Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law by Philip K. Howard

Author:Philip K. Howard [Howard, Philip K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Essays, Law, Social Policy, Public Policy, Political Science
ISBN: 9780393065664
Google: vcfXutT8c6AC
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-10-15T21:16:27+00:00

Good teachers and principals are a gift to all society. They should be honored, not tied in legal knots and then blamed for failure. The core condition, both for attracting good teachers and for allowing them to succeed, is that they are liberated to be themselves. Their sense of self-worth, like their enthusiasm, will be contagious. “The most important thing [she] communicates,” Professor Philip Jackson observed about Mrs. Walsh, the high priestess of ninth-grade English, “is that [she] likes being where she is and doing what she is doing.”

Energetic teachers, not bureaucracy, are the building blocks of a healthy school culture. “Too many places look to packaged programs to build visions for learning,” as one principal put it. “Well, I say they can’t get there that way. . . . Visions have to be homegrown, gradually developed, and based on trust.” The California study on teacher retention reaches the same conclusion: “The very process of asking teachers about their schools and soliciting their help in making these schools better places to work is not just a step toward solving a problem—it is an important part of the solution.”

American schools need to prepare our children for tough competition in a global society. Teachers are supposed to be role models. Instead our schools radically devalue the human element in making things work. It’s as if we were trying to teach our children to fail. Accomplishment is not a multiple-choice test; it’s about individual resourcefulness and understanding. American schools have been organized “on the totally erroneous assumption,” as management expert Peter Drucker put it, “that there is one right way to learn and it is the same for everyone.”

John Stuart Mill observed that a culture “may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop: When does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.” That’s what’s happened to America’s schools. Bureaucracy and legal fear have smothered individuality. This happened because of fears of the dark side of individuality—people can be ineffective, or worse. But the answer to that is also the freedom of individuals—the freedom to hold people accountable. This is the subject of the next chapter.

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