Opus 2013-71: Don’t Ask Me

Every once in awhile someone asks me what I would do to solve a problem.  Often I don’t give them a meaningful answer.  Why?  It isn’t that there are not good answers or ideas.  It isn’t that I don’t have answers.  It is because I am not willing to waste my time on meaningless discussions.

You see, they really don’t want to know.  They want me to spend my energy and time being creative and generating creative solutions.  It will keep me quiet because while I am doing it I will be occupied and out of the way.  Then they will act like they are listening.  I will wait in anticipation until the day comes that I realize Lucy has pulled the football out of the way again.

When I deal with the leadership in education they already have an agenda.  They know what they want.  They know what the results are going to be.  They also know that most teachers are like the general public, if you make it look like you are asking for input they will be satisfied.  I remember one issue we talked about for several years.  We had repeated votes.  One time the faculty voted with a 78 percent majority.  We were at that point told the we needed to be unanimous.  A year later, in a moment of weakness, an administrator confessed that someone had donated a bunch of money on the condition that things be done a certain way, the opposite of what we wanted as teachers. Now two years later, with no discussion or vote, we are going to the position that the teachers wanted.  My guess is that the bribes either ran out or people were bribed to go the other way.

I could give repeated examples, but you probably won’t pay attention either.

I am afraid that things will need to get much worse before they get better.

homo unius libri