Elementary School Bureaucracy

When I worked in an elementary school I saw clear examples of a bureaucracy on a daily basis. First, there were “official jurisdictional areas… ordered by rules, that is, by laws or administrative regulations. (196)” This is to say, each person had their task and area they worked. The secretaries of the school handled all the paper work, the principals took care of the higher administrative duties and the teachers of course did the teaching. In this jurisdictional setup there was a hierarchy with the principal on top and the vice-principal below them, then Teachers and finally, secretaries. Both jurisdictions as well as Hierarchies are both in place to maintain clear ordered system of responsibilities which was also true for the school I worked at. Whenever I had a problem with my paycheck I would call Gwen, if I need time off I would call Sarah, or if I had an important problem I would find the principal. Each person at the school had their clear place in the hierarchy and because of that it allowed me to efficiently navigate the system.
Something else that became all too apparent was the role of documents in the office. Weber wrote, “The management of the modern office is based upon written documents…(197)” These ‘written documents became an everyday hassle for me at work, because for long period of time I was considered a “substitute” aid, which meant I had to go into the office everyday and check in which was a process of creating a new Sub-10 form and filling out all my hours and info. This was by no means efficient and was just an example of red tape.
Weber’s next condition for a bureaucracy is expertly trained official, and this was certainly true in schools, each worker had their specialization which they were specially trained for. The teacher I worked for had a special teaching credential and the principal had a master’s in education even some secretaries had to show they could type so many words per minute before getting the job. Each person at the school had their specific specialization and the training to go along with it. Another aspect of bureaucracy that I also found in schools was the use of one’s full working capacity while one was at work, as well as, the clear separation of work from home. This could be seen in the actions of my teachers and my fellow aids; if you were to call any of my fellow employees and asked them to help out at the school, they would most defiantly say no. However, if they were at work it is implied that they are there at their full working capacity to do whatever the teacher/school needs.
Weber outlines his last characteristic of bureaucracy as “The management of the office follows general rules, which are more or less stable, more or less exhaustive, and which can be learned (198).” This means that every bureaucracy, like schools, is managed through rules. An example of this was the two day period from 9:00- 2:00 where all we did was learn rule after rule from sexual harassment to what to do if a kid cuts himself. Through all these six characteristics it is easy to see how schools can play into the role of Weber’s a modern bureaucracy.

Jeremy Bentham was on to Something

When I worked as an aid in a resource/special needs class room a couple years ago we had a problem, after lunch kids would not focus as well because of all the excitement of recess and none of the kids would focus on their work and get easily distracted by one another. The normal routine would be to bring them recess and each aid would give them a worksheet or a test with about five kids at a table. So we unwittingly created a panopticon for the kids. Each table was kidney shaped where I was in the position of the observer and what we did was create dividers out of bookends and paperboard to keep all the students separated from one another. This set up was just a scaled down version of Bentham’s panopticon.


Before and after implemented the panopticon the students were supposed to always focus just on their work this meant they were supposed to be faced down doing the work. Because of this, they usually never knew if they were actually being observed, and for the most part I would just sit there texting on my cell phone under the table. This shows perfectly how in this setting one does not need actually observe, but only needs to be under the impression of observation which worked with no trouble at all. However, this is not a perfect panopticon because it is not a truly unverifiable observation where the kids do have the ability to see if they are being observed. But, for the elementary school children they did not need that unverifiable observation because part of their role was to stay focused on the work and not look up at me. So, in this sense there was a kind of unverifiable observation, it just wasn’t structural but, part of the power relationship itself.


Foucault wrote, “Hence the major effect of the panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power (201).” And this just as true for the kids I taught as well as inmates in prison. Each student began to work with no problems because the panopticon environment created separate individuals (201). Foucault wrote to this directly, “ if they are schoolchildren, there is no copying, no noise, no chatter, no waste of time…(201)” All of this produced the “automatic function of power” where I didn’t have to constantly keep the kids on track, they sat down in their partitioned areas and did the work with little or no pressure by me.
Another way the panopticon was beneficial in classroom setting was that the structure made the power more economic and effective, just like the panopticon in prisons, where instead of having one teacher/guard per kid/ prisoner we were able to have one observer for a much larger population. The only other way of getting those same results as a panoptic setting was if we had one on one teaching where one teacher would express power over one child directly. But, in panoptic setting it creates the same dynamic, yet with just one teacher instead of many.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sociology

Division of Labor

For Durkheim the division of labor was not just a mere economic phenomenon which only brings efficiency out of specialization. The division of labor instead is something that produces solidarity, which is necessary in society. This is a much deeper understanding than the previous understandings of D.L. by Smith or Marx. Durkheim takes division of labor to a whole new level and claims it produces what is known as organic solidarity, which is unity born out of complementary differences. D.L. does this by providing interdependence between one another. This can be seen in any market where one person provides goods or services for one and they in turn provide a complementary need which diffuses out into a relationship with everyone in that society. However, the Inverse of this, when there is no D.L., this produces Mechanical Solidarity. This solidarity is formed out of similarities and not complements resulting from D.L. Durkheim sums it up when he writes, “The situation is entirely different in the case of solidarity that brings about the division of labor. Whereas the other solidarity (Mechanical Solidarity) implies that individuals resemble one another, the latter assumes that they are different from one another. ...we propose to cal ‘organic’ the solidarity that is due to the division of labor.”
In the element school I worked for, there was a very clear division of labor where every necessary operation from teaching to administrative and janitorial work was all specialized. Form this D.L. everyone that worked there had to rely on the next person. If the janitor failed to do their job, the school could not operate smoothly nor would the janitor have the job if the teacher was not there to teach. Out of this interdependence Durkheim would say that organic solidarity formed out of our complimentary differences. However, if there were no divisions of labor and everyone taught their own children, only Mechanical solidarity would exist. It is only from the divisions between teachers and other workers which organic solidarity form.
Durkheim also showed the different uses of law in the different states of solidarity. In Mechanical solidarity the laws tend to repressive, however, in a society with proper D.L. repressive laws take the back seat to restistitive laws. Restitutive laws main purpose is to restore the proper division of labor, whereas a repressive law’s purpose is to maintain the common beliefs of the society. In the organization of schools, Durkheim was right, I can recall several times when a teacher or staff member did something wrong or broke a rule and the only punishment was to restore the proper of D.L.. One example is when an office worker who also had a child that attended the school would go visit their child during the school day. In so doing the office worker would go outside the proper procedures of visiting your child at school. Once the problem was realized by the principal, she simply clarified the rule with the staff member and restored the proper divisions in that environment. This example can be seen the use of restitutive law shows an environment with proper D.L.

Schools II

The living theory institution I will be writing about will be the elementary school I used to work at. My relationship with school is obvious because like you I have spent way too much of my youth locked up learning about things I soon forgot. In addition to that I worked at an elementary school inside a special education classroom as an aid for two years. I also have a sister that is a elementary school teacher with Teach for America in Las Vegas, so I could easily direct any question I have about schools to her. This institution would be a category in itself, the only larger category I could put it in would be the State/government. As for a social rule at work in schools would be the expectation of one to go to school. How often do you come across someone (at least near our age) that just didn’t attend school; it seems that there is a pretty big social rule that you have to go to school. The division of labor is schools is very apparent, you have the secretaries, principals and others that take care of administrative tasks. Then you have the teachers who actually do the teaching and then you have janitors and groundskeepers that kept everything up to snuff. There are gradation of “classes." This division of labor or specialization only holds these workers back from developing their full talents and abilities. When a Janitor toils all day cleaning up spilled milk he will only live an unfulfilled life. This is a reason why Marx tell us that we need to abolish capitalism and we need to allow all people to develop their multifaceted abilities.

Schools

The living theory institution I will be writing about will be schools. My relationship with school is obvious because like you I have spent way too much of my youth locked up learning about things I soon forgot. In addition to that I worked at an elementary school inside a special education classroom as an aid for two years. I also have a sister that is a elementary school teacher with Teach for America in Las Vegas, so I could easily direct any question I have about schools to her. This institution would be a category in itself, the only larger category I could put it in would be the State/government. As for a social rule at work in schools would be the expectation of one to go to school. How often do you come across someone (at least near our age) that just didn’t attend school; it seems that there is a pretty big social rule that you have to go to school. The division of labor is schools is very apparent, you have the secretaries, principals and others that take care of administrative tasks. Then you have the teachers who actually do the teaching and then you have janitors and groundskeepers that kept everything up to snuff. I’m Not exactly sure how Marx would view School’s division of labor, there are gradation of “classes” but, not in the sense Marx meant. You could consider all the employees of the school proletariat because it is not run by a profit making person of organization. Because of this I would assume Marx would be happy U.S. schools. On the other hand, there still clear division of labor which, I don’t see a remedy to. For a government to run a school there must be some bureaucratic/ administrative workers to take care of all the paper work in order for the teachers to teach and not worry about the bureaucratic mess.