At all levels of the educational hierarchy, from the newest to the oldest, from bottom to top organisational position, educators tend to speak two languages.
* Neophyte teachers, when speaking with other newbies, tend to speak differently from the way they converse with older, more experienced peers.
* Classroom teachers, when speaking with each other, tend to communicate differently than they do when talking with senior teachers or unit leaders.
* Senior teachers/unit leaders discourse differently with each other as peers than they do when communicating with assistant principals/principals.
* Assistant Principals have a conversational fraternity that is often not shared with their immediate superiors, their principals.
* Principals, when in discourse, speak with a familiarity that generally does not translate to the conversations they hold with directors and departmental seniors.
* Those in departmental support roles have similar communication limitations that shape and limit conversation, based on their level of seniority in school support positions.
At each discrete level, I refer to conversations as being ‘above the table’ or ‘below the table’.
* Conversations ‘above the table’ are those shared by subordinates with superordinates. They are qualified, with those at the lower hierarchical level often tailoring what they say to fit what they think those in superior positions want to hear. They are expressions from the head rather than statements from the heart. They are based on saying the right thing to get on and stay safe and secure within the organisation.
* Conversations ‘below the table’ are those in which people are speaking with peers. They can be covert and even clandestine. This is about colleagues on the same shared level speaking from the heart, saying what they genuinely think and feel about issues. The ‘blind spot’ within the Johari Window is engaged.
Under the table, where they are invisible to those above, educators can say what they genuinely think and feel. This may sound disloyal, even hypocritical. However, these conversations can be a pressure-release point and help those heated up calm down and regroup.
* On occasion, somebody quote, under the table. I disquote. Little rat. On what’s happening under the table to somebody. An open quote, above the table. Close quote. Passing on information clandestinely in a hope of carrying favour with the person to whom the ratting is being done. Dash, that in order to gain some benefit at a future time. That may be in competition for a job with others or some other reward. If the rat is discovered, his or her hypocritical attitude will generally result, and they’re being held at arm’s length in future.
Just some thoughts and observations coming from over time and over the years.
Note:
I have written this in relation to my experience and understanding in education however without any doubt whatever this type of scenario and perspective applies within all organisations and I would vouchsafe funding how much exactly particularly those belonging to government the private sector is not disengaged or violet from this sort of scenario for it happens within all organisations
