Garrison in garrison

Barracks is one of the meanings of “garrison.” To say that Craig Garrison was sent back to the barracks might be an understatement. 

First, the “rumor” of his resignation goes something like this: Craig had his not-so-sedate conversation with the commissioner. Craig emailed her after to say that the seemingly unbridgeable divergence of views might be best resolved if he just resigned. The operational word in my hearing is the “IF,” and Garrison proceeded to state in detail the divergence of views and why he was resigning, effective 1st September when his contract ended, if matters cannot be resolved. Immediately, however, the response was a loud “OK,” and his resignation was surprisingly announced at a public gathering.

A threat of resignation as a tactic to have someone pay attention to one’s views is not uncommon and given the paucity of HQT administrators, Craig might possibly have thought he had a trump card. Rita Sablan, we surmise, might have thought she had better cards in her hand, and called Craig’s “bluff.” Since Saipan has been a poker-playing island for a while now, that might just have been the way the cards were dealt and played, putting Craig on the downside of the gaming chips.

The new turn and twist came with the immediate relief of Garrison, and we wondered if EEOC would not be too far behind. Monday’s paper confirmed our projection, perhaps, foreshadowed by Frank Agulto’s assessment on the retaliatory nature of Rita’s action in assigning Craig to administrative leave.

One of Garrison’s reported points that merits serious consideration is the remuneration of principals being similar regardless of variance in the number of served clientele. PSS pay scales are set, allowing minor divergence within a range, and PSS’ systems support might be explained in the additional subordinate personnel allowed supervisory administrators.  But in today’s corporate standards, that rationale might be vocationally understandable, though not professionally justified.

When MHS needed four vice principals early this year, I thought I qualified for one that favored clearly a male applicant with familiarity of social behavior and science, language and the humanities. I applied and HR dutifully informed me that I failed to meet BoE specific qualifications. My certifications were evidently not of the right kind!

I mention this last not to call attention to my continuing drama with PSS but to highlight what I see as an organizational emphasis on strictures over and above the system’s heralded motto of “students first” and support of highly qualified teachers.

The accountability I have of Garrison is primarily on whether his administrative style is enhancing the learning capability of students. He had opined in one of his write-ups that students are spending too much sitting time in classrooms, rather than “experiencing and doing” activities that can be processed for participatory learning.

The European classroom style and model passed on to American schools, around the world including Japan-Korea-China, were designed to instruct students to pass exams, where teachers as experts instruct them of the right answers to standard questions. PSS pays attention to goals, projections, and accomplishments mathematically translated so administrators are measured of their efficacy on how students fare in standard measures like the SAT. Nursing individual cases of Juan and Maria are lost in the umbrella of the average score!

Garrison seems to be moving away from that classical and no longer relevant and effective pedagogical style, and if he stepped on toes of colleagues and supervisors in the process (admittedly, Craig’s colorful use of the English language and objectively brusque mode of relating might have been contributing factors), we all know that what passes for “disrespect” of mannered sensibilities is often just a case of misplaced pride inordinately hurt, self-induced loss of face, or just plain hubris.

For all the vaunted claim of corporate teamwork and collegial consultation, PSS’ surprising announcement of supervisory shuffles is more the act of central command rather than the enabling facilitation of corporate leadership. The courage to lead a long time ago abandoned the military central command model, taught by TT officials and practiced by the Pentagon.

Unraveling the tragicomic drama of Rita and Craig is not the main feature of the PSS show. Media’s propensity to dichotomize, creating opposing camps and giving the impression that contradictions can only be resolved by combatants in conflict, and given the litigious ambience of our society, necessitating the judgment of the court, or such bodies as the EEOC, lose sight of the main plots of “students first” and HQT enablement in the shuffle.

Main characters in this drama so far are bona fide teachers. They are functional human beings with manageable selfhood capable of raising the fundamental question of how students are benefiting from the divergence of views and corresponding administrative actuations. If one can transcend the eff-ing idiocies of hypocritical morality and the be-itching urges of egotistical one-upmanship, might we be able to focus on the system that is supposed to support the struggling student wanting to learn, and the qualified teacher committed to teach?
[I] Vergara is a regular contributor to the[/I] Saipan Tribune[I]’s Opinion Section.
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