Comments on Comments

The "Monkey in the Middle" who commented on the last post obviously knows the family I wrote about. He inserted a very punny little reference to the family name in his comments. Also, he is number six in a family of twelve children, so that's why he is Monkey in the Middle.

The above is all true, unless my powers of deduction have failed me.

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FavoringCurry also left an additional comment that I read and thought about, but didn't have time to respond to because I was furiously getting ready for Farmer's Market on Friday, and going to market on Saturday. While it wasn't the first market day of the season, it was the first day I had flowers to take, so I did the annual "dig everything out from its storage places" maneuver and the "get-the-routines-established" procedure, and, lo and behold, we got to market with tasty and beautiful lettuce, alien-spaceship-like purple kohlrabi, and lots of lovely flowers. Unfortunately, the Chinese Cabbage we had prepared to take stayed behind in the cooler--an oversight probably prompted by the fact that I was muttering complaints to myself while I loaded everything--because "Why didn't Hiromi do this while he was out doing the pet chores this morning? And why does the lady have to do the heavy lifting here? And why wasn't he hurrying more with eating his breakfast?" "Furiously getting ready for market" is a more pregnant phrase than you thought. Nevertheless we arrived in good spirits and had a productive day at market.

I had to ask Hiromi at least four times "Who was that?" after he had finished visiting with some old friend of his who had come by our stall. Three times, the person was someone I used to know, and once, someone I've seen fairly recently. I concluded that Hiromi is much better at remembering faces than I am. As soon as he told me the name, I immediately remembered lots of things I knew about that person. The memories for me are not triggered by seeing the face, but by hearing the name. I think reading it would have the same effect. I think I must be slightly brain injured in this department. That, or Hiromi is better than most people at things that require visual memory.

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Back to FavoringCurry's comments. . . . He advocated running schools like a business. Perhaps he has read some of the same articles I have on this subject. Or perhaps he knows about some of the experimentation that has been done in this regard. I don't recall details, but I believe that some public school systems have actually hired private contractors for major parts of their education obligations. Simply put, the goal is to get the job done without losing money, or perhaps even while generating some profit.

At my alma mater, within the past few years, the board of directors hired a president who had become wealthy in a business career. During his tenure as president, he actually refused a salary. I gathered that he was brought on board precisely because the school needed its finances whipped back into shape, and they needed an astute businessman to do it. They cut some staff positions and adjusted the salary schedule somewhat, but, most significantly, grew the student numbers, and got back on track. I think most people felt fairly positive about the changes, overall.

I think following business models has some merit in education systems, especially for goal setting, tracking whether what we do is productive, whether we are treating people fairly, and for promoting accountability. I'm sure it's obvious that more is involved in education than simply having good business sense, however. At Sterling College, for example, the financial wizard president was there for only two or three years and then moved on. I think that was probably long enough to make the necessary corrections, but, without the return of a president who was stronger in academics or Christian service areas, I'm not sure that the long term result would have been as good as it is this way. After all, even if the finances are in order, unless a degree from this place means something (i.e. the academics are in place according to commonly recognized standards), and students are being trained to serve effectively, the school is not accomplishing its purpose.

So yes. Let's think about running schools like a business. But let's think beyond that, as well.

At the risk of digressing further, I note that, as institutions, businesses and schools suffer from the same "Scriptural silence." We know from Scripture about the structure and lines of authority in families and churches and governments. But for businesses and schools, we have to apply general Christian living principles, and which ones to apply when is not always as clear as we might like. For that reason, I have often looked at the existing Scriptural models in an effort to see what I can learn about schools by extrapolating from them. Perhaps because I am a mother, I see my role in the classroom as a "mothering" role in some respects. That's an example of what I mean by extending the "family" model into the school environment. I'm thinking of some of these possible ways of looking at schools as being good companions for the "business model" approach to education.

I absolutely agree about the hazards of creating a sacred/secular dichotomy. FavoringCurry mentions schools, ministries, and businesses in this regard, emphasizing the need for deep and thorough integration of all of life under the Lordship of Christ. (I'm not quoting here, but conveying what I understood from the comments.) I once answered one of my critics with this line of reasoning. He had made some forceful assertions about how teaching secular subjects in school falls into a very different category from the training parents are required to do at home. I wondered why it was necessary to divide the transfer of knowledge into those two categories. All truth is God's truth, all work is God's work, all money is God's money, and all children are God's children, etc. We see this when we understand life with a transformed mind.

Living life without "great divides" is a substantial challenge, but certainly worthy of a Christian's attention and effort. Not least in our schools, businesses, and ministries, and not least either when we are thinking about responsibility and compensation.

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Mary noted that summer jobs can be hard to come by. The men I've known well who were career teachers did a variety of things during the summer. Several of my uncles often were away in school during much of the summer while they worked on post graduate studies. One of them also worked at the grain elevator during wheat harvest, helping to collect samples for moisture testing, preparing weigh tickets, etc. Another uncle did custom hay baling. Both of these uncles had some physical limitations that ruled out strenuous physical labor. A cousin who is a public school principal in this area does farming. One of the principals I've taught under did construction during the summer. Another worked for a mini-barn business. I do think these summer activities serve some of the same functions as a Sabbatical can.

I'm sure Mary is right in saying that a person's job will not likely wait for the person who takes every seventh year off. In some cases, that might be a blessing. Here's how: If a person spends the Sabbatical time either acquiring a new skill or gaining additional experience, perhaps this will open the door to new employment opportunities. Nevertheless, taking a year off involves a significant exercise of faith, especially now, when unemployment is high. Perhaps it is naive of me to believe that if an employee explained things honestly to an employer, without asking for special favors, but making clear that the year off was purposeful, some employers would welcome the employee back after the Sabbatical, perhaps even without loss of seniority, benefits, or wages. At the very least, I hope Christian employers would do that.

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Sigh. The alarm on the weather monitor has gone off four times while I was writing this post. The most recent warning includes Partridge. Hail up to quarter size and 60 mph winds are headed this way from Sylvia, in the western part of Reno County. We are not amused. We are worried. We could use some rain though. The gentle pitter-pattering kind would be welcome.

The wheat is more gold than green now, and the garden is lush and lovely. I sooooooo do not want hail or high winds, and I think this would be the unanimous sentiment of all the residents of Reno County. Please Lord.