The World Owns You

Part 2

A little bit more about school discipline and it’s relationship to how the world owns you. Public schools are the product of a public education system. That system is administered by some governing body or another. Here in the U.S. It could be national, state or county. Usually it’s a mix of all three to some degree or another depending on the political climate of the moment, location, and willingness to follow laws. The administration of any actual school building, the place where the rules meet the reality, is a combination of regulations piled on by multiple levels of bureaucracy but ultimately administered by the final link in that bureaucratic chain, in most cases the teacher, who must exercise their own discretion in the application of those rules, and results can vary widely between individuals.

From my perspective as a school bus driver, they too are responsible for ultimate administering of the layers of rules expected in the public school environment. Bing as how this is the point of view of my perspective I can comment with some authority about the relationship of the layers of rules and expectations and how it is applied at the final point of contact between the bureaucracy and intended control vector, i.e. the student. It is then important to note that in the ideal administration of rules and the education for the student, the chain of administration doesn’t stop at the school-level but with the parent or guardian.

The teacher and the bus driver aren’t the only ones who have contact with the student. To some extant the interactions of any and all staff in a public school have impact in the students. From the kitchen staff to the custodial staff, from the student resource officers to the nurse. Obviously the principles are very important as they are responsible for administering all that goes on inside a school building and on it’s grounds. The principles are beholden to the their superiors and must act with that in the back of their head when doing anything. And up and up and up the bureaucratic chain until you reach God.

Yes, God is the ultimate bureaucratic manager, and that opens a whole other can of worms. But for my purpose God will be the end all be all of authority. You may think of it as destiny or a random number generator or something else entirely, but it all comes down to something beyond human control, and that is my point.

Back to school. I am using school at this time because it is something I’m somewhat familiar with. It is also a microcosm of the world at large in many ways. The education system in the U.S. is something that can be analyzed in a fairly comprehensive way. It is in theory a public institution that in theory is subject to public scrutiny, much more so than institutions like private schools or business. It’s worth noting that private schools are essentially private business in the U.S. And private business isn’t legally required to be as open with information as are public schools, which despite the legal assumption that the public can access it’s information is still relatively opaque.