Control in the School: illusions and realities

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We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. -- Stephen Vincent Benet (1935)

Back in those many years when I was teaching public school and studying nights to get a doctorate -- I was investigating procedures for predicting human behavior -- an old college chum of mine, an up-and-coming Philadelphia lawyer, asked me why I didn’t go into school administration.

I asked him why he thought I should do that. He replied, “So you can have more power, more control and influence.”

He was almost insulted when I replied that power, control and influence -- in public education, at least -- were only likely randomly related to administrative position.

One of the most boring jobs I ever had was as the headmaster of a putatively academically focused, private school. The most important thing I had to do -- which ate up time, futilely -- was to “lunch” with rarely interesting people whose only claim on my attention was their potential for donorship.

I was supposed to be agreeable to each individual member of a governing board who, in depth, differed greatly among themselves what the school was about. (It was all “hale, fellow, well met” at the slogan level, e.g. “Excellence in All Undertakings.”) Each individual board member tried to enlist me as an agent working for him against his less-insightful fellow board members.

Power, control, influence? Not much of that when the friends of board members could act as solicitors for special interests to have my quite ordinary decisions subjected to time-consuming review and reversal.

Teachers who have difficulty with difficult students are often criticized as “lacking control” or other presumably “normal” teacher skills. This criticism comes not infrequently from administrators who escaped the classroom so their own “lack of control” would not be subject to easy criticism.

Teachers who do have control, on the other hand, have to listen to administrators and fellow teachers tell them how “fortunate” they are to have “such good students.” No doubt such statements are intended to help skilled teachers to maintain a proper humility.

For references and to examine these issues further, see My First Classroom Teaching Experience


Cordially
--- EGR

What You Don’t Learn in Teacher Training: Effective Student Motivation

Everybody’s talkin’ at me.
I don’t hear a word they’re sayin’.
Only the echoes of my mind.
– Harry Nillson Aerial Ballet (1969)

Can you imagine anyone’ s attending a course called, “Controlling Your Smoking Habits” in a “school” called “Tobacco Growers' University?” How about attending a course called, “How Used Car Salesmen Lie” at the “Automotive Dealers Institute?”

I had a graduate student complain to me once that the facts and considerations that I presented in class tended to diminish her “enthusiasm” for entering the teaching profession. I asked her in response if she would go to a doctor who was enthusiastic but barely skilled rather than someone like the TV character, House: little charm, little optimism, but with a ton of competence and no b.s. Her choice was clear, and wise.

Suppose you had been explicitly trained in what might motivate kids of all ages to perform on command – “on command,” because this is what your supervisor, your principal, your school board members and your kids’ parents will expect you to do. (Not that they themselves could do it!)

If you had such knowledge of motivation you would soon discover how infrequently you could use it, because the behavioral foundations for its success were lacking both in the students and in the school environment. Kids who don’t try to read, or can't play without bullying, or are unwilling to pay attention to anything that doesn’t deal with gossip, toys, games, or movies – and for teenagers, sex and violence – are difficult to get involved consistently in classroom activities. (Let’s not even get into the typical class interruptions your administrators believe it to be a matter of life or death to make at any time of the day!)

Just as a skillful doctor could tell whether you have been not taking your medicine or straying from your exercise plan or diet, so would you, a motivational expert, be more likely to recognize the many outside influences that undermine a student’s motivation for school activities.

Just think about who and what those outside influences might be. Would they welcome your observations on how they interfere with or fail to support student motivation?

And, by the way, would the course you took called something like, “Classroom Management,” have been more honestly labeled, “Keeping Up Your Teacherly Enthusiasm While Your Class (and Career) is Going to Down the Tubes?” Would any university or college permit their "cash cow," the Department of Teacher Preparation -- or something similarly named -- risk rocking the boat by teaching its students how parents, politicians, school administrators and college professors all contribute to stultifying student motivation?

To examine these issues further, see Motivation: why is this a worry?


Cordially
--- EGR

How to Control School Kids (and anyone else you want to)

Having management problems in your classroom? Or is it that you have a “friend” that has such problems?

What you are looking for is probably:

Effective Techniques for Getting Students Motivated to Learn!

But why not go whole hog? Learning classroom management “secrets” is as likely and as easy as:

Sure-Fire Techniques for Getting People to Do 
Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want It!

Now, that’s really something! But, do you really want this kind of power? You can have it, if you can live with it. And how you get it is really not so secret.

To examine these issues further, see The Deep Secrets of Motivation

Cordially
EGR