What’s Shakespeare Got To Do With Anything? – Part 2

I was thinking a little bit more about the infectious nature of bad leadership, and, while I may be stating the obvious here, probably the best validation of the concept can be found in an organization I know rather intimately – public education.

Having already written extensively about my own experiences with poor administration, I’ll try not to repeat myself here, but if we consider institutions as microcosms of society, there can be little doubt about the ripple effect when “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.” Whether at the board level or within the individual school, when teachers perceive inequity, corruption, or malfeasance (and believe me, those unsavory elements can be pervasive) but feel powerless to remedy the problems, the pernicious effect on morale is difficult to ignore. Some teachers will simply shrug their shoulders, close the door to their classroom and try to carry on doing the best job they can. Others will try to bring the wrongdoing to the union which, unless it is a contractual violation, will say it is beyond their purview. Still others, noble but naïve souls, may try to take the issue to a higher level, only to find that upper management really wants to ignore unpleasantness if it can, and more often than naught will try to threaten or punish the whistleblower. As you can see, none of the responses I’ve outlined here are satisfactory, largely because the problem continues to fester, gnawing away at teachers of good heart.

I realize that what I have written here is quite vague and theoretical sounding, but it is based on things I know but cannot be more specific about for a number of reasons. My point, however, is that just as a kind of moral malaise can beset those working within an organization, so too can the citizens of a country suffer in a similar way under poor political leadership.

Next time around I’d like to look at some possible antidotes to this illness.

What’s Shakespeare Got To Do With Anything?

Mentioning Shakespeare to a classroom of students is somewhat akin to telling them they are about to receive a massive dose of cod liver oil – something to be avoided at all costs. Maybe it’s true, as someone once said, that education is wasted on the young, because the older I get, the more I understand what the Bard has to offer to our fractured and troubled world. Today I would like to discuss only one small element of his relevance.

Being something of a ‘political junkie’ may be one of the many reasons that I took such pleasure in teaching two of Shakespeare’s greatest works: Macbeth and Hamlet. But literary merits aside, the plays’ compelling qualities are in part informed by the Elizabethan view of the universe, one that we have long since abandoned, but which, at its core, perhaps helps to explain much of the political and moral malaise of our times. Known as “The Great Chain of Being,” this view, very concisely, stipulated that there was a natural order in the universe, with everything emanating from God. Each realm, be it divine, human, animal, or mineral, had a hierarchy; remnants of that notion remain today. For example, we talk of the lion as the ‘king of the jungle; reason has priority over emotion, the eagle is deemed the head of things avian, etc. In the realm of human affairs, the country’s leader, the King, was believed to be God’s representative in the secular world, and thus was responsible for the well-being of the people. If the King was good, the nation prospered; if bad, as in the case of a usurper, the country suffered.

Both Macbeth and Hamlet deal with usurpers, people who have stolen the crown from God’s rightful representative. In both cases, the people suffer tremendously. Under the bloody dictator Macbeth, Scotland suffers a reign of terror; in Hamlet, the usurper Claudius, who has killed his brother in order to ascend to the kingship, is responsible for a moral corruption that grips Denmark.

So what’s Shakespeare got to do with anything? Well, even though power is no longer seen as coming from above, i.e., from God, but rather from below, i.e., the people, (at least in a democracy,) I have never really subscribed to the notion that government is merely a reflection of the people, that people get the government they deserve through the electoral process. After all, very few purposely vote for ineptitude, corruption, and cronyism; yet these elements seem to define so many democracies today.

The part of the Great Chain of Being so pertinent today is the infectious nature of bad leadership. Here I don’t mean the obvious consequences of being led by someone not fit to govern: abuses of basic freedoms, manipulation of truth, the abrogation of due process, catering to special interests, etc. More insidious, and something Shakespeare clearly demonstrates in Hamlet, is the toll exacted upon the nation’s spiritual health. The central metaphor of Hamlet is that of an unseen yet highly contagious disease. If we consider the widespread cynicism and disengagement gripping people today, we are witnessing the effects of bad leadership.. When people refuse to vote because they don’t feel it will make any difference, when they ascribe corruption and greed as the main motivations for people seeking elected office, when they evince little or no surprise at the flouting of constitutional laws by their elected representatives, they not only have fallen victim to a spiritual or moral malaise, they are in fact facilitating its spread, something I suspect our elected representatives are not in the least bit concerned about; after all, the more disengagement and disaffection there is amongst the voters, the easier it is for politicians to continue on their self-aggrandizing paths.

So what is the solution, the cure for this disease? How does a nation recover its soul?
Those are questions I would like to consider in a future article.

School Dropouts

Recently I posted an article about Pathways to Education, a program that has remarkable success in decreasing the dropout rate and increasing the percentage of those graduating from high school and going on to post-secondary education. Much of its success, no doubt, comes from the high degree of support offered to those enrolled in the program, but there is little doubt that the other factor has to be the motivation of those who are receiving the help. Without that, the most earnest efforts rarely come to fruition.

Which brings me to the purpose of this posting. Long before I retired, I held the belief, as I still do, that dropping out of school is not necessarily the worst thing that can befall a young person. While administrators might feign shock at such an attitude, and society may ring its collective hands over dropout statistics, I suspect a significant number of teachers would agree with me for many reasons. First, we have all had the experience of students whose attendance could be described most charitably as sporadic, surely one of the prime symptoms of school disengagement. Then, when they are present, they tend, through their behaviour, to disrupt the learning of others. The dynamics of a classroom are such that even when the majority wants to learn, as few as one or two individuals can make that almost impossible, and believe me, it has nothing to do with the teacher’s ability to control the class. While I am not saying that efforts to keep kids in school are misguided, I am suggesting that there should be reasonable limits put on such efforts.

Some might find my attitude elitist, but my logic is simple: young people are often most reluctant to accept the experiential wisdom of their elders. In other words, sometimes they have to learn the hard way. Once they do absorb the hard fact of life that without an education they are essentially doomed to minimum wage jobs or worse, many are ready to resume their education, either within the conventional classroom or through alternative programs. Then real learning can take place.

Often, it seems to me, school officials and governments are more worried about the ‘optics’ involved in having a statistically significant dropout rate than they are about the learning realities of the classroom. Perhaps it is time for them to begin consulting teachers on this issue.

Do You Hate Your Boss?

An interesting story appeared in the careers section of today’s Globe and Mail. Entitled “Sorry, boss, but everyone hates you,” it discusses an analysis of a decade of surveys representing the opinions of 50,000 employees in Canada and the United States. It is probably no surprise that the majority expressed varying degrees of antipathy toward their bosses. Particularly instructional, however, and I would think pertinent to school administrators, are the reasons for their ill-feelings:

- 66% said that management doesn’t listen to their concerns, and 67% said management doesn’t act on their suggestions.
- 56% felt that management doesn’t accord them respect.
- 40% felt they don’t have sufficient authority to discharge their duties properly.
- 52% felt that if they make known their opinions, they will face retribution.

While I realize this in no way describes every work environment, in my teaching experience the survey elements were present in sufficient degree to frequently contribute to low staff morale. Ultimately, of course, the solution can only come when the bosses realize that they need the goodwill of the staff in order for the organization to run properly. Unfortunately, not everyone who becomes an administrator is temperamentally suited to discharge his/her duties effectively.

Perhaps in the future, school boards will consider the use of a battery of psychological tests before promoting people to positions of additional responsibility.

School Dropouts and Pathways to Education

Teachers will be well-familiar with the following scenario: you have a class that is made up of a range of abilities, from the very bright to the struggling, but their common trait is that almost all of them want to succeed in the course. But then there is the proverbial Johnny, bored by every strategy you try, both jealous and resentful of his classmates, who does everything in his power to disrupt learning, ranging from verbal outbursts to loud flatulence to inappropriate jokes to mockery of both you and the other students. He is part of an in-school student retention program whose instructors often are much more tolerant of aberrant behaviour than you will ever be. Then one day you get the magical note in your mailbox: Johnny has withdrawn from school!

As a teacher, I was always deeply ambivalent about student dropouts. On the one hand it was sad to see the loss (at least temporarily) of potential in those going out the door, but on the other hand, it was often a relief, inasmuch as that person was no longer going to be a disruptive influence in the class.

I feel no such ambivalence about a program that is having remarkable success not only in preventing dropouts but in helping to ensure post-secondary educational opportunities as well. It is called Pathways to Success. It is a program that, after 6 years of operation, has achieved astounding success in the troubled Toronto area known as Regent Park. Dropout rates have been reduced from 56% to 10%, and the number of students going on to post secondary education has risen from 20% to almost 80%, statistics that are amazing by anyone’s standards.

What is the key to the program’s success? Essentially, all Grade 9 students and their families where Pathways operates are offered an opportunity to sign on with the program, which offers a myriad of potential benefits:
- access to tutoring 4 nights per week
- participation in group mentoring
- access to career and individual mentoring in senior years
- bus fare to attend school
- access to youth workers for both students and their families
- financial help for special opportunities
- a university or college scholarship worth $1000 for each school year students participate in the program

As a retired teacher, what I find so exciting about a program like this is not only its success rate but also the fact that it involves a real commitment on the part of both the student and her/his family. So many times in the past, I felt public education was engaging in futile efforts to help those who did not want to be helped. Here exists an opportunity for motivated young people to surmount social and economic barriers and compete on a much better footing with those who have had many more advantages in life.

If interested in more information about the program, visit http://pathwaystoeducation.ca/

I would also be very interested in hearing from readers about other programs that are trying to achieve similar objectives.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

One of my grievances against journalists today is that many of them seem to have forgotten the vital role the press is supposed to play in keeping its citizenry informed. The obvious example, of course, is its failure to ask any relevant questions before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A more local but no less important one to Canadians arises over the tragic shooting death of an 11 year old boy in Toronto this past weekend. Our Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, in response to growing calls for a handgun ban, is quoted in today’s Globe and Mail: “We’ve looked at other jurisdictions that have put in bans on handguns and it has not reduced crime with firearms, crime with handguns.”

What the minister said may be true, but to my knowledge, he was not asked when or how this study was conducted, the statistical basis for his conclusions, etc. When journalists fail to force politicians to justify their comments, they are, in fact, giving them carte blanche in making misrepresentations to the public. It therefore becomes even more important for the voters to think critically and independently, seeking out multiple sources of information (readily available on the Internet), in order to force our policy makers to be more honest and responsive to the citizens. By the way, I have sent an e-mail to my Member of Parliament, asking for the data Minister Day used to arrive at his conclusion. I’ll report back any response I get from him.

Again, this is another reason I think it is so important for public education to be inculcating the skills of critical thinking. The alternative is to be mute sheep, led by some very questionable shepherds.

How Politically Aware are Teachers?

As I was writing my last post on fallacies of reasoning, a thought occurred to me. Exactly how political and politically aware are teachers today? At one time in Ontario, teachers, led by an energetic OSSTF (Ontario Secondary Teachers’ Federation), were quite radical and activist. Today, sad to say, that has given way to a real quietism, even corporatism which, I have often suspected, is a reflection of the staid leadership of the Federation. Those thoughts will be discussed more fully in a future post.

My point, however, is that educators cannot afford to think, as many seem to, that they are beyond politics, as if somehow the political realities of society have no place in the classroom. At the last school I taught in, I was fortunate to work closely with a number of people who were both aware and politically active. However, the vast majority of the staff at the school, I felt, preferred to ignore much of the outside world, even going so far as to think that the Federation was irrelevant to their lives. Given that the profession now has a growing number of young people, it seems that this is the time to reradicalize them, not necessarily in the sense of pumping them up for strike action, but rather to remind them of the vital role they play in helping to turn out a thinking, reflective population so that they can be true participants in our democratic traditions.

I guess what bothered me about some of them was their complete deference to administrative authority. Even when egregious wrongdoing was committed by that authority, there seemed little passion, except amongst a small group, to try to rectify the situation. Indeed, there were those who, probably with an eye to becoming principals themselves, were, shall we say, habitués of the office. This is unhealthy, not only for teachers, but also for administrators, who can succumb to the temptation of surrounding themselves with a coterie of loyalists while treating the rest of the staff with disdain or suspicion.

The implications for society are enormous. If students are emerging from isolationist classrooms, where important questions have not been asked and discussed, how productive as members of democratic society can they be? Given the very conservative nature of those who administer public education, the chances of turning out reflective, critically-engaged citizens seem somewhat remote.

Or am I wrong? I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

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