Tonsure for tenure, not too sure

In the medieval ages, when religious supplicants were ready to be accepted into a Monastic Order, a halo on the top of their heads would be shaven, and thenceforth, the monk would be marked for membership to an institution that served both as agricultural commune, depository of profits and gains, organized hostelry and institution of learning. Some monks served as bankers, master craftsmen, teachers, traders, pastors (agriculturally and otherwise) and priests at the same time. The tonsure was the mark of tenure in a select group of men.

The issue of teachers’ tenure has been an item of conversation among members of the Board of Education and the Commissioner for the last three years. Those conversations guided and shaped the current status of teacher engagement of two-year cycle units and the evolving forms that the certification provisions and the No Child Left Behind Act are pushing the system toward.

Tenure has also been a prominent item in Teachers’ Rep. Ambrose Bennett’s rhetoric since he assumed his post at the BoE, and early this month, finally brought the matter to the front burner with a submission of justification papers toward a proposal for a system of tenure within PSS. Thick on philosophy, and perhaps a wee bit thin on specifics on the proposal, the call is nevertheless all too relevant to the anxious and often beleaguered ranks of teachers in the Commonwealth.

Mr. Bennett is not suggesting tonsure, of course, and I am not too sure I will either. I use the analogy of the Monastic Orders only because in the organizational development of trade’s people, before technical schools and liberal arts colleges emerged out of agricultural towns to lodge safely in the urban and cosmopolitan universe, a journey from apprenticeship to mastery of craft was the general course to follow, a hangover from the shadows of the Monasteries.

Mastery of crafts led to membership in a Guild, the secular cousins of the religious Orders, from which would emerge both the Labor Union and the Chamber of Commerce. The Guild of teachers in a given discipline became the College, e.g., the College of Medicine. Guilds were collegial gatherings. When the unified interrelatedness of disciplines became a tenet of faith, and an operational assumption, the campus of the University was born.

A collegial gathering occurs today at Laolao Bay Gulf Club. Members of the Public School System convene. Colleagues from various schools, the Head Start Program, SPED/ELC, and the Central Office will let their hair down. They will pronounce words that are solemn and frivolous, ridiculous and sublime. They will act as mature adults and comical juveniles. They will sing and dance, laugh and bellow, scream and guffaw. They will appear foolish and serious, in the same breath, both committed and flighty. They will cry to high heavens, and drop a tear at the instance of a commonly held sentiment like the sudden discontinuance of someone’s service, “just because.” They will be humans, all too human, before they put on the professional garb and the pedagogical gown of academé.

Teachers will be most vulnerable in the area of job security and tenure. Since PSS employees are not civil service workers, they are not protected from nor do they have recourse when the whims of those few and maybe far in between nasty administrators decide not to renew their contracts “just because.” Or, from another side of the equilibrium, in the accommodating and non-confrontational island culture, there also are the exasperated administrators who do not understand how anyone with some sensitivity or sanity would not get the message that they are no longer perceived to be helpful nor effective members of their teaching team.

But whatever reasons there are for the non-renewal of a contract, given that the renewal of the contractual relationship is solely dependent on the school administrator, the teacher is absolutely at a disadvantage. It may be legally safe to say that there is no severance of contractual relationship, or a deselection, nor an overt judgment of incompetence involved, but the fact remains that teachers who feel that the non-renewal of their contract was based on non-professional criteria, are left without any effective recourse.

So, we are back to the issue of tenure. A journey of apprenticeship to mastery level clearly laid out would make a good start. Perhaps, the formation of Teachers’ Guilds within the system, a guild for every school location would also be in order. The focus would be on the teacher, his/her training within an existing system, with tutors, guides, mentors and masters strewn across the way. If the guilds eventually form an association or an alliance that has possibilities of synergy across the system. If a Commonwealth-wide association seeks affiliation with the National Education Association or American Federation of Teachers, that would be fine, too. It would broaden the source of resources and expertise. But tenure must be understood as a journey where one assumes ownership of a whole system; in this case, one that is currently predicated to the intents and purposes of the No Child Left Behind Act of the current national administration.

Joining the colleagueship of professionals puts tenure as a quality of professional identity rather than just a notched attainment of labor negotiating for salaries and benefits against management. Also, certification steps through use of assessment instruments such as the PRAXIS must be enabling and empowering tools rather than as a convenient weeding out procedure.

The PSS is in a period of transition. The Commissioner’s Office is expected to have a change in personnel, and presumably, will follow the inevitable reassessment of substance and style of the office. Five top administrators of local schools are expected to make their gracious exits for various reasons. Talk of decentralization is already abroad. That is healthy. Without the corresponding push from the bottom for more self-sufficiency, self-reliance and demonstrated self-confidence will only throw decentralization efforts into chaos. Local initiative and autonomy must be claimed and reformulated to make a shared ownership of a system possible. Teachers corporately and cooperatively must crank up their engines to set the agenda afoot.

There will be shared cereals, condiments and beverages at the Education Day festivities today. May common visions and defined missions be shared as well. And among teachers, for self-interest and self-preservation, may they take the initiative to lay out the schema for a tenure program within the system.

As for the tonsure, well, given my receding hairline and thinning mop top, I would not mind but that’s because I am partial to medieval monks. How about a punk haircut dyed in school loyalty colors for apprenticeship? Nah!