Starbuck's and education

I am not going to kid myself.  I am conflicted about my viewpoint on centralization and decentralization of education.  I think I have a grip on both of the concepts and I see positives and negatives to each side.

   I used to work at an independent bookstore.  I loved it.  To me it was the essence of what a business should be.  It invited in strangers who had like minds.  All of the people who shopped there (except for the folks who just lived nearby) shopped there because it was part of the community.  The owners lived there, the buyers for the store had an office in the back.  If an author had recently had her book of cowboy poetry published by Podunk Press, she could probably get a signing and always have a copy of her book on the shelves.  

  Taking it back to theatre (as I will do),  I prefer theatre to film, because film must appeal to such a huge mass of audiences that it usually waters down the product in order to appeal to more.  Theatre can speak to subject matter that appeals to the region of the company. Theatre can speak to matters that might just appeal to a few people.  

   So, I have a preset idea when it comes to centralizing anything.  To me this is synonymous with homogenization ( and thought I am ok with the concept for Milk, I deplore the idea for culture).  It speaks of a person or small group of people making decisions for a large group of people they don't know or understand.  When were all sitting in an office in New York or Washington DC, who is thinking of Albuquerque, New Mexico?  Pretty much no one.  To me this is treating education like Starbuck's or worse Applebee's.  It assumes that everyone wants bacon on everything (Seriously, Applebee's, what is with all the pork?).

BUT (yes, this blog has a big but)

I also come from a very, very....very small town. The folks there understand the culture of the people in the community and the students.  They understand the lingo...they know my dad.  Everyone knows my dad.  I should also mention that the mom and pop restaurants there use plenty of pork (Seriously, Wagon Wheel, what is with all the pork?)   I would not be cool with leaving these people in charge of education either.  

   Why?  Because they have a very limited world view.  They are full of biases, misconceptions, and have incredibly closed minds.  If left to their own devices, school might become solely about Louisa May Alcott and welding.   I say that with love...I type that with love.

So where does that leave me?  In a big ole hybrid of the centralized and de-centralized, I suppose.  Of course, we need national standards.  We need to know that everyone leaving the school system has had a chance to learn many of the same things, but we also need to leave plenty of leeway for curating the educational system for potential regional and cultural differences.  Is that kind of what we have now?  Is that something we are slowly stumbling toward? I haven't a clue.

But, hey, that dress looks nice on you.

Connecting two worlds....in my brain.

Those who know me (no one really in class, but I assure you that there are people out there who know me) know that I am a theatre person.  I have spent the last twenty-one years of my life acting, writing, designing, and dramatrug-ing (That's not really a word, but it is something I have done...so I have made a gerund out of it).  I also teach theatre at many different institutions.  I have always thought of myself as a theatre person who teaches.

   Recently, I have been hired as a drama teacher at a high school.  I have not set foot in a high school in over fifteen years (except for once and that was to sneak my nephew to pizza and a movie).  I am now in charge of five classes, many of them filled with students who don't want to be there or don't want me to be there.  For the first time I have to view myself as a teacher who also does theatre.   

  Last week's class helped me realize that there really isn't that much of a gap between the two.  A philosophy of education isn't too far different from the mission statement of my theatre company (by the way, Rag and Bone opens in two weeks). 

For a theatre company to become such, all of the members have to decide why they do theatre,  what they want to get from it, and what kind of theatre they want to do.  They then work together to decide how much of each person's viewpoint they want to knead into the dough of the company ( did I mention I was also a baker for ten years?).  Most of the time people work together because they have similar ways of doing things or similar ways of thinking about things, but when you form a company you realize that sometimes your reasons for doing them are completely different.  A company makes them all jive and puts them together in a mission statement.  The mission statement becomes the constitution of the company, it defines every action that the company takes from then on.  Sometimes, a company will change the mission statement, if they feel that the needs or aesthetic of the company has changed.

I am not sure why this never occurred to me before.  I suppose, because I have never had to.  I can't go around wondering how everything is similar to theatre.