When I was young, someone very close to me, disappointed in me about something, said to me: “you are consistently inconsistent.” I was too overwhelmed at the time to debate the point, yet here I still am thinking about it – and I realize I’ve waged a fierce campaign against this barb throughout my life. I am sure you, my colleagues, may notice the occasional ripple or tear in the fabric of my attention, and I do too – and so did that person close to me, and I suppose you’re all right. OK, consistently consistent in some ways. However, what I’ve come to realize is that there is a deeper layer within myself, perhaps less visible to some, that is solid and immutable, a.k.a. consistent.
What’s there is strong desire to experience genuine and cooperative communication with those around me. So, for instance, we don’t accuse each other of being “obnoxiously friendly,” “dependably unreliable,” or – you know – “consistently inconsistent.” I learned more about my connection to genuineness in preschool – and by that I mean my son’s preschool – which was founded in 1949 in Culver City by followers of humanistic psychology/Carl Rogers (originator of person-centrism). The insights of preschool children at this school were valued, especially when conflict between the children (naturally) occurred and they were asked to problem solve around the conflict, which, to my surprise at the time, they were able to do, even at 3 and 4. I remember how the teachers would carefully follow the 3-year-olds around the yard monitoring and interpreting the kids’ reactions and choices, and facilitating their conversations with each other – and not taking control of things.
I am sure many of my colleagues are aware of this way of seeing kids as well as grown-ups – that none of us are inherently bad, and that our motivations can be recognized as relatable, even when we make a mess of things and hurt each other. To Rogers and his school of thought, this concept of unconditional positive regard is an essential theoretical pillar, as is the notion of congruence, which refers to complementarity between the ideal and the real in the self. If you’ve read my Chaparral articles, I am pretty sure I’ve talked about this stuff before, noting that the redesign of community colleges is shot through with theoretical links to Carl Rogers/ humanistic psychology.
The memory I mentioned in my first paragraph, combined with the intersection of my life with the concepts I brought up, has left me very committed to my own consistency/congruence and, more to the point, very focused on inconsistencies, or let’s say incongruities. This Chaparral article is about a few incongruities I can’t help but point out. I should say, before going any further, that I take a positive, constructive view of my students, my colleagues, and myself as an instructor, and that my positive regard for these figures results in the following observations at GCC and of our system.
The first has to do with professional development. Since I take the most unconditionally positive view of my colleagues, I assume we are all honing our craft as teachers, spending more time on doing so than is required contractually. I spend dozens of hours each year learning new visual effects tools to share with my students, for example, just to offer my students more value. And so, I wonder why faculty laboriously submit and certify that we’ve completed our development obligations, because why would we surveil those we trust?
Next, I still struggle with the whole learning outcomes thing; no disrespect to my beloved colleagues who run that process. The learning outcomes and assessment process requires so much energy by so many people, as well as dedicated software infrastructure for everything LO-related to get done. The rationale for doing them is, to my knowledge, as follows: students and instructors need clarity about what a student will practically be able to do after completing a course, instructors need to ascertain the degree to which students are actually able to do what is set forth in the course outline, and student performance data needs to be analyzed to show equity gaps and performance lapses. But, if I take a humanistic view of my colleagues, I simply assume they feel and operate as if they deeply care about the practical impact their teaching has on their students (all of them), and that a complex administrative process costs more than it benefits our system.
Finally, I find that the implementation of many of the educational reforms affecting community colleges is painfully, paradoxically anti-humanistic. I could write a book about the depth/breadth of this problem; however, let’s just consider the student-centered funding formula. It even says “student-centered” right there in its name. Yet, it is a veritable financial guillotine over the college’s head for almost a decade now, compelling us (through legal control) to produce degree completions, when a humanistic approach would horizontalize, rather than verticalize this reform.
And I suppose it is ironic, then, that I should look at our system and imagine it as “consistently inconsistent.” Maybe the system will react to my accusation the same way I did, and turn congruent. I would then feel a more genuine connection to it.
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