained."

Mr. Betty said it remains to be seen the extent to which the TDSB will continue the "mirage" that everything is all right within the school system.


Jordan's mother, Laureen Small, is especially upset that a summary of the report was not given to her in advance, the lawyer said. Ms. Small found out about its contents from news stories yesterday.

Since Jordan's killing, Mr. Betty said, no one from the TDSB has contacted Ms. Small to express condolences.

Gerry Connelly, the TDSB's director of education, said that while the school board's own information shows that students feel safe in their schools, the report clearly indicated more work is needed.

"With respect to weapons, with respect to violence, with respect to sexual assaults: our students and our staff must feel clearly, absolutely safe and they must feel empowered to report any incident or suspicion that comes to their notice."

The school board is piloting a "Safeline" that students can call anonymously 24 hours a day to report incidents.

But Mr. Falconer said there is no "quick fix" to the board's problems.
"You could fill a Home Hardware with the amount of knives kids bring to school, but we don't find them," he said.

Since Jan. 13, 2006, the panel says, it found 177 violent incidents in schools across the district, including gun incidents, robberies and sexual assaults. During its inquiry, the panel came across allegations of a gang sexual assault of a Muslim female student at C.W. Jefferys.

At Westview Centennial Secondary School near the corner of Jane and Finch, 29 female students said they had been victims of major sexual assault at the school in the past two years, according to the report.

The panel issued 126 recommendations, including that the board employ canine units to sniff out weapons in a "non-intrusive" manner.

The panel also calls on the Ministry of Education to strike a task force on implementing the recommendations.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne would not comment on specific recommendations in the report, saying she needed more time to study it. However, she said the ministry will fund more social workers and counsellors and continues to pump more money into the school system.

"There's always more to do," she said. "We've been changing the funding formula every year."

Some of the panel's other recommendations received mixed reviews.
A Toronto police officer questioned a proposal for each school to set up a "student hot-line," manned by pupils familiar with such issues as bullying, augmented by a TDSB-created website allowing students to relay anonymous crime-related tips.
Such tip lines are already in place, albeit in different forms.

"And we don't need to reinvent the wheel," said Constable Scott Mills, who runs Toronto's Crime Stoppers school program.

Constable Mills said he offered to speak to the Falconer panel, but none of its members got back to him.

At C.W. Jefferys yesterday, students didn't seem too concerned about the dire condition the report says their school is in. However, some said that students simply don't talk about violent incidents.

"The reputation going around is: when you talk, you're basically a snitch," said student Chandé Wilmot. "[People worry] that they might get beat up."
With reports from James Bradshaw, Timothy Appleby and Anthony Capuano
*****
Violent acts

Examples of violent incidents involving Toronto public school students:
February, 2006 - A high-school student was in a laneway behind the school passing a rifle back and forth with another student. Shots were fired into a window at the back of a house.

February, 2006 - Two female secondary-school students were in a conflict over a boy. One girl brought a knife to school and used it to threaten the other girl. Police investigated and cautioned the girl with the knife. The school issued a 20-day suspension.

April, 2006 - Five secondary-school students robbed another student of his MP3 player at the back of the school. The victim was searched for money but only had 25 cents in his wallet, which the suspects took. All five students were arrested and charged with robbery.

September, 2006 - A male secondary-school teacher entered the staff washroom and caught two students engaged in a sex act. Both students were taken to the office and the administration called the police. Even though the sex act was determined to be consensual, criminal charges were laid against the male student because of the age of the female. The school was to discipline the female student.

March, 2007 - A male student at a high school tried to drag a female student into the washroom to perform fellatio. She broke free and ran to the principal. When arresting the male, police found 10 dime bags of marijuana.

May, 2007 - A student brought a BB gun to school and shot at two students. The student was charged by police.

September, 2007 - Several boys were allegedly involved in the sexual initiation of a female high-school student, who told a teacher about the incident. Police are investigating.

November, 2007 - A secondary-school student assaulted another student with a knife on school property. Police arrested the student and told him to keep away from the school. The principal issued a 20-day suspension pending possible expulsion.

Source: The Road to Health: A Final Report on School Safety

Nemesis is Sometimes a Sweet Thing

As much as I would like to claim personal magnanimity and say I take no pleasure in the misfortune of others, the story from today’s Globe and Mail that I am reprinting below made my day in its exposure of administrative duplicity. As anyone who has taught for any period of time will know, management, ranging from school to senior administration, frequently has a seemingly endless capacity for concealing things that reflect badly on their schools. I attribute this to the likelihood that the people who are attracted to management tend to be political, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In any event, my prediction is that unlike teachers who might have done the same thing, these administrators will not lose their jobs. In fact, one of them mentioned in the article has already retired. But that double standard is perhaps the basis of a future post.

C.W. Jefferys staff charged with failing to report alleged assault
TIMOTHY APPLEBY
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
January 8, 2008 at 4:36 AM EST

Days before the release of a report on safety in Toronto schools, three senior staff members at the high school that spawned the inquiry face troubles of their own.
The former principal and two vice-principals at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute have been charged under Ontario's Child and Family Services Act with failing to report an alleged sexual assault on a student, Toronto District School Board education director Gerry Connelly confirmed yesterday.

Disposition of those non-criminal charges, however, will likely wait until the courts deal with the six young people charged in the alleged sex attack, in which a 14-year-old Muslim girl told of being assaulted in a school washroom.
Principal Charis Newton-Thompson and vice-principals Silvio Tallevi and Stan Gordon face fines of up to $1,000 if convicted. Ms. Newton-Thompson and Mr. Gordon are on paid leave; Mr. Tallevi has retired.

The sex charges stemmed from the investigation into the death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners, shot last May inside C.W. Jefferys, a 900-student high school near Keele Street and Finch Avenue West.

Two males aged 17 at the time of the killing face charges of first-degree murder.
Jordan's death prompted creation of a panel examining school safety issues, led by criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, whose findings are expected to be aired early next week.

Among other things, the panel learned of the alleged attack on the girl, in which she is believed to have been lured inside a school washroom in October, 2006, and forced to perform oral sex on one or more boys while the others kept watch.

The six youths have been charged with gang sexual assault, forcible confinement and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

The CFSA charges, in turn, reflect allegations aired at the panel hearings that school staff became aware of the washroom incident but failed to report it to police or the Children's Aid Society, as the law requires with allegations of physical or sexual assault.

"Following policy, we sent the three administrators home and notified the police," Ms. Connelly said yesterday. "Now they've charged the three a

Teaching After Retirement?

As mentioned in my last post, I am opposed to retired teachers taking up supply positions, assuming the supply exceeds the demand. What follows is an article I wrote about a year before I retired, stating the reasons for my position. It appeared in a local teacher publication, and the response I got was, shall we say, spirited.


Teacher Retirement

What I am about to write, I know, will not be well-received by many colleagues of my generation, i.e., those who are planning to retire in the near future. Indeed, were it not for the fact that this is my last year of teaching, undoubtedly I would lack the moral authority to assert the following: in my view, doing supply work in retirement, with one notable exception, is wrong, and does a grave disservice to recent graduates in education.

How did I arrive at this conclusion? I’m sure that if we think back to the dawning of our own careers, many of us will see parallels to the situations that new teachers face today: a dearth of opportunities, except in select disciplines, and the very real prospect of having to relocate far from family and friends. That was certainly my experience, and it is not one that I am particularly keen to see young people face today.

Since stable employment eluded me in Ontario, I moved to and taught in Manitoba for many years, returning in 1988, one of the most compelling reasons being that my wife and I did not want our children growing up with almost no contact with their grandparents and other extended family members. It was only after toiling in supply work that I was able to secure full-time employment as teachers, especially department heads, got to know me and my work; as well, I was able to see the job postings in staff rooms, thereby giving me an edge over outside applicants.

Today, our young people are being denied such opportunities. When was the last time a new teacher did supply work in your school? It has been more than two years at my place of employment. To remedy this situation clearly will require retiring teachers to adopt a new perspective and be prepared to make sacrifices. Certainly, I know many anticipating retirement who say they will need the money that supply work pays to augment their pensions. My response to that is simple: either defer your retirement, be prepared to live a little more modestly, or begin a second career. Do not fall into a comforting rationalization about how students will be especially well-served because of your vast experience. The bald truth is that the vast majority of supply work entails babysitting or monitoring, not actual teaching. Nor should you feel that you somehow deserve to teach after retirement because you have paid your dues. What would make any of us think we are owed anything by the system?

I mentioned at the outset that there really is only one exception to the opinion I have expressed. That is when a teacher, either through maternity leave or illness, will be off the job for the remainder of a semester. Assuming the illness or leave occurs sometime after the semester has begun, it is, I believe, highly desirable to have an experienced (presumably recently retired) teacher assume duties to ensure continuity in the classroom. It would simply be too difficult for most new teachers to master the curriculum in a short time and provide that continuity. Indeed, last year at my school two of my former colleagues, whom I hold in very high esteem, did exactly that, and the students were indeed well-served by their conscientious professionalism.

The sentiments I’ve expressed in this article will undoubtedly strike some as either harsh or cold-hearted. I think they are neither. It is only when we admit to ourselves that we’ve had a pretty good run that we can begin to recognize it is time to yield to the younger generation who, once they attain full-time employment, undoubtedly will acquit themselves in the job with honour and vigor, just as we did when we started out, so long ago.

Towards an Effective School Attendance Policy

While this is my first entry for some time, I would like to continue discussing school attendance policies. In my last post I suggested that schools and boards rarely have the stomach to implement and enforce meaningful policies for a myriad of reasons. Today I would like to look at one from the past that was quite effective.

When I taught in Manitoba, I was fortunate to work for a division that eventually developed a policy that was stringent yet fair and, for the most part, enforced. While many years have elapsed since that time, if memory serves me, a letter was sent home after 3 absences advising the parents of our policies and the importance of regular attendance, etc. After five or six absences, the student was given a detention, and ultimately, if he or she accrued ten, an appearance before a principal/vice- principal, board member, teacher and superintendent was mandatory. At this meeting, the truant had to explain why he/she should be allowed to continue in the course, after which a contract was drawn up which permitted no more than two more absences, no matter what the reason. While you might think that this was a cumbersome, draconian and time-consuming process, the truth is that such meetings and contracts were rare, owing to the fact that when they were violated, the student was removed from the course and placed in study hall for that period every day. In other words, this policy had teeth, and almost no one ever violated the contract.

Despite its success, I remember one time when one of my students violated the contract and I had every expectation that he would be removed. After talking with his father, who felt I was being grossly unfair, despite the fact that it was his son who had skipped class, I received a call from the Superintendent. He had spoken to the father and suggested that this was a time when we should show some compassion; I responded that there were no mitigating circumstances whatsoever, and not to enforce the contract was to essentially render it meaningless. Being both young and rash, I also told him he would have my resignation if he didn’t support me on this (a career-limiting move, as they say). After I talked to him, I then phoned a trustee that I knew fairly well, told him the situation and asked for his support.

The outcome was that the Superintendent was overruled by the board, and the lad was removed from my class. Needless to say, relations with the Superintendent were ‘frosty’ from that point onward. Yet for me, the gamble was worth it, as I have always believed that educational integrity has to be practiced on all levels, from the top down. Without it, we really stand for nothing but expedience, which serves no one.

School Attendance Policies

One of my biggest frustrations as a teacher was contending with anemic attendance policies. Although the rules on paper often looked impressive, in my experience there was rarely the political will to enforce them. The only exception was during the time I spent teaching in Manitoba where we developed a stringent policy which, if ignored, ultimately resulted in the removal of the student from class. But even there, administrative interference occasionally arose. More about that in a moment.

I have always been of the belief that something is valued only if it comes at a certain price. For example, what will you treat with more respect, the computer that you worked hard for in order to buy, or the one that someone gave you? What if you could have a new computer, television or any other consumer product free whenever you wanted it? How would you feel about these products, and how would you treat them?

In my mind, the same principle is at work in education, specifically with regard to school attendance. So many schools exact virtually no price for truancy. Oh, lip service is paid to the importance of regular attendance in the student handbooks, but ultimately truancy, unless it is really egregious, (and then only rarely), is forgiven and all teachers are expected to get the errant individual caught up so that he/she “won’t feel discouraged.”
The problem with this ‘policy of compassion’ is that it does a grave disservice both to education in general and to the truant student in particular. Essentially, the message being sent is that the service we provide is not especially valuable; were it otherwise, some very stringent requirements would be in place for the utilization of that service, not the least of which would be mandatory, regular attendance. This obvious devaluation of what we offer inevitably trickles down to the students. Those who are not keen to attend in the first place quickly learn and exploit the flexibility of the attendance policy, the result increasingly being that it is the teacher, not the student, who is placed on the defensive, inasmuch as it becomes the former’s responsibility to make certain that that the truant is giving multiple opportunities to catch up.

Who is responsible for this sad state of affairs? Clearly, both parents and administrators have to share the responsibility. Parents are frequently all too willing to lie for their children, making up excuses for their multiple absences and then placing blame on teachers for not keeping them informed or sending home work. As well, administrators rarely have the stomach for confronting attendance issues, preferring to see high pass rates that are unaffected by failures due to non-attendance. Thus you will have the situation frequently arise where the student, toward the end of the semester, is given special and intensive attention via makeup assignments and the overlooking of mark gaps due to absences in order to push him/her through. The school can then claim another success story, ‘proof ‘once more that all children can succeed. But at what cost? Apparently sacrificing educational integrity is not too high a price to pay.

Next time I will discuss the very effective attendance policy we had when I taught in Manitoba years ago.

Some Timely Advice for Parents

Every teacher has had experience with students who refuse to accept responsibility for wrongdoing, often aided and abetted by their parents who are quite happy to blame everything and everyone but their kids. An interesting article in today's
Globe and Mail addresses the problem with some simple advice that, if followed by parents, might make our jobs easier. Check it out if you get the chance.

Magic as a Motivational Tool

Although I don't think this has been tried in North America, South Africa seems to be having some success in using stage magic as a tool to instill confidence and entrepreneurship in students. For the full story, please check out today's
Globe and Mail.

Facts and Arguments

In today's Facts and Arguments section of the Globe and Mail, there is an interesting article by Calvin White, a guidance counselor in British Columbia. He writes about the need to teach students to think critically and thereby help them to become more involved in the concerns of the 'real world,' something I have written about
previously. While I don't really entirely agree with his placing much of the blame on teachers, as opposed to the system itself, it certainly makes for some thought-provoking reading.

Servant Leadership

Imagine working in a school where the administration puts the needs of the organization before his or her own needs. Imagine an environment where that administration, instead of merely paying lip service to educational principle, casts aside politics, ego, ambition, and resume building, chooses to vigorously pursue excellence. This is not a utopia I am asking you to envisage. It is the world of servant leadership.

I first encountered the concept last spring while doing research for an educational project. Since there is an abundance of good and comprehensive information available on the Internet, I won’t go into a detailed explanation of it other than to say that the underlying philosophy involves managers (administrators) recognizing their staffs as the most important element in achieving the goals of the organization (effectively educating students), and do everything in their power to help the staff achieve those goals. While some object to this management approach as being little more than a form of condescension, as opposed to, for example, making the staff partners in the operation of the organization (which, in my experience usually is little more than an exercise in rhetoric), I can’t help but think that its true practice would have a revolutionary impact on staff morale and hence staff effectiveness.

As many teachers will know, the standard style of management is hierarchical, with a vast distance separating the leaders from the led. The greatest difficulty with this form is that it often involves an either conscious or unconscious condescension on the part of management. By virtue of their position, they frequently adopt propriety language betraying their true feelings about those who work ‘beneath’ them. How often have I cringed to hear those in positions of authority talk about ‘my staff’ or ‘my teachers!’ Such language and biases do nothing to foster the kind of true collaboration needed to succeed in education today.

However, one of the major impediments to servant leadership is that its success is almost entirely dependent upon the personality of the administrator. A questionnaire found on one website
underscores the difficulties of finding a true servant leader:

Do people believe that you are willing to sacrifice
your own self-interest for the good of the group?

Do people believe that you want to hear their ideas and
will value them?

Do people believe that you will understand what is
happening in their lives and how it affects them?

Do people come to you when the chips are down or
when something traumatic has happened in their lives?

Do others believe that you have a strong awareness for
what is going on?

Do others follow your requests because they want to
as opposed to because they “have to”?

Do others communicate their ideas and vision for the
organization when you are around?

Do others have confidence in your ability to anticipate
the future and its consequences?

Do others believe you are preparing the organization to
make a positive difference in the world?

Do people believe that you are committed to helping
them develop and grow?

Do people feel a strong sense of community in the organization
that you lead?

I strongly believe that there is much merit in adopting a new management model. But until school boards are willing to adopt fresh criteria in their selection processes, including psychological testing of perspective administrators, servant leadership is likely to remain a rarity in public education.