CHAPTER 21

Who Will Manage the Self-Managers? Four Scenes from a Post-Quality School In 1990 William Glasser, M.D., continued his decades-long efforts to reform schooling with the publication of The Quality School: Managing Students without Coercion.1 Glasser imagines schools in which teachers stop bossing students around and, instead, get them to do things that satisfy what he claims are their biologically given needs for survival, love, power, fun, and freedom. Teachers who become lead-managers instead of bosses will be in a better position to persuade students to do quality work, work that feels good and that, over the long run, is good. By 1990 there were some schools that had gone beyond Glasser. Teachers in them acted as if they had spent their time in human relations courses learning how to handle clients instead of in teacher education programs learning how to discipline and teach students. They adopted Glassers rhetoric, perhaps even his logic, but they went Glasser one better. While Glasser insisted that teachers still had to see themselves as in charge of the classroom, i.e., that they were still the managers, these post-quality schools slathered the managerial idiom everywhere. Why not make the students into managers, too, and get them to manage themselves? Why not aim education not at the development of the child but at the creation of self-managers out of what used to be called students? Glassers interest in the production of quality work relies heavily on the work of W. Edwards Deming, the American statistician who helped postwar Japanese businesses produce high-quality goods. It was almost inevitable that someone would Americanize the discipline of Japanese managerial severity and try to out-Glasser Glasser. The logic goes like this: If teachers can become friendly managers who can persuade children to think that schoolwork actually satisfies their innate biological needs, why cant the students be taught to become managers of themselves? Instead of conceiving of students only as workers and instead of having teachers constantly worry about having to manage students to get them to do what is good for them, why not try to eliminate the middleman-manager; why not eliminate the manager-worker relationship altogether? To make students into self-managers would be to drag Glasser and Deming out of the post-war rubble where something had to be done and someone (the managers) had to make sure it got done into the post-me decade of autonomous-butinterdependent, empowered, and supported people who can do anything, including being all they can be. It just sounds right.

I observed one of our students who worked in one of those post-quality schools of self-management. To hear the administrators and the teachers talk, it sounded like they had adopted Glassers scheme wholesale. They had bought the book, Xeroxed the supplementary materials, and held the suggested seminars and discussion sessions. It didnt matter to them that they had adulterated Glassers scheme into something he could never abide. But they were adamant and, with our student at least, they were effective. Two weeks after the start of school, I received a letter from the studentteacher telling me what he would like me to watch for as I conducted my first site visit: Tell me if I am enabling the students to become effective self-managers. Not even a school of self-management could answer such a question because, as Deming would be the first to point out, to tell whether a student was an effective self-manager or not would require an operational definition of just what that might be. This school was too adamant in prosecuting its mission to slow down enough to ask exactly what a good self-manager looks like. But observing the work in this school did give me an indication of how the managers of the would-be self-managers managed themselves. Scene I Our students supervising teacher agrees to take the student teachers playground duty so that we can have a post-observation discussion of his work. Ten minutes later, she returns. Can I see both of you in the classroom? Now?! The boss-like Now?! was not necessary to make me wonder if this was an exemplar of Glassers lead-teachers [who] add kindness, courtesy, and humor to whatever they ask students to do.2 She was mad, and she had some law to lay down. She said to me: Two children, quite independently, said that you acted mean during your observation today. What did you do? Actually, I just observed. I dont recall saying anything. The student teacher looked puzzled, probably for several reasons. Well, these students dont make things up. I want you to be sure that you dont act mean while you are here. If you have something to say to Mr. that is critical of his work, you should probably do it elsewhere. As Mr. and I pieced together the problem over the next several days, we remembered one student who had helped clean up the manipulatives after the math lesson. She had watched as I showed Mr. how he had confused part of the group during his lesson on adding fractions. As she was cleaning up, I had put some of the fraction bars on the table in a configuration Mr. had used and then said, Look at this and tell me why three-sixths plus four-sixths is not seven-twelfths, like the blond girl at the end of the table said. The young student-helper had taken her report of this incident to a friend on the playground, they had laughed about it with

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their friends and the story made its way, quickly and through two by-then quite independent routes, to the supervising teacher. My encouraging Mr. to see the logic of his students errors, which were caused, at least in part, by his presentation of the problem, was, in the context of this school which insisted on overlaying a veneer of friendliness on every comment, mean. Even though Mr. saw his problem immediately, I had not added what passed for kindness, courtesy, and humor to my encouragement that he teach better. As we talked about this incident, Mr. came to appreciate his supervising teachers position. I think we probably should have gone elsewhere, or at least we could have waited until all the students were outside. That way they wouldnt have to see anything that they might interpret as critical, he said. Its important not to be critical or even seem critical if you want someone to be a self-manager. They think that being critical is mean and it upsets them. What are you trying to teach them? To be self-managers. And when they fall short of being a self-manager? What then? I encourage them to see that its really in their best interests. Youre critical of them, right? I wouldnt put it that way. I know you wouldnt because, in the name of making little selfmanagers, no one has ever taught your students the difference between someone being constructively critical and someone being mean. But I would call this an exercise of discretion, something youve urged on us since we started in teacher training. We should have conducted our business elsewhere, in private. I can be critical of students, but I can be discreet in my criticism. It seems to me that in this case discretion has turned into deception. And thats mostly because anytime you think its time to be critical of a students work, someoneor some part of your conscienceis there to tell you to do that elsewhere. Remember when Mrs. was critical of my being critical of you? She took us into an empty classroom and made sure there were no students playing hooky from recess before she unloaded her anger. Why not be critical in public so that students can see its possible to be critical, perhaps even helpful, without being mean? I dont think you and I are going to agree on this. Especially since your getting a job here depends on your discretion. Scene II I arrive at the school just in time for an all-school assembly. Five hundred children are packed in the multipurpose room (a large room with a stage,

basketball hoops, and gymnasium-grade carpeting with inlaid foul-shot circles and half-court lines). In front of the stage is a smaller stage set up for the occasion. The clock sweeps past the appointed starting time for the assembly. A young man starts disassembling the portable stage on the gym floor and reassembling it on the larger stage as teachers open the curtain-like stage doors and change the lights. The hum of the children increases. Some of the teachers who have stayed with their classes stand and start looking a little more stern. Finally, the principal goes to the front of the room. The principal raises her hand, fingers spread. About four hundred hands go up in a gesture of mass reciprocity. The principal speaks: If your hand is up, youre ready. If your hand is not up in the air, youre not ready. The other hundred hands comply with the coded order to discipline oneself into silence. The principal says, You can help now by being on your bottom and being quiet. The teachers who stood to communicate their sternness now help by putting themselves on their bottoms. Still there is shuffling. Its my turn now. . . . Excuse me. . . . No. Excuse me, says the principal with increasing but controlled shrillness. The principal begins: Because of some teamwork that didnt occur this morning, our guest is having to set up his stage right now. Its very hard to entertain 500 kids, but that is the problem here this morning. So were going to take a little time. I want you to take five seconds now and think about what it is that might be happening here this morning. Just as the order to think is given, the guest, a puppeteer, slings an embroidered cloth over the back of his stage. Sleeping Beauty, it reads. The kids who can read start to say to one another, Sleeping Beauty. Were gonna see Sleeping Beauty. It quickly becomes like a mass mantra: Sleeping Beauty. Excuse me, the principal shouts. Im going to count to five. Youre not supposed to be talking now. I want you to think, she says, putting her two index fingers to her temples in the same way women of a former time were pictured with their fingers in their dimples, think for five seconds now about what you think is going to happen here this morning. Then raise your hand. Two seconds later she says, Yes, Jason. I think we are going to see a show called Sleeping Beauty. Muted laughter. The principal doesnt get the joke, or at least she doesnt seem to get it because next she says, Okay. Jason has the idea, with that word stretched out like Jason had taken a full five seconds to think it up, that we are going to see a show called Sleeping Beauty. Can someone pick up on that idea and make it bigger? . . . Yes, Martha. Its going to have puppets. Martha thinks this show called Sleeping Beauty is going to have puppets. Is there another name for puppets?

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Marionettes Raise your hands. Yes, Carl. Marionettes. Very good, Carl. Its going to have puppets, or marionettes. Can someone expand on that idea? What is a marionette? This will take some time. Take ten seconds and think about that. Ten quiet seconds . . . The puppet show started. It was called Sleeping Beauty and it did have puppets, or marionettes. And the principals shrillness never spilled over into the hysteria on which it constantly verged. She was, after all, the head self-manager of this post-quality school. Scene III I leave Sleeping Beauty and walk to our student teachers classroom. The lights click on as I enter the room. The principal had motion sensors installed the week before. Even the classrooms self-manage themselves. On the far wall, there is a poster: My Job (Students) To Listen Learn To Teach and to Learn Be a Self-Manager Be Respectful Respect Property Take Care of Self Be Courteous Be Helpful Be Friendly Be Caring Be Responsible Gum Free School DO YOUR WORK! Teachers Job To Teach and to To Listen and Hear

What struck me about this poster was not the obvious disparity in the lists nor the humor of both student and teacher being obliged to listen while only the teacher must hear. What struck me was the way the poster could not maintain its point of view. By reading the poster, one cannot tell if we are in the land of boss-managers, lead-managers, or self-managersor of people who are simply confused. There is in that My Job list an opening bow to self-management, a recognition that the students, who probably had a hand in the construction of

these lists, might come to own these sentiments and see their responsibilities reflected there. But the parentheses make it clear that these are rules governing a division of labor between students and teacher, not a set of responsibilities to be individually honored because they were claimed collectively by the class. The first entries on the list shift back to a point of view that permits the student to see himself or herself as the actor: My job [is] to listen. My job [is] to teach and to learn. Then, only three steps deep, we are back to a list of school rules that seem all too familiar: Be this; be that; be yourself; dont be a brat; thanks very much; I know where Im at. All this concluding with a line that is better understood as a commentary on the exercise of constructing the poster itself (Be Reasonable), a line that would be more entertainingly expressed with one of those circle-and-slash international signs (Gum Free School), and the final excrescence that reminds the students of their real position in a school so enamored of a kinder and gentler rhetoric (DO YOUR WORK !). On the wall opposite this poster is another poster. This one is headed Self-Managers. Down the side is a list of 25 names, all the members of the class. Opposite each name are multiple numerical entries: 50, 100, 200, 100, 500, etc. The sums awarded to the top scorers would easily be four-, if not five-digit numbers. Earlier I had seen the points being awarded to members of groups who obeyed the dictum DO YOUR WORK! and I had sensed the depth of the dispute between the supervising teacher and the student teacher when the latter awarded 200 points to all members of a group just for sitting through his math lesson. This poster was obviously an axis around which the practice of teaching self-management turned. I looked at it more closely. Names with many points beside them were circled. These were obviously the real self-managers of the class. As I scanned the circles, I saw that the children I knew to be the good classroom citizens were the ones recognized by a circle on this list. Then I laughed. There, fourth from the bottom, was the teachers name, Mrs. . Beside it were only two entries: 50, 200. Her name was not circled. Definitely not a self-manager, I thought to myself. Sad. Scene IV Just after noon, as I am signing out on the visitors log, I overhear a conversation, half of which is carried on with a recognizable shrillness-onthe-edge-of-hysteria. Its a conference between a teacher and the principal about placing a child in this class or that one next year. Just as they are about to reach the decision point, there comes a loud eruption from the multipurpose room down the hall. Are they done already? They shouldnt be done already. The principal breaks away just as the teacher tries to say that its probably just a part of the story where the audience has to warn Sleeping Beauty not to do

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whatever it is that Sleeping Beauty has to do if she is going to get into the fix that Sleeping Beauties get into. A few second later, the principal is back, a little more breathless now. No, it was just something in the story, some audience participation thing. Now I notice something that doesnt go with the head self-managers business persons wool suit. Scotch taped to the principals lapel is a fiveby-eight-inch piece of note paper. On the paper is her schedule for the day. Each of the entries through 12:15 P.M. are roughly scratched out. At the bottom of the page, penciled in, is the question, And how is your day? Someone has to be in charge of a school of self-managers. *** It is a little strange, at first, to read Glassers recasting of the student teacher relationship in a managerial idiom. Teachers are people managers, and almost everyone will agree that students as workers seem to be most resistant of all to being managed. For workers, including students, to do quality work, they must be managed in a way that convinces them that the work they are asked to do satisfies their needs. [S]tudents are not only the workers in the school, they are also the products.3 Once the shock of these statements wears off, their banality sets in, and anyone who breathes the contemporary cultural air will find it hard to fault Glassers push for quality schools. It makes good, almost common sense. And the writing has a certain integrity to it. At least Glasser never loses sight of the fact that, while students may have certain jobs in schools, it is the responsibility of teachers (and administrators and superintendents and so forth) to manage the schools so that students can learn. In contrast, the hyper-Glasserized, post-quality school of selfmanagement puts almost all responsibility for almost everything (see the poster, scene III), first, on students. Once the students are engaged in the job of monitoring their own self-management practices, the wardens of the school can go on doing what they have always done, but they do it under a cloying veil of self-serving rhetoric and sappy, institutionalized friendliness and kindness. Children in the school may be taught to be self-managers. What they will necessarily learnunless they are lucky enough to first learn cunning, evasion, and resistanceis hypocrisy.

Chapter 21: Who Will Manage the Self-Managers? Four Scenes from a Post-Quality School . William Glasser, The Quality School: Managing Students without Coercion (New York, N.Y.: Harper Perennial, 1990). 2 . Ibid., p. 75. 3 . Ibid., pp. 16, 22, 4.