REVISED SAMIZDAT NUMBER TWO

APOLOGIES
WILL NEED TO REFORMAT THIS


Interview with a teacher
So, how do you feel about working for Inequality Schools International?
Well, the name really says it all. No matter what sort of propaganda the school may make about making kids good or smart, the bottom line is that they are helping privileged kids continue to enjoy the advantages of privilege. I mean un-earned privileges. These kids are getting the tools which guarantee that they will enjoy their superior status in the future.
(Wait a minute! Are you a communist?)
No, but I don’t believe in capitalism either. Look, the problem is that most people cannot afford to send their children to Inequality School. So, the school is already selecting for the privileged from the first step. One local manager likes the slogan “PLAY”; but it would be more accurate to say, “NO PAY: NO PLAY”. And, of course, schools don’t ask where the money comes from. So, some kids (the ones who attend Inequality Schools) grow up with advantages that other kids don’t have. You multiply that and you get increasing wealth inequality—And it’s not just about money, it’s about quality (and length) of life.
(Editor's Note: This is a very sketchy argument, but it could be made more exact. See Chapter Three of Robin Hahnel, The ABC's of Political Economy.)
(But that’s not the school’s fault.)
No, it’s not the school’s fault. But there are some facts here you can’t ignore. Let me put it like this. I could see what sort of place this really is the first month I worked here. We had a special meeting for IB students. There were maybe eight adults sitting around the table, teachers, the school’s director, and I don’t know who else. And we were all discussing, one-by-one, how each student was doing. We were micro-managing their performance. And these kids were not especially talented or clever. But here they were getting extreme detailed attention. And about the same time I remember reading a story in a newspaper about Roma kids in the east of the country who don’t have running water or even shoes. That sort of drastic wealth inequality is immoral. Here we were paying obsessive, even superstitious detail to these kids, and other kids, probably no less intelligent or deserving, had no shoes and no running water. I say it's superstitious because I doubt whether such excessive attention really accomplishes anything; for example, it means the kids have little chance to develop independently. But the main point is that we have fantastic wealth inequality, inequality of resources, for no good reason. Is the school doing anything to change that? No, not really, even if it pays lip service to ‘responsibility’.
(But, wait a minute! Are you being fair? Doesn’t the school encourage kids to think about the less fortunate? They even took kids to one of those poor communities you are talking about.)
You’re right. They did take kids to a poor community to help. And the people responsible deserve credit for that. But, the question I am asking is about the bigger picture. Is that typical of the overall institution? Or, is it just a sort of sidebar? I think it was just a sidebar because the basic fact about the institution is that it gives you a degree if you have enough money to pay. No pay/no play. Yes there are also a few scholarships, and that’s good. But all that doesn’t change the basic picture. Martin Luther King once said that it’s no good to toss a coin to a beggar if you ignore the edifice that creates beggars. The school is not only ignoring that edifice, but it’s also giving privileged kids the tools they need to maintain their status within the edifice.
(But you can’t expect one school, or even one chain of schools to reform society.)
No, one school and one chain of schools can’t do everything; but the question is, what direction are you moving in? Are your actions, on the whole, positive or negative? Let me give you some other examples. This institution has a track record and it’s an ugly one.
Furthermore, it has a Stalinist approach to its own history. But, I’ve seen three different directors, and there seems to be a common thread, which I attribute to the Inequality Czar, Thames Wilson.
(What in the world are you talking about?)
The school has unwritten and secret illegal policies about who gets management positions and who gets the best contracts.
(How do you know that?)
Well, you can’t know exactly what the policies are because they are not public. But if you talk to people who wanted better positions and were turned down, or people who were fired, a picture begins to emerge. The school has an ideological test for management positions…
(Ideological test?)
You have to be a regular church-going Christian. At any rate, that's what people say... and I have known people who had to go through ideological tests... one person was turned down for having the wrong religion. Another was invited to be interviewed by Thames Wilson personally--taking a trip the interviewee would have had to pay for--to discuss his "moral" beliefs--and my friend was convinced that "moral" was a euphemism for "religious".
And one employee was fired because of gossip (allegedly stemming from the wife of the US ambassador) about his sexual orientation. Another person was fired because the director at the time didn’t like the faces she made during faculty meetings… There is a general pattern of disrespect toward teachers. The root problem is short-term (one year) contracts which makes it easy for a director to get rid of people.
(But this is all gossip.)
Yes, it is “gossip”, but the question is whether it’s true, or whether it has a basis in reality. It could be inaccurate in detail, but reflect reality; we just don't know. And, notice that if the policies are secret, then they are not written down, and since people get fired or leave, it’s hard to actually find out what’s really going on. That’s why I say it’s ‘Stalinist’. The school can make up whatever stories it wants because there is no institutional memory of wrong-doing.
(But these are serious charges.)
Yes, they are, and I cannot prove them.
Look, I’ll tell you what kind of morality this institution really has. For years, many employees had to pay for their own health insurance. And the school did not take money out for taxes, even though it was required to do so by law. Recently it started to follow the law. Of course, the school claimed that there was a loophole in the law. They wouldn’t say ‘loophole’ of course; they’d say it was an honorable exception. But what I’m saying is that it’s a moral duty of an employer to contribute to health insurance and retirement for employees. That’s the norm in civilized countries. (Of course I except the United States from the civilized countries)
And the hypocrisy doesn’t end there. A few years ago the IB teachers asked for more prep time so they could improve the quality of their lessons. They unanimously agreed that they didn’t have enough time. The director of IB had two answers. One, which she gave in public at a meeting, was, roughly, if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Of course, she wasn't so forthcoming. She mumbled something about how if teaching IB was too hard for you, then you didn't have to do it. The school was so kind it wouldn't force anyone. Her other, more diplomatic answer, was that since the school was now paying taxes there wasn’t money for that.
But notice, the school should have been paying taxes all along, and anyway, why should teachers be penalized because suddenly the school had decided to start following the law? The school had been neglecting its responsibility, and, now, was finally doing the right thing. In any case, I’ll bet the school is what people at the local American-run school of management would call a 'cash cow’ for the inequality schools system.
(What do you mean ‘cash cow’?)
I’ll bet that this particular school makes large profits compared to the other schools in the system, and even makes up for schools that make less money (or run in the red), because recently the enrollment here has increased drastically.
(But you don’t know that, do you?)
No, I don’t, but it sounds plausible. And, what’s worse, I think I should be able to find out. I mean, if this were a reasonable democratic institution, I should have access to that sort of information without a court order. It should be made public. I should know what my sweat, blood, education, and talents are contributing to. But it’s a tribute to the deeply democratic nature of the institution that so many important facts are not out in the open, and all you ever know is gossip.
Don't you have anything positive to say?
About individual teachers, or teachers in general, yes. About individual administrators, or individual actions by administrators, yes. But most administrators, most of the time, live in a fantasy world. For example, our local director just returned from a meeting where he was hob-nobbing with other directors. That's very bad. It increases his already too large sense of his own superiority. Here's another example. Once a previous director wanted to help us prepare for a large number of new Korean students. So, he read a book written by another director of an international school--not a book written by an anthropologist or scholar, not written by someone who knew both English and Korean. He chose a book written by someone like himself. And the lessons he learned were something like an administrator's fears about what might happen. It was absurd. He had no real information. All the information was focused on possible problems that he, as an administrator, might have. He was unable to understand that teachers have different lives. What would have been useful was a short crash-course in Korean language--and not at the end of the day when you're exhausted... Recently we visited Kia’s factor, and we couldn’t even say “hello” or “Thank You” in Korean!”
Here's another way to make the same point. Administrative positions should be eliminated. There should be no supervision of teachers by people in non-teaching positions. Administrative duties should be spread among the teachers.
I should mention that there is research in economics about the value of self-management and workplace democracy. It shows that self-management and workplace democracy increase efficiency.
Furthermore, the current super chief should retire. As Slovaks say, a fish rots from the head down
Thank you.
Thank you.
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An After-thought: Why Special Added On Activities

to Teach Morality are Superfluous

There is a possible view of good things (education, the ability to use theories or create works of art, the ability to read--skills and knowledge in the broadest sense.) One view, a view that I think is held by many teachers, and which I myself once tacitly held says that some things are just good, no matter who has them. If I teach a bad person how to read, that’s good because reading is good. Interestingly enough, neither Socrates nor Kant believed that. Both held that such things as reading are good or bad only if one adds to them something more mental—a good will (Kant) or knowledge (a “techne”) of good and bad (Socrates). And that seems right to me now. Every form of knowledge can be misused and abused. Plainly, Inequality schools recognizes that, and for this reason attempts to educate children and young adults in morality. Whether their methods succeed or are well chosen is another question. I just want to mention why I think their methods are flawed. Ironically, within the design of Inequality schools, there are already required courses where students think about how to live—-courses in literature and language, and history, as well as the IB course called “theory of knowledge”. Advanced language study (whether it be English, Slovak, German, French, etc.) is always study of literature. It is through studying literature and history that students learn about moral reality. The fact that the managers at Inequality schools feel the need to add on some special training suggests a misunderstanding or mistrust of the traditional humanities.—-Mistrust because just maybe literature and philosophy and history are too open-ended, too much open to interpretation. After all, the humanities require a student to actually think for him- or herself; and maybe that’s dangerous; the student might not end up with the right interpretation. So, we have to tell them what the right rules are. Or, perhaps, it’s a classic case of marketing hot air. Experts in marketing will tell you that it is precisely when two products aren’t really different that you need to advertise. And there’s a question about the morality of that too!