Obed’s Eyes

Names have been changed here to protect the unmotivated.

Some background here: I regularly have been professionally developed this year, sent to help develop a huge masterplan for our school. At some of these meetings, a representative of the state presents material and guides us in creating our plan. She is older, maybe sixtyish, with well-coiffured gray hair and impeccable taste in professional attire. The jacket or outer layer slims her, the jewelry and accessories make her look financially comfortable and unflappable, a picture of professional success. I do not mind this woman. I don’t really care about her one way or another. She is not particularly interesting, especially since I regard the state’s need for a monster plan to be a real waste of time and effort. All these people making all these plans that require all this data that no one will ever see — these people might be teaching, planning instruction, or administrating instead of endlessly creating (and then recreating when the state changes how it does things!) information required by bureaucrats. It’s an awful waste of time. Even if the plan is useful — which it is — we could come up with a better plan, more tailored to our actual needs, if we were freed up in our own school to work on specific school problems.

But I realized this week-end that to Obed — a student of mine — I am that woman from the state. I don’t know what he sees through his enigmatic eyes. He’s so expressionless. But I am sure that he sees me the same way I see State Lady. I don’t interest Obed. The material I am presenting does not interest Obed. He enjoys school the same way I enjoy this state-mandated professional development. For me, it’s an opportunity to visit with coworkers I like. For him, school is his chance to hang out with friends. I’m more than willing to help my Principal, but I regard the state’s requirements as mildly aggravating, the masterplan as a fundamentally inefficient use of time with a real opportunity cost. Obed is willing to do some of my work — enough to pass — but he regards that work as a waste of his time. He does not care to actually learn the material presented.  He never plans to go to college. I am State Lady in his eyes and I do not know how to change this.