What if….?
- Image by clevercupcakes via Flickr
What if instead of everyone being allocated to one main job within a school, there was some kind of rotation system? What do you suppose would happen if teachers had experience in working in the school office? Would teachers have their eyes opened if they were given the opportunity to be learning support assistants for a period of time?
What if, more radically, everyone earned the same amount of money within a school and status was denoted by the amount of time spent with students? What if time with students actually meant that you ‘earned’ more rather than less? What if the traditional top-down hierarchy was bottom-up, with administrative positions explicitly supporting, rather than dictating, teaching? What would happen then?
I wonder…
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Radical idea. I like it!
I think it would be a great experience with admin staff bringing there own unique experience and skills to the teaching arena and seasoned teachers hopefully seeing better ways to do admin things.
Not a million miles away from the thoughts of Ricardo Semler (7 day weekend and Maverick are 2 of my fave books)
@ Doug
An interesting post. I’ve been a teacher, coach, dean, and principal and with every position I’ve held I’ve felt the grass is greener on the other side. But everyone plays a critical role in a school. I think your concept is an intriguing one for sure. My sister is in a Catholic religious order and every three years they elect from their own ranks their new president / mother superior. The current leader then returns to the flock. Overtime everyone has a highly developed sense of empathy and respect for one another.
That’s an interesting concept, Charlie. But I suppose it ties in with the
Christian idea of the first being last, and the last first, etc. :-)
It’s a good thought. In our primary school I often think that there should be a day/week when (although I had only thought of teachers or TA’s) everyone moves to a different class. No plans, no preparation just be with that class. It would be interesting to see the end of day results.
Incidentally I read your Twitter views on Word/Open office. Absolutely correct!
Unfortunately, in our outcomes-driven system, it’s unlikely to happen!
Oh, and I really do think we need to move collectively to an open system
such as Open Document format rather than a propagating a proprietary format
such as .doc!