In this blog I have argued for a federated approach to the
running of schools. I mostly have done
so because in promoting federation theory as the guiding construct in choosing
civics content, I feel that such a civics curriculum would be highly assisted
by its being taught in a school that exemplified the concepts and principles
that make up that construct. What does
that mean in terms of how the school is run?
Well, it means several things.
That is not to say that the construct’s ideas dictate a modus operandi, but it does demand that
the school be run respecting certain qualities.
To understand this, let me go over some basic attributes I have shared
in the past – attributes that characterize federal collectives.
A federal collective is one in which the participants in the
collective have gotten together and agreed to the commitment that the
collective will be united under federal principles. That agreement, preferably in writing, states
that the undersigned pledge to: a set of purposes for forming the collective, a
set of principles by which the collective will be governed, the structure of
the collective (including positions of authority and subordination), any added
elements or relations the collective recognizes, identify any provisions for acts
that diverge from the agreement (such as sanctions or other punishments), and a
recognition of the solemnity of the promise to keep the provisions of the
agreement. Of course, the last part is
the signatures of those agreeing to this pledge. This type of founding agreement is called a
compact. In order for the typical public
school to take such a commitment seriously or to even attempt setting one up is
a demanding enterprise and one that falls outside the expected mode of
operations that characterizes how the vast majority of schools is administered. Most schools are simply entities within
established school districts and they, in turn, are not federated unions, but
substantially sized bureaucracies. We
citizens have allowed these bureaucracies to develop. Why? Mostly
for the sake of efficiency. As the
famous jurist, Louis Brandeis, pointed out, a cost for republican government is
the inefficiencies they entail. In order
for a public school to be federated is to grant it an anti-bureaucratic status;
that is, enough leeway so that more of its policy decisions can be made at the
school site. For example, a federated
school would almost out of necessity be allowed to select its assistant
principals and in that context give the principal primary say as to who should
be hired. As it is, these decisions are
made at the district level. Such
authority at the school level would seriously disrupt existing power relations
within the vast majority of school districts.
What is being considered, therefore, would be transformational in
nature.
So that is the context for what follows. In such a federated school, certain
conditions would have to be put in place; the school would have to establish
and support a certain sense among the staff, especially among the teaching
faculty. They would need to generate and
maintain a partnership among themselves in which, while their own individual
integrity is recognized, they would expect and demand that each participant set
his/her goals within the collective in such a way as to not offend the common
good of the whole enterprise or within any sub- organized arrangements within
the school – such as in a department (e. g., the social studies department). Part of what is defined as the common good is
to pursue actively the purposes of that collective and that might be contrary
to the wishes of one or more individual teachers at any given time. And to pull that off, the participant has to
be knowledgeable, to a higher degree, about what such working arrangements
demand. This type of thinking and
feeling is foreign to many, if not most, teachers who see their authority in
the classroom as their domain. And yet
what he/she does in that classroom has ripple effects in the functioning of that
school. He or she has to understand that
to maintain a sovereign view short-circuits any attempt at a federated
approach. The thing is that for a
federated scheme to work, the staff, teachers particularly, have to want it to
work, and agreeing with such an aim needs to be close to unanimous.
Where in everyday life do we come close to such a commitment? Why, in the institution of marriage. As I see it, the more specific the aims of a
federated arrangement are – that is usually among smaller collectives – the more
demanding it is to have such a commitment.
On the other end of this continuum, for example, would be the federated
sense of being a citizen of the US; there, the aims are more broad and
dispersed. But in a marriage, demands
are fairly specific in terms of expectations.
So it is at a worksite. You have
your roles and such factors as time, financial resources, norms, and the like,
are usually spelled out. In most work
spaces, therefore, federated arrangements are not established and workers do
not count on such voluntary levels of compliance and commitment. Instead, most workplace models are based on
contractual arrangements: I do so and so
and you pay me so much. Federated
arrangements have an entirely different sense and feel. It is more of a “we” sense which is sustained
among the workforce by collective goals and agreement on all of the aspects that
make up the collective. Some have
described this sense as being organic in which individual cells are in
congruence with all other cells.
And, as with a marriage, the interpersonal relations have to
go beyond a contractual definition. The
way coworkers interact and communicate takes on a heightened importance. And this leads me to a body of research that I
think is pertinent to this whole business of federated relationships. The research has been conducted by John
Gottman.[1] Gottman had married couples simply talk between
themselves at his research locations and their back and forth sessions have
been analyzed using a number code in which a researcher would write down a
string of numbers, each one recorded every second and indicating what type of
comment was being made. This research
was started in the 1980s and in a relatively short amount of time, these
notations have allowed the researcher to predict with a high degree of accuracy
whether any particular couple was going to remain married in the ensuing
years. Further research using less time
of analyzed comments has shortened the amount of observation time needed in
order to solicit high rates of predictability.
What that indicates is that the way couples, in this type of federated
arrangement, communicate is very important in determining whether or not a
particular arrangement will be successful or not. Why?
One can only speculate, but it seems that the way we communicate
reflects how we feel toward the other person and this in turn will, of course,
lead to how we act and how we are motivated to act.
The research was also able to determine what types of
communication are detrimental; that is, what types of messages prove to be
fatal to the marriage. As one would
guess, negative messaging is involved, but some is more detrimental than
others. The research identified four
types of negative messaging:
defensiveness, criticism, stonewalling, and contempt. In the account I read, a distinction was made
between criticism and contempt. Criticism occurs, for example, when one would
say the partner is selfish, or that he/she never listens to what I say. But contempt raises the bar to a whole other
level. Contempt occurs when one spouse
belittles the other in the form of an insult as in he/she is scum or a
bastard. Often, what is generally
considered foul language seems to accompany such utterances. And that, the use of contempt, is what seems
to be the indicator that the marriage will not last.
But in a workplace, outside of a marriage situation, contempt
verges on raw insult without the veneer of informality, at least usually. There are stronger norms against the use of
contempt. If there is contempt among
workers, one would expect that the language is more nuanced or hidden. But I believe the Gottman research is still
useful. In any attempt to establish a
federated arrangement, participants would do well to become aware of this
research. Any negative messaging, and
some will always be called upon in work situations from time to time, needs to
avoid any of the forms identified above, but above all, there is no place for
contempt. Negative messaging should
always be related to specific behaviors or the lack of desired behaviors and
with sufficient contextual content so as to communicate that the worker is not
the target; the behavior or lack of it is.
If there is a question about attitude, values, motivation or other
motivating factors, these should be communicated sensitively, in private between
supervisor and subordinate. Again,
training for this is important because it’s not whether such communication will
be needed, but when and how it will be needed and exercised. Perhaps, if the resources are available, any
large school should hire an expert in such matters to train and supervise how
such communication is being conducted within the school among its staff
members.
Of course, the question would be asked: is all this worthwhile? Why not just go for the contractual
model? I would argue that any collective
would benefit from such concerns such as those relating to how fellow workers
communicate, but I would also submit that this blog has given enough reasons to
date to justify the effort; that is, to become more federated than they are at
present. Of course, such efforts are
motivated by understanding and pursuing long-term interests and we seem to find
such motivation hard to find.
[1]
As reported in Gladwell, M. (2005).
Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York, NY:
Bay Back Books.
