Analysis Of Schooling In A Social Context: Educational Environments

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From reading the readings about institutions and organizations a section in the reading “Schooling in a social context: Educational Environments “stood out to me. The section “Propositions Comparing Internal Components of Organizations” stood out to me the most because I can relate to what Meyer and Rowan are talking about in this section from what I have seen during my experience working in education. The first point that Meyer and Rowan makes is saying “in educational organizations feedback concerning the work and output of teachers and schools tend to be eliminated, even if it happens to exist.” I absolutely agree with this point. I remember when I first started to work in education at Thompson Middle School the principal at the time …show more content…
I’ve seen this happen and I’ve actually been a part of this movement. When I worked at Thompson Middle School the school was labeled a failing school by the state of Michigan. When a school is on the failing school list this causes for a lot of pressure for the school district particularly the superintendent and the school principal. My school responded to this pressure by making pragmatic and categorical changes. The changes that took place were replacing or eliminating staff members. We changed our curriculum to International Baccalaureate program which to this day I’m not sure was the best curriculum for our students. We also created new programs like college access programs, 21st century after school programs and reading initiatives. We even extended our school day and changed our class schedule to block scheduling. When all these new initiatives were created they were good ideas but I don’t believe administrators considered first what was best for the teachers when making these changes. I believe the teachers needed help and wanted to be included in on what was going on with the change of the school. I believe the new initiatives minimized the impact on instruction because teachers were so overwhelmed, and upset about the many changes that took place that the …show more content…
I agree with this statement a lot because from my experience I believe people such as principals and superintendents and some senior teachers feel that they have power when it comes to educational instructional activities when in reality they do not have that much power. I believe they feel this is an area where they can control what is going on and they feel that they don’t have any control over what happens as far as education policy. An example of this would be looking at the example of the middle school where I worked were we created all these new initiatives and created a lot of change in our school. I believe the principal and other education leaders had the feeling that they had the control over the changes and what were happening in the school but in actuality the internal and external constituents were really guiding the changes that were taking place. The school I worked for had received a grant but there were guidelines that we had to abide by to receive and maintain the grant. Those guidelines were created by the government which gave them power over how we shaped our organization. So the power of change that was occurring at our school was not in control from the principal but the government was the one who was really

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