Rising above conflict…

A Spectrum, by Charles Reynolds

I like public schools. I like the whole enterprise; how it toils and spins and lives through the continual non-reachable process of becoming. Always developing -- and hopefully so in settings which bring out the best in parents, their children and their teachers. That's because I like that old Latin educare thing, drawing out the best in all of us as we take our turns at simply "passing through" in our own times.

These times are, of course, different than my times. I began teaching in 1960 and ended my career in 2000 when my final methods class at Mat-Su College came to an end. What a down day for me! I sat on a table in Snodgrass Hall swinging my legs while looking around with the lights off. "So this is it," I said to no one. And I wept. Now I volunteer in a fourth-grade classroom because it doesn't seem right not to.

There is a level of electrical energy I can feel inside a school, to varying degrees of course. In some schools here in Southcentral Alaska, the moment I walk in the front door -- phzzzitt! There it is. The place is exciting! It can even spill over into the front office and in the faces of the building plant operators. The place is alive and I just have to find out why. And soon any of us would -- because there are dynamic things happening that bring out smiles in any visitor. Great things. Magic things.

People change as do societies, educational needs and, therefore, curriculum. I still like to say "kriklum!" Doesn't sound so stuffy. And I particularly like to see it evolve in a timely manner to fit new needs of changing people. The whole endeavor of education can be such a dynamic activity. Being involved in it has always been fun for me. Whether as a teacher, an administrator, or in negotiating compensation for central office leaders, I have loved the whole process of one of the world's most important missions.

In the Anchorage School District, back when there were around 45 elementary schools, we used to have fun. Some of us still talk about it today. Kids were fun. Parents were fun. Teaching was fun. Even principal meetings, of all things, were fun. We made them fun. For our own sanity, perhaps. We loved laughter!

It isn't just that those were "the good old days." But truthfully, society was perhaps more fun then. As I meet some of the "old gang" out and about, I expect it and I'll hear it, "Didn't we have a good time!" Yes, good people, we did. Oddly, our test scores weren't too bad either, even without oil money. But we didn't have al the amazingly difficult challenges back then schools face today. These are different times -- and they can be tough.

That is why it hurts me to read about the conflicts and messy things that occur during teacher negotiations. Not just here, anywhere. As if we didn't have enough to worry about already as school people. Mercy sakes. Leaking roofs, crowded schools and classrooms. Lack of supplies and furniture, curriculum conflicts, textbook arguments, school boundaries, class size, guns and drugs, suspended kids, school violence, school safety, upset parents. It can get so ugly!

Where are elementary teachers, as an example, to get the training and time to deal with all the expectations now placed upon them? The school day is chopped up finer than celery salt for an arthritic rabbit. Start to read -- it's time for library. Start science and it is time for something else. Classroom doors pop open and shut, students march in and out, and much of it looks like some scientific testing to see how long door hinges, knobs and school carpeting can survive.

These times are screaming for help. We need stronger advocates for schools and all that is required or expected to go on within them. This places a unique and critical emphasis on politicians, school boards and administrators to protect the community from the conflict and messy social struggles some see as vital to the solution of the educational mission. This is not the time -- and that is not the solution. That was for yesterday.

Today's needs, it seems to me, are for more school boards and administrations nationwide to be the underlying supportive and cheering advocates of front line teaching staff -- lifting them up -- helping them make effective progress toward the agreed-upon goals a community collegially develops and expects.

Which is to say, we must turn over every rock everywhere to find funding sources which allow each school in each community to become closer to that unique model most desired by each attendance area including all of those myriad targets any district or state might also expect or demand -- and that wagon is also getting heavier to haul and harder to pull.

Enter now the actors from the wings of the compensation side of the house whose need it is to talk about salaries, supplies, facilities, class-size, healthcare, etc. And here comes the rub. Get the ointment out. These old saddle sores can be deep rooted, long lasting and irritated beyond understanding. It all has to do with how a community shows its desire for front line teachers to feel needed as professionals.

Most communities indicate they want much more from their teachers than babysitting. We know that from the media. Everyone's kid has got to be given equal opportunity to become brilliant, fed well by somebody twice a day, filled with life skills, be computer literate, master the three R's, be safely supervised in loco parentis [standing in the place of the parent] all day, and of course have an understanding of values and how to play well with others on the playground showing acceptable social adaptation, etc.

In these trying social times if there is anything a community does not need it is agonizing stress and social conflict to reach a consensus over contracts with any segment of the educational mission. Stressed employees, in most any difficult project or endeavor, do not handle well the additional stress that deals with their perceived or real financial needs.

When we replace confrontational posturing and negotiating from the top down with a more supportive and honestly caring administrative "how-can-we-best-help-you?" from the bottom up -- then lots of greater goods are achieved. Or, in other words, developing a plan of action that brings an enterprise closer to permanent closure of top-to-bottom directive behaviors. That's yesterday. As Robert Shaw once said, "Tradition is the way it was done wrong last time." Good negotiating demands a horizontal format.

The ultimate issue becomes this: how hard do people in key change-driving supportive leadership positions want to beat the bushes for appropriate levels of funding for the size and success of the mission at hand. It is the success of that effort which provides the tools which can bring out the best in each child.

Charles Reynolds is a Palmer resident.