Walmart

Greg has to attend a “Google Docs/Blog” training, even though he knows how to use both of these things, probably even better than whoever will be conducting this training. The requirement is that you must attend the training if you don’t know how to use Google Docs and Blogs OR you don’t currently use them in your classroom. Greg knows how to use these tools; he just chooses not to at this time.

Similarly, I am required to attend a Learning Village training at School B, even though I have attended the same training at School A. Apparently, my training at School A does not count, as School A is not my “home school”, even though it is the EXACT SAME TRAINING and there are several people who witnessed my presence at the School A training.

The bureaucracy of the public school system, the Walmartization of it all is really getting to me. The school system seems to favor a “one size fits all” sort of approach while simultaneously, and contradictorily, telling us to differentiate and individualize. But our classrooms should look identical with essential questions and word walls posted and progress reports handed out on the same day and common assessments, despite creative pedagogy while covering the exact same material at the exact same time to get the exact same results. But our creativity is valued.

BULLSHIT.

It’s all bullshit. We have a school system run by idiots, people who aren’t smart enough or qualified enough or thoughtful enough to effectively do what they are supposed to be doing, but they get where they are because they are the ones who stay. Those of us who could make a change, who could actually run things in a way that make sense, become too frustrated and disillusioned with the system that we leave, leaving behind the imbeciles who continue to do things in the way that makes the least amount of sense.

The short story is this: there aren't enough of us to change they way they do things. So we have to suffer through it, painfully aware that things could be different, that things could be so much better. But we are powerless to effect any real change because the idiots outnumber us. They are content with the system. They are too mentally inept to change it. They soldier on, lockstep, making things progressively more frustrating for those of us whose brains are actually capable of those “higher levels of thinking” that we are supposed to be teaching but not actually practicing.

I am not willing to fight the system, nor am I willing to submit to it. I can think of better ways to spend my time and energy. And that’s the problem. Those who put up with the status quo are those who are incapable of changing it. Those who want to change it are those who only make it worse.

The rest of us are smart enough to move on. And hopefully look back on it and laugh…