Northern Colorado Gazette

Mr. Leniency says:

I used to hate it when I would see someone doing something I liked, better than me, too.

Over the years, I’ve learned to accept the fact that sometimes my point of view is faulty, and my methods less productive than I wish. Frankly, people with good, successful ideas deserve praise for what they do, rather than unprofessional jealousy and juvenile envy which are painfully common in bloated, self-serving bureaucracies.

I know that as people grow up, they become less concerned about “being right.” Generally, people become more willing to acknowledge when someone else has a new idea, which is also a better one. People who honestly care about improvement and success offer congratulations at the success of others, and take pointers from the program that brought the improvement. They give credit where credit is due, rather than to themselves. Those caught up in the emotions of preserving their image, who lack a certain confidence in themselves, and see all alternatives as threats to their position and public image, of course cannot do this.

Besides, school boards and certain other functionaries aren’t as necessary as they claim they are. I remember my old local PTA. The parents were the ones who actually made the decisions, a lot of them, and got things done; the school employees served, rather than governed. How that has changed. Now, the employees do govern, while parents rarely consider the effects of their own hapless lack of involvement. To ensure a decent education for their children, many parents have learned how to be teachers themselves, and with or without the assistance of programs, tutors and specialized curricula, have chosen to home-school their children. Their remarkable successes have been down-played and the exceptional disaster spectacularized. Education in the minds of the embedded beadledom is, after all, a political exercise more than a pedagogical one.

But most parents aren’t willing, or even capable, of engaging in a coherent debate on the pros and cons of school policies and “improvement of education.” Rarely does a parent take steps to reverse the inhibiting and backward direction of their children’s schools. Entrenched bureaucracy is satisfied with parental non-involvement. Few like to relinquish power once they get their hands on it, and few parents have the desire or courage to regain the authority wrested from them.