Because we typically trust the people with whom we have created said systems, we have trust in the systems themselves. Because we often venerate those who came before us in our institutions, we tend to venerate the systems they created right along with them.
We sometimes talk about “human systems” – the architecture of people who live and work and journey together. We relate to one another through these systems. We function within the hierarchies we put in place. These structures orient where we stand and how we stand. These sociological systems keep our schools functioning.
How does a student get out of class to go to Counseling? Fill out a pass. Have it signed and countersigned. System.
When does a teacher round up a student’s grade? Check the manual. System.
How do we get to the parking lot during a fire drill? System.
What are the onboarding procedures for our new faculty and staff? System.
Attendance procedures, grading scales, assignment turn-in policies, employee handbooks, you name it, schools have it. They prescribe how cell phones are to be used, where food can be consumed, and how people (students and faculty alike) can dress. Systems and structures abound in school settings. Even those schools that cast themselves as innovative and free, open, and would like to suggest they do not have systems do, in fact, have systems.
All of this is well and just.
However, we sometimes define ourselves and our schools by our systems. Because we normally do good work and our schools function within proven systems, it is hard to recognize when the time has come to shut them down. Because we typically trust the people with whom we have created said systems, we have trust in the systems themselves. Because we often venerate those who came before us in our institutions, we tend to venerate the systems they created right along with them.
We sometimes adhere to systems long after we should for fear of offending someone. We resist updating outmoded policies and procedures because Janney designed them in 2008 and we love Janey.
No one wants to make Janey feel bad.
But that’s not the point, is it? The point is, as our schools move through the years, the systems that looked so shiny, so snappy and so smart when we designed them inevitably show their wear-and-tear.
How many libraries in our schools kept the card catalogs for years longer than necessary?
How many schools resisted moving to data-driven decision-making processes because the systems they had in place – largely anecdotal, often inaccurate – had worked just fine for years, thank you very much.
How many schools continue to prop up old systems instead of building new ones?
The system is not the person. Break up the system.
Schools that are forward thinking, ready to adapt and change to meet the needs of today’s students, understand that systems must change even when the people behind them do not change. Schools that do this with facility build into their systems the understanding that they are temporary, that they will become obsolete. This is stated truth and lived fact.
It is often not the people who need to change, it is the system.
Separate the two.
Fight the system.