I get that teachers are under so much pressure that it may sometimes not be possible to do their jobs while also treating students in a way that is fair and honest, but to me that’s one sign among many that there is something deeply wrong with the whole institution, and not something that should be just accepted.
Again. This is the type of blind spot I see on Lemmy. There’s always a failure to recognize real world limits. The fact that education needs to work within limited resources is not some horrible flaw in its design. It’s simply how every institution mankind has ever or will ever create has to operate within limits. You have to design any institution around its material limits. That doesn’t mean there’s something deeply wrong with education. It means that those that expect schools to have infinite resources are simply delusional.
So is your position that stuff like what is described by OOP is a necessary and worthwhile tradeoff for the smooth operation of a school? Or maybe that it isn’t a bad thing at all?
I think it can be phrased better. But the core policy is perfectly fine. Often you can’t spend class time arguing with every student about every absence. Instead, you tell them, “sorry, it’s your responsibility to be here on time. I realize accidents happen, that’s why you get a certain number of free tardies, so the accidents don’t hurt you.”
It’s a perfectly fine way to run a classroom. You don’t try and figure out whether the student is truly responsible for a small number of absences. Give them three free tardies. When shit happens, they’re covered. But it saves your from having to argue with 16 year olds about every single absence and tardy. If a student goals over the limit, then you can actually put in the time to see if their excuses are valid.
Smooth operation of a school is not some minor thing to be dismissed. Every minute in class spent arguing about absence excuses is a minute taken from the instruction of every other student in the class.
Smooth operation of a school is not some minor thing to be dismissed
That’s fair, but the benefits of bureaucracy do not negate the ways that it is dehumanizing, even if they happen to outweigh them. The inability of individual bureaucrats to do anything about it also doesn’t negate that.
I get that teachers are under so much pressure that it may sometimes not be possible to do their jobs while also treating students in a way that is fair and honest, but to me that’s one sign among many that there is something deeply wrong with the whole institution, and not something that should be just accepted.
Again. This is the type of blind spot I see on Lemmy. There’s always a failure to recognize real world limits. The fact that education needs to work within limited resources is not some horrible flaw in its design. It’s simply how every institution mankind has ever or will ever create has to operate within limits. You have to design any institution around its material limits. That doesn’t mean there’s something deeply wrong with education. It means that those that expect schools to have infinite resources are simply delusional.
So is your position that stuff like what is described by OOP is a necessary and worthwhile tradeoff for the smooth operation of a school? Or maybe that it isn’t a bad thing at all?
I think it can be phrased better. But the core policy is perfectly fine. Often you can’t spend class time arguing with every student about every absence. Instead, you tell them, “sorry, it’s your responsibility to be here on time. I realize accidents happen, that’s why you get a certain number of free tardies, so the accidents don’t hurt you.”
It’s a perfectly fine way to run a classroom. You don’t try and figure out whether the student is truly responsible for a small number of absences. Give them three free tardies. When shit happens, they’re covered. But it saves your from having to argue with 16 year olds about every single absence and tardy. If a student goals over the limit, then you can actually put in the time to see if their excuses are valid.
Smooth operation of a school is not some minor thing to be dismissed. Every minute in class spent arguing about absence excuses is a minute taken from the instruction of every other student in the class.
That’s fair, but the benefits of bureaucracy do not negate the ways that it is dehumanizing, even if they happen to outweigh them. The inability of individual bureaucrats to do anything about it also doesn’t negate that.