New, Improved Response to “Essential Conditions”

(New & improved because I actually began this class last semester and had to take an Incomplete due to Student Teaching/PACT overwhelm. So here is my second shot at this...)

I'm trying to have a better attitude. I'm trying to be open minded and positive. But the distance between this lovely vision and the reality I've experienced is just so pathetically vast. I can't seem to cross it.

First I wonder, is this list in any particular order? I am guessing not, because if it were, wouldn't "Consistent and Adequate Funding" be at the top? Last semester I spent one very long morning running around the campus of the high school where I taught, just trying to find a classroom where my 11th graders would be able to present their Powerpoint projects on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All we needed was connectivity and a screen we could project on... I did find it, but mostly I found classrooms where those basic conditions did NOT exist. Including my own of course, which was why we needed to migrate across campus that day before we could get down to work.

There seems to be something about technology that's turned on us. Like - this cart's not just ahead of the horse, this cart's actually running away with the horse.

I know I'm being so vague. Let's look at the first few Essential Conditions. Shared Vision, Empowered Leaders, Implementation Planning... then comes that Funding... and Equitable Access. Yes, how we do need these things. But in my world, these conditions are essential first in order meet some much more basic needs than technology. My mind is stuck inside of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and I can't get out. Is that short sighted? But isn't that the whole point of the Hierarchy? It is not possible for human beings to succeed at the higher levels if the lower needs are not met. If we COULD achieve vision, leadership, collaborative planning, adequate funding and equitable access, my passion would be to see them applied to the basics.