School Cultures

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2010



Every school is different. Walk into a public school building and it does not take long to get a feel for the place, a sense of rhythm, a sense of what the school cares most about. It does not matter whether it is an elementary, a middle, or a high school, you get the drift pretty quickly. I was fortunate in my career to spend hours and hours at every level. In doing so, I learned a lot about school culture, and how different they can be. I also observed some common themes in the cultures, and those, perhaps, merit sharing.

My basic theory is that the adults in a school generally operate on the emotional level of the kids they serve.

Spend time in the teachers' lounge at an elementary school and you will hear talk about what is fair, who did not show up for duty today, and debates about who is getting something that others are not getting. I have heard elementary teachers complain that the junior high teachers were fed steaks for lunch on inservice day and all they got were salads. (Doesn't matter that they decided to have salads, it still isn't fair.) I have heard elementary teachers complain that they have more duties than teachers at other campii (I never understood why the plural for multiple school sites was not campii instead of the appropriate campuses, so I will use my term of preference here.) Attend an elementary faculty meeting, and all the teachers talk at once, ask a jillion questions, and express their emotional response to all administrative responses. They re the most chatty group, and the group most difficult to focus and keep on task. What is really interesting about these behaviors on the part of elementary staff is these behaviors are mirrors of the emotional level of the children they teach. Elementary kids spend a great deal of time talking about what is fair, who is getting what, who is the favorite, who should tattle. Elementary kids still want to be loved by their teachers, are hard to focus, are chatty, and will reveal any number of inappropriate emotional behaviors and thoughts. Elementary teachers descend emotionally to the level of concern demonstrated by their kids.

Spend time in a junior high or middle school campus teachers' lounge and you will hear all the gossip about who is dating whom, who is breaking up with whom, who has a cute new outfit, who is the principal's pet, who is being ignored, who is popular and who is not. Junior high teachers really do not care about elementary teachers because they view them as glorified babysitters. They only discuss them if it is clear that students are arriving ill prepared for the rigors of junior high. (It is only "fair" to say that elementary teachers promote the image by warning the students in the highest elementary grade that their behavior will not be acceptable when they matriculate to junior high, or middle school, or whatever.) Junior high teachers are very concerned with status, groups and cliques.

Junior high kids, those in 6th, 7th or 8th grade, even 9th grade are overly aware of their status among their peers. Kids hit puberty and want to know how they stack up, no pun intended, with others of their gender or grade. They spend a lot of time talking about boyfriends and girlfriends, parties, popularity, who is "in" and who is "out". It is in junior high that individuals get labels that clump or group kids into some mystical pre-sorted arrangement that includes nerds, dweebs, jocks, kickers, surfers, goth, or whatever. This triggers the old bird of a feather flocking together mentality and kids who are "out" discover, via label, that they are not alone because other kids are "out" with them. Pity the child in junior high who wears the "wrong" outfit to school. Junior high teachers assume the emotional concerns of their students. I recall junior high teachers in effect interviewing me as a new comer on their campus to determine to which faculty group I can be assigned. It is at junior high that the whole coaching culture, band culture, special ed. culture, etc., first emerges, and the faculty is keenly aware of the members of each group.

High school teachers do not go to the lounge much, unless there is coffee or free food. If a gaggle of high school teachers is caught conversing in the lounge, they will be talking about either events external to the school (local issues, politics, global warming, etc.) or school related activities (prom, football games, cheerleader tryouts, etc.) High school teachers are cool by definition. They do not complain about duties, they do not give one iota about junior high or elementary teachers because everyone who teaches children is somehow inferior. High school teachers teach math, (not kids), science (not kids), etc. They are mini-professors, imbued with the wisdom of their content knowledge. I remember joining a high school faculty and the first thing they wanted to know about me was my pedigree, where I attended college, what was my major, where else have I taught, etc.

High school kids are cool. In fact, they are the arbitrators of cool. Funny that what is cool in one school is totally not cool in another, but that does not matter. Within the school, kids rule cool. Part of cool is being both aloof to school and its rules, and caring deeply about the social here and now. High school teachers are like that, except, they disdain the social here and now and swap that concern for the beyond-school social or political here and now. A typical high school teacher will not get sucked in to a teenage romance tragedy, but will become passionate about new legislation that impacts schools as well as recent school board activity. Both students and teachers must remain emotionally aloof, however. Attend a high school faculty meeting, and teachers will send murderous looks to a peer who raises a hand and asks a question that might prolong the meeting. High school teachers want to know what is due when, how long does it have to be, and are there consequences for blowing it off. Just like high school kids.

There are other school cultures. Most dominate, and least discussed, is the athletic culture, though every school person knows this is the most sacred and most isolated culture within the school. So secret and so powerful, this sub-culture deserves a posting all its own.

For now, enter a school with your eyes wide open. Watch the kids and you will know the faculty.

POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 7:16 PM

LABELS: PUBLIC SCHOOLS

2 COMMENTS:



Anonymous said...

Interesting! So if the teachers' personalities take on the characteristics of the kids they teach, what does that say about the campus administrators?

JUNE 22, 2010 9:46 AM



Eileen Good said...

Good question, Sweetie! Seems to me that principals either follow the cultures outlined above, that is, get caught up in either the drama or the cool, or they operate at the adult level most of the time. My favorite principals hung out as grown ups 90% of the time, but could lapse into the appropriate kid emotional level at the appropriate time.