…Which Is Wrong
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
— H.L. Mencken
Over at The Atlantic, Philip Howard is trying to convince us that America’s education problem has a simple cause and a simple solution:
America’s schools are being crushed under decades of legislative and union mandates. They can never succeed until we cast off the bureaucracy and unleash individual inspiration and willpower… Successful teaching and good school cultures don’t have a formula, but they have a necessary condition: teachers and principals must feel free to act on their best instincts.
Mm. Jim Keegstra was acting on his best instincts—does Mr. Howard think he should have been free to continue doing so? Or what about teachers who ignore bullying: should they be free of bureaucratic “interference”? How about teachers who are themselves the victims of bullying or worse by school administrators: shouldn’t they have somewhere to turn? Yes, a lot of bureaucracy is pure empire-building, but a lot of it has been created after someone was badly hurt in order to prevent a recurrence.
I complained a lot about the pettifogging backside-covering red tape at U of T when I was there—in fact, it’s one of the main reasons I left. I used to complain about having to wear safety goggles in the chem lab, too, until I met a guy who lost an eye when a beaker blew up. I agree that 90% of the time, 90% of the regulations are unnecessary. The problem is, we don’t know in advance which 90%. If Mr. Howard can convince me that he does, and that clearing away all that bureaucracy won’t make life easier for slackers, predators, bigots, and bullies, I will personally operate the shredder on his behalf.
I haven’t read the article, but as someone who lives with a middle-school teacher, I believe that the education system should trust teachers to do the right thing. The way things currently go in many countries (at least, for sure, Canada and France), every decade or so there is a new fashionable ideology about how education should work and teachers are asked to reorganize their courses to accomodate it. So while I haven’t read Mr. Howard’s article, if it’s just saying that schools should trust teachers, then I prefer that over then current statu quo where the school system is coercing teachers into fitting in their ideology du jour, and disempowering them along the way, turning them into interchangeable workforce.
I agree that most teachers, most of the time, will do the right thing. I’ve also made all the same complaints about bureaucracy that Howard makes. However, I know people who have been victims of individual failures: of teachers who didn’t care about/were uncomfortable around kids with special needs, who excused bullying by saying, “Boys will be boys” (I’d guess, but can’t prove, that some were probably bullies themselves at that age), who refused to teach evolution (or the germ theory of disease—c’mon, have you ever actually seena germ?), and so on. The more we trust teachers, the more those teachers will have a free hand. I’d like discussion of how to improve education to start with “how do we balance these requirements”, rather than with Howard’s simple-minded scapegoating.
Hi, my name is James
I’m a student at university in south korea
Would you do me a favor?
I bought a book
the book is following
Practical Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python (An Introduction to Computer Science Using Python)
It is very useful and interesting for me to study about python
but, exercsises is very difficult for me
so, i want a solutions of exercises
If you are possible to help me
please send a E-mail to me
I want to hear good news
thank you
Hi James,
You will learn a lot more from working through the exercises yourself, but if you would like to get your professor to mail me from his or her university account, I’d be happy to discuss it with them directly.
Thanks,
Greg Wilson