Just Following Orders

The expression, just following orders, has a certain connotation. It’s what the German war criminals said during the Nuremberg trials as they tried to defend the indefensible. And where nothing can compare to that, and I hope if you are reading this, you don’t think I am trying but that’s what the powers-that-be at 1701 Prudential Drive say they are doing, they are just following orders.

They are following orders from the Federal Government having to do with No Child Left Behind and orders from the State that has to do with a whole host of issues. Orders issued by far off bureaucrats many of whom if they were in a classroom it was long ago and I would argue none have an idea of what is best for the children of Jacksonville, quite simply because they are not hear walking through the halls of the city’s schools.

The thing is many of the orders we are following and many of the issues Jacksonville is having are orders and issues being followed and had countrywide as well. Districts everywhere are being required to send unprepared and overmatched ESE students into regular education classrooms. Everywhere there is “an everybody will attend college mantra: regardless of the students ability or desire. Then there is the fact that standardized, high stakes tests that force schools to just teach the test is not just a Florida phenomenon but like a sickness it has forced it’s way into the whole body of public education.

The federal and state governments send us money, often just our money back to us with strings attached saying if you want it you have to do this and our leaders seemingly without care pass on these orders to teachers most of who know what they are doing is not beneficial to their children. If I thought for one second, posting the benchmark and having a massive tome of a data notebook would be beneficial to my kids I would do it in a heart beat. After all I and 99.9% of teachers got into the field because we wanted to help make a difference in the lives of children. The thing is they don’t and telling me a rooster is a pig, doesn’t make a rooster a pig.

Somebody has to stand up and say no more. I am not going to administer that shock, or terrorize those inmates; I am not going to follow one more order that handcuffs teachers or sets children back. No more will I be part of a process that is robbing a whole generation of children of the chance to lead productive lives. I will no longer follow these misguided orders being forced down the throats of school districts all across the country, that are not making things better but are making things worse. Somebody has to say enough is enough. Or are we just going to follow orders, even though these orders have disastrous consequences.

Following is easy right; you just do what you are told to do. However we have enough followers right now and in these desperate times we need some leaders. We need somebody to stand up and say, no thanks we have decided to do what’s right not just what we were told to do.