The
structure of my school is far from a democracy. Yeah, the stories of scary
school-masters are a stereotype, but I’ve never really taken them seriously
until I came to my current school. Like other schools, we have your normal
principle, and while he does do much of the high-level work, he’s more of a
puppet to the real master and the final decision maker. That privilege belongs
to the Head of School (HOS).
First of
all, let’s get something clear before I talk about what the HOS does to my
school. She is only in that position because of nepotism. It just so happens
that her husband is a major owner of the school. A few years back, she was the
principle. She eventually left that position and created this one for herself.
From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t have any qualifications or proof to show that
she does belong where she is. That’s pretty significant. In a school like mine,
a student’s relationship with the administration is important in determining
their success.
There are
two important things about our HOS. Firstly, her mind is ingrained with the
image of the ideal, Indian student. She loves all those who can step into that
mold, and scorns the ones who can’t, or don’t even try. Secondly, she’s a
miser. She’ll jump at money making opportunities and circumvent discussions
about spending it.
Above those
two things is the reputation of the school, a thing both she and her husband
hold with great importance. Together with her two attributes, these three
things form the basis on which she makes any and all choices. Even though it’s
hard to tell, she’s behind all the decisions made at my school: who’s fired and
who’s hired, what trips to plan, what events to hold and how to hold them, who
joins the student council, who gets an award, who gets recognized for the
school’s success, everything is approved by her.
There’s no
grey area with her. Those she likes are showered with praise and opportunities
throughout their time at my school. The others, the ones in the ‘black,’ are
insulted in front of other students and ignored otherwise. Spend just a few
minutes with her and you’ll see who she loves and who she thinks is useless.
What does
this mean for the school? Well, those she likes are favored to succeed. The
rich kids with money to donate, and the ones who carry out her every whim and
fancy are given each and every opportunity to succeed, and not all of them are
legal. The rest, if they even want to, have to struggle to reach the top. In
the end, all this does is create an environment where all the ‘others’ stop
trying to succeed and resign themselves to coming in fourth place.
Now, you
might say that this is a good system, because it’s survival of the fittest. I
agree that survival of the fittest is a good policy in the workplace, because
in that mechanism, both the workers with initiative and the company benefit.
But in school, it is the job of the institution to ensure all the
students succeed. That’s what families pay tens of thousands of dollars a year
for. And while all of the HOS’s ideas may not be bad, this is definitely an
imperfect system with an obvious replacement. And by replacement, I mean
replacing her.
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