Clean it up, please

Have you ever heard someone put down an organization of which they are a part? This is a more common thing than you might ever think. For instance, while I was working for an area car dealership’s service department, a certain problem arose. There was a question as to whether or not we could handle it, and I, optimistic fellow that I am, asserted that, of course we could handle it. After all, this was the service department. We handled nearly impossible situations everyday, and always in short order. Impossible ones like this we could do as well. They would only take a little more time.

That was met with a derisive snort or two from the mechanics. And from that I took it to mean that not everyone had the faith in our organization that I apparently had. I might have argued that unless we believed in ourselves to the point that we felt pride as a team, our efforts to get any job done would be severely handicapped. Teams are, after all, al lot like the proverbial chain. Chains are, it is said, only as strong as their weakest links. So teams, then, no matter their composition, or their objectives, are only as effective as the individuals who make up the team conceive them to be. And if any team member sees the team as weak and ineffective, then that is what the team ultimately is.

I didn’t take the time to make those arguments then. But I have spent a lot of time since thinking over the value of self-esteem, both individual self-esteem, and group self-esteem. And I think that those organizational geniuses that have made Toyota the roaring success it is may have found something in the way they approach team spirit. Team spirit is a highly valued thing in this world. Achieving and maintaining esprit de corps is an ongoing exercise. Individuals are encouraged to think of the team as an effective entity. Once team members have a positive image of the organization, the organization becomes more effective in its goal of producing high-quality products.

I bring this up, because in my current incarnation as a substitute teacher, I often hear students express a poor opinion of the schools they attend. And this troubles me. Why do these students, who are a part of schools that have successes in many areas, feel so negatively about them? I often point out the qualities that I feel these schools possess, and I also point out that if the schools are, in fact, of as poor a quality as is being asserted by the students, then these students not only have a poor opinion of their schools, they have a poor opinion of themselves as well, as it is the students who make the school what it is.

So, if it is true that the schools in question is of a higher caliber than its students give them credit for being, then the trouble lies not in the schools, but in the image that these students have of them. And it is at times like these that I wonder what the school administration is doing to build up a positive image of the school in its student’s minds. What factors are there that contribute to these poor perceptions?

There is a theory in keeping cities from becoming run down that originated in New York, while Rudy Guilliani was its mayor. It went like this; let any building in any block suffer from an un-repaired broken window, and in a short while, there will be many more broken windows. Leave these un-repaired, and in an unbelievably short time, there will be massive urban decay in the affected area.

I have seen similar situations in some schools. Often rooms are not kept as clean as they might be. Dirty floors and uncollected trash, for instance, often cry out for company, and they usually get it in short order from the students. Once this happens, books are vandalized, and like the cityscape in the above example, esprit de corps plummets as the learning environment deteriorates.

It is times like these when I wonder, what would the schools be like if the administrators took the same tack as the supervisors in the Toyota organization take? What if teachers and principals took the time to insure that rooms were kept as clean as possible, and also to insure that each day, the students were encouraged to think of themselves and their schools as being the very best in the business?

A friend and I were once discussing the idea of becoming a millionaire, and my friend expressed the opinion that, for us, it was a pipe dream. You may be right about that, I countered, but there is one thing for sure. No one ever became a millionaire without thinking the thing was at least remotely possible.

So it is with the schools. Any given school may not be the best in the system, but it certainly cannot become the best unless someone there believes it can be, and somehow communicates that idea to others in the institution and gets them to believe it, as well.