Falling by the wayside

When a time-honored institution, industry or political movement is falling the wayside, it functions as its own worst enemy. Its "stinkin thinkin" drives it to self-destruct. It's sense of the right thing to do is the opposite of whatever could promote its survival, longevity and value to a larger community.

As I've explored for the past two weeks here, opposition to educational reforms appears to me to be falling by the wayside. This downfall of legacy systems can make way for reforms to fall into place. The pattern of self-sabotage is evident in the ways issues of danger, people, logical alternatives, personal dependency, consistency of image, government involvement and challenging work are perceived. The positions taken conform to the following flawed strategies:

• Relying on self-congratulatory feedback: Pleased with the evidence of victory, superiority, conquests and progress. Ever more convinced by the proof that others are wrong, deficient, losers or headed in the wrong direction.
• Beholden to superficial indicators: Taking situations at face value. Limiting considerations to factual content. Sticking to the confirmed indications while dismissing the speculative, panoramic and prognostic inputs.
• Building confidence on self-righteous indignation: Being right at all cost in order to make others wrong. Reacting to system feedback as threats. Dismissing connections between combative conduct and fallout, side effects or backlash.
• Fixated on positional stances: Taking pride in what is already known, decided and determined. Preventing any new growing, changing or learning from occurring.

When these flawed strategies take effect, the well-defended institution appears to be its own worst enemy. It tries harder to make problems worse. It spends more on falling further behind the changing times. It makes superficial attempts to correct deep dynamics of emergent changes. It solves the wrong problems and becomes identified as part of the problem itself.

Believe in school work

Work has not changed. Work is still hard to accomplish. Work continues to take focus, practice and skills. Work always requires stamina, dedication and determination. Work persistently offers pride in workmanship when it's done right. Work remains the opposite of play; work is productive and play is unproductive. Work gets results that don't happen if we don't work at it. Work is what gets rewarded in a free market.

School work prepares students for real work. There's no reason to change school work and every reason to oppose educational reforms. Any change in school work would make it less productive, less rewarding and less difficult. Reforms could make future workers soft, lazy and lacking in determination. Less hard work could only weaken the free market economy.

Doing school work in classrooms is good preparation for real work. Good soldiers have been prepared by the regimentation of school work. Laborers and factory workers have been readied by the mandated productivity and requirements that build stamina and determination. Office workers have been groomed by the mountains of paperwork and long hours of sitting in classrooms.

It easy to oppose educational reforms by simply believing in school work. Don't listen to wild speculations about the Internet changing the nature of work. Don't fall for the temptation to make learning fun and less preparatory for real work. Don't consider how networks, ecosystems and communities get work done with cooperative and reciprocal contributions. Don't expect anyone sitting on their butt playing games will become prepared for field maneuvers, combat or construction work. Don't allow innovators to breed laziness into our future workforce. Please take this permission at face value.

Curtailing a necessary evil

Government-funded schools pose a dilemma when you're opposing educational reforms. On one hand, democracies need educated citizens to participate in the election processes, recognize demagogues and dismiss propaganda. On the other hand, government is given to excessive growth, special interests, boondoggles and pork barrel projects. Assume that state-sponsored education systems are a necessary evil to be curtailed, but not entirely eliminated,

When education systems are given additional funds, they yield more costly, bloated bureaucracies. They take the money and run up bigger budgets, expenses, and salaries for the upper echelons. Their lack of market mechanisms, accountabilities and principles of private enterprises -- prevent them from becoming more efficient, productive and useful. If there is to be any reforms in education, make them more business-like. Cut out the fat, trim the budgets and streamline the procedures. Impose uniform standards. Hold everyone more accountable. Eliminate the slackers and reward the high achievers.

When bureaucrats promote educational reforms, they are looking to line their own pockets and pad their own budgets. Opposing education reforms is fiscally responsible. Taking exception to costly "improvements" sends a message that school systems need to deliver "more bang for the buck", not "more bucks for the bang".

When educational reformers want more money, think of what it will cost taxpayers for years to come. Don't consider what good could get done with the increased funding. When reformers want new programs, think of how they will be mismanaged by do-nothings. Don't entertain the value, impact and results those programs could deliver. When advocates of change accuse you of blocking improvements in education, see through their their do-gooder claims to fame -- to their selfish underlying motives. Don't perceive compassion, community-minded spirit or commitment to quality education in the reformers' frustrations with your stance. Please accept this permission without question.

Take pride in your consistency

Some things never change. You may have the same habits and reactions you endured years ago. You may deal with the same feelings, worries and regrets you've always experienced. You may hold the same opinions, values and priorities as always. You may be a living example of how human nature stays the same.

Many educational reforms claim to transform students to realize their hidden potentials. They assume that human nature can be changed. They raise others' hopes with this wishful thinking that defies your life long experience with constancy. You're right to oppose educational reforms that make these false promises. You know that some things never change.

Of course you don't want to appear as bad as you get sometimes. It pays to keep up appearances of being a better person than you become on your off days. It works to take pride in the ideals you're living up to and put anything out of your mind that discredits this favorable impression. Maintaining an unwavering consistency will give you credibility and respect that flip-floppers cannot attain.

Never mind those who accuse you of being a hypocrite for the unchanging human nature that you're keeping hidden. Drop the worries about the impression you're making of being two-faced or self-contradictory. Do not consider that you may be sending mixed messages in spite of your pride in your consistency. Forget how the disrespect you're getting shown could reflect the lack of respect you have for inconsistency, vulnerability and humanity. Please accept this permission without question.

Take exception to dependency

Be wary of educational reforms that make people less self-reliant. Undermine so-called improvements in instruction that make students more dependent on getting patronized and placated. Avoid creating future citizens who are dependent on government handouts or subsidies. Expect students to be given challenges that are especially difficult and battles that require determination and courage. Fight to maintain strict standards, tight regulations and demanding expectations.

Take offense to coddling those who obviously lack ambition. Counteract those who foster dependency on themselves out of some neediness, immaturity or lack of confidence. Rebel against those who trap you in dependency on their obstructions, interference and entanglements. Restore your control over your own destiny.

Expect others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps by setting that example to follow. Put people under enough pressure that they stop shirking their duty to amount to something. Convince people that wallowing in self pity is getting them nowhere. Come on like gangbusters when others propose to cut the slackers some more slack.

Ignore your critics that claim you're insensitive. Disregard the accusations that your intolerance breeds helplessness and passivity in others. Dismiss the concept that empathy breeds self respect and unleashes hidden ambition. Seek first to get understood. Withhold understanding until people stand on their own two feet. Please accept this permission without question.

Deal with reforms rationally

Educational reforms are too far-ranging to get emotional about them. Taking an irrational approach will be no help at all to your cause. The threat of educational reforms calls for as much logic, practicality and rationality as you can possibly muster.

Keep a lid on your own irrational urges to lash out, over-react or appear hysterical. Disregard how you might be feeling hatred, anger, envy or even self-pity -- in the face of this opposition to sane solutions. Anticipate how guilty you would feel if you unleashed your own vengeance on the vengeful. Act as straight-laced and self-controlled as the situation requires. Raise the bar on how arguments usually play out erratically. Provide an example of reasonable and rational responses to their provocations.

Keep in mind that both sides cannot be right. Don't compromise or concede your reasonable stance. Shoot down their attempts to bring in extraneous issues under such nebulous concepts as contexts, systems or diversity. Define the terms to your favor and stick with them. Disregard their accusations that you're labeling, stereotyping or profiling others. Draw the line between clear cut alternatives and undermine their attempts to muddy the water.

Don't consider how reforms could be "not all bad". Don't complicate your conviction with added criteria or iffy speculations. Don't get caught in the middle between polarized stances where you cannot be right, in control or on top of the situation Don't examine issues that present dilemmas and two-way streets. Please accept this permission to be right without question.

Regard people as wicked

Educational reforms are easy to oppose when people appear wicked to you. This is not to say that everyone has evil intentions. Some have merely gotten lazy and shun hard work. Some have abdicated responsibility and avoid hard choices. Some are wallowing in self pity and are looking for a free ride. Others became cunning and are finding ways to cheat the system. But there are also those who are living out their dark side and acting evil in our world.

Look down on those who are making excuses instead of fighting the fight against wickedness. Don't go soft on these losers. Don't fall for their lame excuses for backing off or backing down. Do not show them respect when they obviously lack the self respect to act responsibly. Do not listen to them when their wicked ways has got the better of them. Do not feel sorry for their plight, bad luck or unfortunate situation.

Feel free to deceive these people. Figure there's no harm done and nothing to lose when their wickedness already ruined everything. Tell them what they want to hear. Feed them whatever lines that will get them to silence their objections. Give them the spin that makes you look good, better than them and the best for the opposing reforms the right way.

Separate yourself from what you're seeing. Don't think it makes you wicked to see wicked people. Don't point three fingers back at yourself when pointing your finger at them. Assume you are superior to those who have fallen for temptations that make educational reforms appealing. Take the upper hand when others are trying to drag you down from your morally higher ground. Please accept this permission to be right without question.

Live in a dangerous world

The easiest way to oppose any educational reform is to live in a dangerous world. Simply focus on the terrorists, military combatants and criminals among us. Picture all the non-violent deaths by diseases, disasters, starvation and fatal accidents. Top it off with the apprehension that people acting like "it's not a dangerous world" are especially dangerous. Become totally convinced that you live in a dangerous world.

Obviously, educational reforms are extremely dangerous. You are definitely justified to oppose reforms, defeat them and discourage their proponents. Reforms could de-stabilize your fragile sense of security. Reforms might undermine the foundation that the purpose of your life rests upon. Reforms could even generate momentum and devastate the current stability with a tidal wave of disruptions.

Don't you forget how dangerous the world really is. Do not let your guard down or relax your vigilance against dangerous invasions. Keep alert for any sweet-talking, seductive spin-meisters who make particular reforms sound appealing. Don't kid yourself that the world has become any safer or secure from such extensive dangers.

Most of all, do not see the world as damaged. Do not consider that the people acting dangerous have been damaged by the world. Deny that any damage is being done by your outlook. Do not allow others to weaken your conviction that the reforms are exceedingly dangerous. Push against those who push you to make changes. Please accept this permission to be right without question

Giving permission to the opposition

In this blog series, I'm going to focus on opposition to educational reform. The underlying principles and strategies also apply to broader reforms (government, political, agrarian, economic policy, etc.) They also can be used with very localized reforms (classroom, teamwork, family, etc.). In each posting, I will offer a different way to give permission to those who oppose reform. You can either accept this permission for yourself or give it to others.

When we feel opposed, we lack permission from our opponents. We feel coerced, dismissed or devalued. There appears to be no way to trust the others, reconsider their stances or combine our approaches. We act provoked, defensive and closed minded when permission is withheld. The next thing we know, we're taking offense of the obvious offenders, blaming others for our unhappiness and making enemies of potential allies.

When permission is given, we feel understood. We are free to reflect on our own positional stance and those pressures that necessitate a standoff. We feel we are in the presence of someone who is not going to antagonize us, pounce on our thinking or embarrass us in front of others. We begin to trust them, reconsider our stances and see how we might realize the best of both approaches. We become less apprehensive in the context created by the permission given to us.

We cannot give permission when we are afraid of our opposition. We instinctively prepare to fight or flight rather that consider our effect on others. It feels urgently justified to argue, antagonize and shoot down the other viewpoint.

We can give permission when we rise above the situation and expand our horizons. We play at a level above the presenting problem. We see the wisdom in having the effect that comes about by giving permission. We anticipate the possibility of "winning without a battle" as we fail to give the opponents the argument they're looking for. We replace our fears with strategic insights and visionary intentions. We create an experience of freedom before it's evident in the situation with our opposition.

Opposing educational reform

The past two weeks have juxtaposed the political rhetoric of the Democratic and Republican parties in the US. Their conventions to nominate their party's candidate for the next President of the US has paraded each party's best orators before arenas of enthusiastic audiences and network television coverage. As I watched both conventions, I was spellbound by what I was seeing. It became apparent to me why educational reforms have been urgently opposed for over a century. I've written 15 pages of notes to myself during the past two weeks that will become the next series of blog posts here.

Political rhetoric is different from political action. Talk is cheap and easily forgotten. Verbiage is designed for winning arguments rather than making significant changes. Yet rhetoric reveals underlying intentions, motivations and frames of reference. It's especially easy to see where one propagandist is coming from when put in the context of so many allies and opponents.

Understanding the intentions, motivations and frames of reference of any opposition provides exceptional leverage. "To know oneself and one's enemy" is essential to win a war without a battle. The more insight we have into opponents, the more obvious it becomes how they function as their own worst enemy. It becomes clear how to let them self-destruct, fall on their own sword and act out their urges to sabotage their own success. Educational reforms could fall into place while the opposition falls by the wayside.

Knowing one's enemy is easy compared to knowing ourselves. When we don't know where we are coming from, we're afraid of our own shadow. We point fingers at our own reflection in the mirror. We don't see how much we have in common with our enemy or why we need the battle in the first place. Coming to know an opponent's intentions, motivations and frames of reference usually involves some deep learning.

If "winning without a battle" is new or vague to you, here's some other posts that explored this possibility:

• Winning without a battle
• Regarding the recent revolution
• Stagnation and stability
• Form and reform
• Making reforms happen
• Anticipating natural reforms