Am I an "Administrator Hater"?

Once upon a time I asked questions at meetings.

Over the years of teaching I had developed this silly practice in the classroom of asking students questions to challenge and clarify their thinking. Maybe it was a naive assumption, or maybe it was an inability to code switch, but I carried that practice of questioning into meetings.

And I was indiscriminate. I questioned colleagues, administrators, curriculum coordinators, health insurance reps, superintendents.  I didn't really care what position a person had. It was irrelevant.  I cared about what they were telling me and, more importantly, why they were telling me this. 

Unfortunately, this behavior is often interpreted as a personal attack by many people in positions of authority. Now that my wife is an administrator, I see better and empathize more with the precarious, vulnerability inherent in positions of authority.

Now I'll confess some of those questions were worded aggressively. And, to be honest, sometimes I asked those questions inappropriately.  Sometimes I was a jerk.   I like to think I've changed.  I never intended to be a jerk.  But I also understand sometimes it happened.

On the other hand, I felt then, as I do now, that questioning ideas and challenging actions is the best way to ensure right thinking and right action. We grow and change through struggle, whether manufactured or natural.  And, to continue to be honest, the majority of my questions were safely in the realm of socially appropriate.

Reflecting on this practice became a psychological crucible for me when one of these administrator types warned me that I had developed a district wide reputation.  I was in the hallway just after a meeting in which I was asking questions when this person took me aside "for my own good". The warning seemed ominous to me, but I don't know if that was the intention.  Regardless, it gave me pause to more closely examine my thinking and, in turn, my behavior.  Because I really do care, I'm not afraid to look at myself.

But, I have serious problems with hierarchy as it exists in public education. (Well, if we're being honest, I have serious problems with hierarchy in general.) I figure, if we're all on the same team and in this together, then there ought to be more egalitarianism.  I don't think there should be any deferential treatment of a person based on title or pay.

I can't pretend to have everything figured out, but the traditional explanation of "responsibility" for one person, say a principal, making six figures and another, say that principal's secretary, being an hourly worker at $12/hr just doesn't jive.  Not when I've seen what those secretaries do.  This view doesn't diminish the responsibility or position of administrators.  But it elevates the responsibility and position of their secretaries.

I know money isn't the only indicator of value, but it is the indicator of value in this culture.  I don't see a person's worth in monetary terms and fear using those terms could implicate an endorsement of them. Maybe there is other language to use.  Hierarchy and authority are too couched in monetary terminology.

But I'm beginning to fear a long diatribe here.  So I'll wrap it up with a few questions:

1. Does the value of a person's ideas correlate with their position or pay?
2. Does our general culture, including the educational superstructure, undervalue work?
3. Is individual agency in decisions that effect one's self paramount?
4. Is anyone  above accounting for her own thinking and actions?
5. To what extent should organization wide decisions complement and echo organizational programming, pedagogy, ethics and worldview?
6. How are those who make decisions that affect others held accountable by those affected by the decisions?
7. Education is organized and conceived through a lense of industry, a business of  "people making".  To what extent does this orientation promote a structural attitude of hubris?

So, this post may be less linear than others. Hopefully it provides a platform from which a reader can enter the topic and see it differently.  There are so many huge structures at work: hierarchy, language, economic organization, etc. Hopefully, though, we all get pulled into the hallway "for our own good" because we keep asking questions.  Of course, those questions are only as good as our willingness to direct them at ourselves.

So I'll keep asking questions. Both of myself and others.