Bill Braun (medprac@hlthsys.com)
Fri, 21 May 1999 16:21:04 -0500
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 16:21:04 -0500 From: Bill Braun <medprac@hlthsys.com> Subject: Re: standards, perhaps double standards?
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><<I was particularly interested in the notion of purpose; why public and
>private schools exist in the first place....
>
>Private schools, which "remove" the individual [the "part"] from the
>physical community [the "whole"], are focused on the improvement of the
>individual and not the community at large. ...
>
>Public schools, which keep the individual in the physical community, build
>community by responding to "the whole".
>
>***Where does government public school bussing fit in your worldview?***
Rather than break down public education into its various component parts,
of which bussing is one, I propose we do the opposite. A brief background
primer...
In analysis (also called reductionistic thinking - not a pejorative term)
we take the thing we want to explain, break it down into its component
parts, attempt to explain each of the parts taken separately and then
aggregate our understanding of the parts into an understanding of the whole.
In systems thinking (the opposite of analysis, also called expansionistic
thinking) we first take the thing we want to explain to be a part of a yet
larger (containing) whole, find an explanation of the larger whole, then
disaggregate the understanding of the whole to explain the parts.
We tend to practice analysis by habit. If we took a straw poll we'd likely
find that few people draw any distinction between thinking and analysis.
Using systems thinking, school bussing is a part of a yet larger whole, the
educational system, in turn part of a yet larger whole, the community,
which in turn is part of a yet larger whole, society. Perhaps starting with
the larger whole of society will reveal some understandings that help
explain bussing.
Bussing had it genesis in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court
decision, when separate but equal was legitimized under federal law. It was
also the point in time where we can find the origins of Success to the
Successful in many aspects of society but certainly in education. (The
Success to the Successful archetype suggests that success or failure may be
due more to initial conditions than to intrinsic merits.)
Separate turned out to be unequal (in many facets of society, not just
education), an extreme example of Success to the Successful and as a
society we began to search for ways to remedy the unequalness and also
provide redress to those who had been harmed by it. By looking to the
"larger whole" of society and the social climate that prompted a close
reexamination of our way of doing things, we find an understanding of the
whole that we can use to help explain the part.
Bussing was one of our societal responses to separate but unequal. Being
unequal, it is no surprise that the academic achievement was poor by
comparison. Although honorable in its intent, history may treat bussing as
an example of Shifting the Burden. Despite good intentions, we may have
done more to react to visible problem symptoms (shift the burden to a
symptomatic solution) than to address the underlying problem (why we
societally believed that 1) we needed to be separate and 2) it was going to
be equal).
That said, although there was an academic performance aspect to bussing, it
was not in and of itself a response to academic performance. It had to do
with the larger containing social system of which the educational/school
system is a part.
You are quite right that kids were bussed out of their neighborhoods. No
argument that communities were not strengthened by the process. But
communities had already be depleted of resources and it would be a stretch
to call bussing the cause of anything. It was the effect (albeit a highly
visible and irritating reminder of the past) of another complex
interdependent system of causes.
>Independent public schools are community based, based on free association.
I attended St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland. I lived in South Euclid,
an eastern suburb. I travelled about 50 minutes each way every day using
public transportation to attend school. St. Ignatius is located at West
30th and Lorain on Cleveland's near west side. When I attended in the mid
60's, no students lived in the surrounding neighborhood.
St. Ignatius fits the criteria of free association. Anyone who was white,
male and middle to upper class who could afford the tuition and could pass
the entrance exam was free to freely associate with all of the other free
associators. I fortunately qualified (Success to the Successful).
criteria. We had nothing to do with the neighborhood (poor, Hispanic) and
we did our best to ensure it had nothing to do with us save for our annual
conscience appeaser, the annual Christmas Food Drive for the parishioners
at St. Patrick's Church down the street a ways. Where a school is
physically located is not the determining factor for its emotional,
intellectual and spiritual connection to the community.
>They are one of societies mediating institutions.
Finally, I highly prize my education at St. Ignatius. It was then, and I
believe still is, one of the top two or three schools in Northeast Ohio.
Thirty years later, looking back, one of its mediating effects was my
disconnection from the community I live in. That does not condemn St.
Ignatius nor does it argue against mediating institutions.
But it should make us sensitive to Fixes that Fail and act as a word of
caution against analytical thinking that has us forever trying to fix the
same problem despite our best (and best intentioned) efforts to fix things.
For so long as we focus on problem symptoms, nothing much will really change.
Unfortunately, there can be long delays between the time we initiate our
solutions and when the problem symptoms reappear; this can cause
significant difficulty in connecting the good try that missed the mark with
the present problem symptom (the Fix that Failed).
Bill Braun
The Health Systems Group
- Physician Leadership Training
- Simulation Modeling for Healthcare
http://www.hlthsys.com
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