[The following texts are all by Terry Herndon, former Executive Director of the National Education Association. They were provided to us by Mary Pat David.] AN ORGANIZATION OF POWERFUL PEOPLE In colonial days whenever a bunch of folk got together and decided they'd like to have a school for their children, they went down to the boat and bought a teacher, an indentured ser- vant. As time went by, schools evolved into a corporate enter- prise. What at one time was relatively benevolent paternalism became a good deal more indifferent and more anonymous. So, to protect and advance themselves, teachers organized. But even today teachers have not staked out their jurisdiction in the decision-making process. What does a teacher control today? Very little more than how he or she will behave. Teachers have had nothing to say about their own level of preparedness. They come into a classroom: they have nothing to say about its structure, its design, its size. They're given books; they had nothing to say about their selection and their nature. They are given a collection of students: they've had nothing to say about the number, type, or disposition. They're told to perform according to certain objectives or expectations whose formulation they had nothing to do with. They inherit a situation in which only one variable is subject to their control. That's how they cope with it. All this is going to change. Teachers are more aware of their own deficiencies than any of the critics. They are more painfully aware of the deficiencies of their schools than any of the distant students of public education. They are demanding, and they will ultimately gain, jurisdiction over the procedures of teaching, jurisdiction over the allocation of resources to the instructional process. They will have jurisdiction over ques- tions like, "How many students can be in a class designed to achieve this particular outcome?" What types of students should be aggregated together for specific instructional purposes?" These decisions ought to be made by the individual teacher in his or her individual relationships with individual students. The reporters who write of NEA's wish to take over public educa- tion are inaccurate. What NEA is talking about is a teacher takeover of public education. NEA doesn't talk so much about a powerful organization as it does an organization of powerful people, of individuals with a significant jurisdiction -- not only over their own behavior but over the environment in which they work. We're talking about decisions being made by the people with the most meaningful experience about the nature the change required. (1975) ON BARGAINING In West Texas they tell a story about an old teamster crossing the country side with his grandson. Along the way he snapped his bullwhip and knocked a fly right out of the air. A little farther on, he lashed out again and picked off a butter- fly, right out of the air. The little boy's mouth flew wide open. He had never seen such a manifestation of power. He thought his grandfather was really something. They went on a little further and came to one of the few trees out in West Texas. There was a hornets' nest hanging from a low limb. The little boy said, "Grandpa, I bet you could knock down that hornets' nest." Grandpa was, of course, wise with years. He stroked his beard and said, "Son, I think we better not do that. That fly was all right, and the butterfly was something, but those hornets are organized." (1977) LEADERSHIP Leadership is one thing, officeholding another. Officeholding is preoccupied with survival. Leading is preoccupied with achieving. Occupying an office is facilitated by the phenomenon of "tape-recorder" governance. Tape-recorder governance is taking a poll and then going to a meeting to tell other people what the poll told you they are saying. This is Richard Nixon-type government. Government by opinion polling means walking around with your finger in the air, seeing which way the wind is blowing, and then announcing to people which way the wind is blowing. Leadership is joining the debate wherever the debate must be joined. It's a two way process. Leadership involves elevating expectations, the level of courage, commitment, excitement, and enthusiasm for reordering the world a little bit. It doesn't take a leader to cast a directed vote. It takes a leader to go to a meeting, enter the debate, and have a meaningful exchange with the other people who have come to the meeting. It takes a leader to sift the observations, the prejudices, and the realities and come to a consensus view of truth that can be moved forward. Officeholding is a very attractive to the insecure; leadership is attractive only to the secure. Officeholders are concerned mostly with the viability of ideas; leaders are more concerned with the quality of ideas. Officeholders worry about others getting credit; leaders do not. People who are leaders energize other people. Sometimes this stimulates conflict and causes debate. Sometimes it creates dissension and difficulty and occasionally a gastric ulcer. Officeholders usually hate all that. They prefer to manipulate groups rather than energize them. Energetic groups are more difficult to deal with. Leaders understand that blame and credit go hand-in-hand; if you are in a position that entitles you to take credit for achievement, you are also in a position that requires you take blame for lack of achievement. Officeholders love to take credit for the achievement, but they usually try to disassociate themselves from mistakes and failures by looking for a scapegoat. Leadership cannot be legislated. Most often it is not delegated. Nor is leadership achieved by denying opportunities to other people. Leadership is circumstantial and it belongs to those who can wade into circumstances, with clear vision, energy, courage, and integrity, and grasp from circumstances the opportunity to achieve. (1975) JOINT DECISION-MAKING We need more teacher involvement in general policy making. I don't mean involvement in curriculum decisions, but general policies articulated by school boards: the shape, texture, and color of buildings; the fashioning of playgrounds; the nature of school parks and where they are located. In other words, the decisions about how the learning experience is organized. We are entitled to a partnership in this arena. When it comes to pedagogical decisions -- how one goes about teaching and how one deals with the children in the classroom -- I believe teachers should thoroughly dominate such decisions; others should stand back and play the role of teacher-helper. This includes supportive professors in colleges and universities. It includes researchers, whether they be in the National Institute of Education or at a university. It includes superintendents, principals, assistant principals, counselors, state superintendents of public instruction; it includes organization staff, like myself. It includes the people in the state department of education; it includes the planners. All these people have one purpose in life. It is the job to help teachers do the job where the tires hit the road -- in the classroom. (1977) TIDY AND EFFICIENT SYSTEMS Impersonal administrative arrangements -- with rules, schedules, arrangements, and power flowing down from the top -- breed subordination and dependency. Invariably, such a mechanism spawns systems of rewards for conformity rather than creativity. Such systems induce compliance with institutional expectations rather than response to client needs. Most unfortunately, they set the stage for conflict between administrative authority and institutional representatives (teachers) and the institutions's patrons (students and parents). Such systems are, to be sure, tidy and efficient. For this reason they are the order of the day in our schools. Accordingly, teachers, are denied the excitement of formulating their own programs and then accounting to their peers and patrons for the results. Even the most competent are reduced to the routine performance of specified tasks in specified ways at specified time in specified stations. (1975) Provided by the TQM BBS, 301-585-1164.