I don't believe in the notion that the district is run by a bunch of pricks.  I don't think that they are part of a vast conspiracy to make sure that we fail.  I don't even believe in the lie that they are cruel, heartless vindictive people.  However, I do believe they are ineffective and out of touch with the reality of my classroom. 

I am having a difficult time with the tech guy from district office.  We'll call him Tom.  We'll call him that, because that's his name.  Three of our teachers have e-mailed Tom asking for information on how to order ninety computer mice.  In a district of about thirty schools and millions of dollars, this doesn't sound outrageous.  After all, we are attempting to launch a tech-integrated social studies curriculum.  We are refurbishing old, crappy computers that had been gathering dust in classrooms. 

This process began about two months ago and we still can't get any solid answers.  A few times, his replies have been curt and condescending.  Yet, I don't believe he is a hateful man.  I highly doubt that he kicks puppies for fun or that he wants to commit genocide or that he wipes without washing his hands afterward.  Someone told me that he's actually a nice guy once I get to know. 

That's the problem with the system.  There is no chance to get to know him.  Beuracracy (a word whose spelling is too complicated in and of itself) turns people into procedures.  Paradoxically, while attempting to streamline the system to be more effecient, it creates unnecessary procedures; always out of fear about the "worst case scenario" and predicting all "what ifs." Like a hydra, it grows larger every time they attempt to make it more effecient.  Things run too slow, so they figure the answer is in accountability - the very thing that compounds it and makes it go even slower. 

Tom might be a nice guy if I get to know him.  In a relational community, I would know him.  I'd go stop by his office, share with him my vision and get my info on ordering 90 mice.  But the system has made him into a manager.  The procedures have created a gated community within the district office so that most people there are impotent.  No one can lead, because leading is, at its core, a relational skill.  So, we end up with hundreds of micromanagers and paper-pushers who work really hard at maintaining the status quo and in the process we never experience change.

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