Are you willing to learn to work for assholes?
A riff on what we get used to
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When my grandmother was a little girl it was her job in the morning to empty all of the bedpans.
For those who don’t know, bedpans were where people without plumbing would piss in the night.
My grandmother’s house didn’t have plumbing.
Now?
Now it does.
The notion of my 90 year old Nanny pissing in a pot is a bit outrageous given the fact she hasn’t had to in well over seventy years.
And?
If she had to, she could.
Funny thing about this.
No one insists that people should learn to piss in a pot - the way she had to do it.
No one insists that people use a brick in a bucket to break ice out of the well to get water in the morning - the way she had to do it.
Things got better and we accepted them.
A funny thing though?
My children have to deal with shitty schooling.
My children are expected to put up with shitty, incapable and down right rigid teachers.
They have to put up with the kind of people that I would never work for. They are being taught that status and authority comes simply from a title. They are being taught that expectations are done to them rather than co created with them.
Why is this?
Some have insisted to me recently that they had to put up with shitty people as bosses and my children should learn to do the same.
Wouldn’t it be better if we could find a way to teach our children to not work for assholes?
Wouldn’t it be better if everyone who was employed by an asshole just quit?
Somehow this notion of improving standards of living doesn’t seem to apply to having a shitty boss.
Who, dear reader, does learning to work for an asshole benefit?
I’m not so certain that it’s my children.
A capitalist machine that I’m not entirely sold on?
Perhaps more likely.
Schools turn people into widgets.
Me?
If my toilet is plugged, I’m calling a plumber. I’m not pissing in a pot. I will not work for assholes.
How about you?
(one further note… I think I may have fixed the comments issue. Please comment below if it’s working ;-)
Commenty comment comment!
Institutions are so powerful, so muscular at reproducing their status quo — to the extent that practically everyone can want change and it will still be slow and clumsy if not impossible. It’s hard to build, bail and sail a boat all at once.
I think there can be value in learning how to navigate being trapped in discomfort, how to find meaning and other comforts, how to wriggle free if possible, how do we respond to obstacles we can’t avoid? What do we do when someone won’t deal with us relationally? When someone doesn’t want to learn? When someone’s not great at their job but they gate-keeper something we need?
But yes, the educational system leaves a lot to be desired for both students and good teachers. And we definitely don’t need to go fabricating horrible obstacles to teach kids lessons. Enough of them arise naturally!
Don't usually pipe in, but I am going to in celebration of comments back on.
Institutional Public Schooling is a conservative endeavour aimed at providing a population ready to serve the functions of capitalism. Period.
If you, like I frequently do, choose to skim the curriculum documents of your local jurisdiction, it will become clear why even the most idealistic teachers will fail in creating substantial change.
Modern, western public education is based on the Prussian Model, brought into being by Frederick the Great of Prussia in the late 1700-early 1800's. State-funded, compulsory education had a lot of benefits for this nation-building monarch. And obviously a free education for all classes that includes girls has benefits for the people as well. There is, like with everything, a shadow side to this system. The shadow side involves instilling a sense of duty to the state...or the system, instead of to the family unit and local community (the village). This system was a great way for an Imperialist to raise a loyal army that didn't desert at harvest time.
Modern curricula in Canada indicate goals of raising good citizens, workers ready for the job market. The shadow side of these goals is obvious: what about self actualization?
Every year of my experience in public schools I have multiple stories about members of the underclass who recognized clearly that the promises of teachers were lies. You can only "succeed" at school if you have the resources to and are willing to contort yourself into its requirements.