Recently, I was watching former POTUS Barack Obama speak at a White House ceremony celebrating the latest “upgrades” being made to the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) initiated by present POTUS Joe Biden. And like any former NYC high school student who paid attention during their English Language Arts (ELA) classes, I employed two very important techniques my great ELA teachers taught me:
(1) Treat films, speeches, plays, news stories, and TV programs as “literature” and, therefore
(2) employ those essential good ELA analytical skills of comparing and contrasting events, scenes, words, and characters.
I compared the decency, graciousness, and uplifting language of Mr. Obama with the SCOTUS Senate hearings “characters” (and I do mean ‘characters’ in a clownish-buffoonery context) who were viciously and disrespectfully (and with racial animus intent) publicly trolling now SCOTUS Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. And yet, as I watched these individuals play to the lower brain levels (limbic system) of the human prejudicial instincts, I was reminded that the news media and the “talking experts” class on TV/cable news shows are always touting several of these individuals ( e.g., Messrs. Cotton, Cruz, and Hawley) as potential presidential candidates; along with two governors Greg Abbot (TX) (I so much wanted to write “and Costello” but I didn’t want to insult-by-association, those talented actors/comedians of my youth—Abbot & Costello) and Ron DeSantis (FL).
But why? And in what sane (non-absurd) universe are any of these people presidential material? In fact, these cynical opportunists come across as some of the most lacking in compassion, divisive, dismissive, and disqualifying of the humanity of other people in our public life. (Good teachers always anticipate “the questions,” and so…) I know you will say: “But they were selected by a lot of people!” However, that speaks to the intellectually deficient desire to seek the comforting and secure feelings of satisfying those beforementioned primitive tribal protective (kill the ‘not-our-tribe’) emotions, but for modern assumingly evolved homo sapiens to engage in these endorsing the worse examples of human behavior as our leaders, is a scarily absurd proposition and state of being.
In light of these senators using the important SCOTUS appointment hearings for a pre-presidential-run posturing production, one is compelled to ask (again comparing and contrasting the tremendous task of the POTUS to lead a diverse nation) —Why is being a “decent human person” not a qualifying attribute for leadership at any level (and indecency not disqualifying)? When did “jerkish behaviors” become an endearing leadership quality? And so, I ask myself (hoping others are also asking) why are the words “POTUS” and the before mentioned “clownish-characters” names in the same sentence, unless that speaker/writer is describing “what is not presidential material or defining bad leadership qualities!” Why are the most ethically and morally challenged individuals in the world (e.g., Vladimir Putin or Marine Le Pen ) considered (obviously by many cooperating citizens) the most worthy people for assuming a significant and influential national leadership position?
Now, I am not talking about a morally perfect leader since even the very decent Mr. Obama must be held accountable for his cruel (lacking in discriminating accuracy) use of drone warfare; and voters could be given a pass for not knowing before voting for him that he would use drones in this way. But, for a citizenry to champion a leadership practice that is innately grossly toxic and fundamentally grounded (e.g., Donald Trump) in an ideology of immorality and indecency, that is something entirely different.
A major part of this leadership problem scenario is that we live in the world village of the absurd. Strength is defined as the willingness to invade a sovereign nation and then rain genocidal horror down on its non-combatant citizens. In this absurd world, “leadership qualities” are best expressed in how much you can deny, dismiss, and diminish the humanity of those who don’t look, live, love, or worship like you.
We (the citizens of the absurd world) somehow elect those who are obsessed with building exclusionary walls (those tribal instincts again) instead of compassionate, humane bridges for our fellow suffering human beings. So why are not the most decent, unifying, and morally strong among us considered our first and only choice for a leadership position?
Public Education unfortunately effectively mimics many of the negative qualities of the absurd world.
This national culture of absurdity also exists in our public school systems; since public education is a “face,” form, and function of our political systems and national cultural character. When we elect to do the same not-working things over and over again; or simply go through the motions of renaming and repackaging strategies that fail year after year to dismantle our learning quality apartheid system, this would, in words and deeds, appear on its face to be, well—absurd!
But what if the cycle of public education’s absurd not-working for most kids practices was halted? What if entities like the US congress or the State legislatures (being forced by the guillotine-equipped angry masses) said: “first, we are going to give our schools the legislative and statutory powers and freedoms to do their best (very reasonably possible) work—And then hold their leaders to job-retaining accountability!” This means things like public schools having the ability to match the strongest, most experienced, and best methodological teaching practitioners with our “weakest” students—and then paying those teachers according to their competency and specialty work. A school day, week and year schedule that realistically and efficaciously responds primarily to the physical, emotional and learning needs of students. And further, things like not having our struggling Title-1 schools being overwhelmed by deleterious social-economic factors afflicting the learning quality capabilities of their students; in other words, defining equality and equity in a way that allows schools to off-set and neutralize social inequities and the differences in a child’s access to high-quality parental-push-power.
(I describe this neutralization of social inequities compassionate operational process in multiple places in my book(1) and specifically reference them in sections like: Meta in loco parentis: “Would I want this for my child?”; The Emotionally Intelligent Principalship; The Empathetic Principalship; The Ethical Principalship; The Passionate Principalship; The Mindful Principalship; The Principalship as Poetry; and The Entrepreneurial Principalship).
What if these same aforementioned legislative bodies, in cooperation with other appointed and elected government officials (being motivated by the same angry masses), also said to public school districts: “we are not going to give you more money every year to produce the same terrible results; instead, we are only going to give you more money to expand projects, programs and initiatives that can concretely demonstrate significant measurable student academic success; especially (but not limited to) our Title-1 students and schools. This would result in public school systems being forced to do the “real hard work” of improving, expanding, and raising the quality of teaching and learning and sincerely building the intellectual empowerment of students system-wide (You know, the kind of “educational stuff” that left-woke, liberal and conservative folks insist that their kids receive!)
These “mandated” actions would incentivize school systems to engage in real significant and sustaining transformational change and to stop doing (because it won’t be rewarded) the ineffective standard faux “school reform” — “school improvement” — “raising achievement” — “closing gaps” and always very costly circus-trick-of-the-year unproductive actions. This would signal the end of the highly symbolic (but practically useless) long list of “politically sexy” initiatives (e.g., “critical race theories,” “guilt-tripping” White teachers’ professional development, blame the Asian kids and their parents, standardized anything is inherently racist, and the many iterations of social integration efforts, etc.) that don’t help schools truly realize the fundamental mission of public schooling; that is to produce graduates after a PreK-12 experience under our care, who could actually read and engage (things like the “1619 project”); confidently manipulate mathematical laws and algorithms; thus, having the potential for taking a real step into a STEM career by being able to effectively learn algebra; the ability to master the various curriculum learning and content areas above and beyond the standards of study; producing young people who can have their unique gifts, talents, and multiple intelligences being fully discovered and fully developed.
What if we equated raising a student’s “self-esteem” with raising their academic proficiency. How about making all students critical and analytical theorists in their daily classroom work and on standardized exams; what if we focused on integrating (not bodies), but quality learning experiences (brain) opportunities for the presently learning-the-least struggling students and the recipients of the least intellectual engagement attention in our public school systems (answering the: “what do we do with the K-12 on and above grade and performance level Black and Latino students” question)?
Now, those affirmative and affirming approaches (taken in the village of the absurd) would indeed be some crazy ideas!
1. Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal: https://majmuse.net/report-from-the-principals-office-a-200-day-inspirational-and-aspirational-school-leadership-journal/
