I often make my way through this world as a consumer looking up and wondering, “Does the CEO of this company actually know that this is how his/her business is running right now?”

I mean do they fly commercial on their own airplanes like regular schmoes (I mean folks) like me do without warnings being sent to the flight crew that the big kahuna is on board so they better look sharp? Do they roll through their own drive-thru hungry for some dinner, have cable schedule a home repair that leaves them locked down at the casa for a nebulous 5 hour window on a weekday, or walk the aisle of their grocery store with a squiggly wheeled cart and then wait 10 minutes in the express lane for the lady with 17 items (in a 12 item limit line) to write a third party personal check from an international bank with only an expired library card as an ID to verify the purchase?

Do they? Do they? I swear, I doubt it.

Yet, they make those of us in the lower classes – like me – do it all the time.

So here’s a proposal. I say we make every principal and every vice principal in America’s public schools (grades 6-12) teach one class. That’s right, let ‘em teach one class.

They wanna know how the school is really operating under their leadership, let ‘em have to walk a mile in a real teacher’s moccasins!

Now obviously, this assumes that they could do it. I’ve had a host of principal’s and VP’s in my day and some of them seem like they surely could have stepped up and riffed cogently about direct objects and the such in a semi-intelligible manner. And then I’ve had others who seem like they’d have trouble unscrewing the dry erase marker cap.

Please don’t ask which side outweighed the other, either. (But to be fair, those dry erase marker tops are trickier than they look.)

But really, could there be a better way to actually see what’s going on at ground zero other than actually being at ground zero once a day? And none of this teach for a week nonsense. I am talking about taking responsibility for the education of 38 kids 1 time a day for 36 weeks. (Hey, they’re asking me to do it 5 times a day next year.) Would the benefits of insight not greatly outweigh the problems of schedule for these folks? I men how can a person truly and effectively be an administrator if they have no idea what it feels like to be “administrated” by their own concoctions.

And really, would any school remain the same if this rule were introduced? Would NCLB not be entirely re-written if the folks doing the writing actually had to teach some real kids before, during and after they wrote and implemented this legislation? How would the national standards that are being written look if the people writing them actually had to teach each and every one of them to proficiency within the scope of one school year?

And ya know what, let ‘em teach the honor’s classes, I don’t care. Those kids’ll drive a person bonkers just as easily as a a person working with the “below proficient” kids will. You can’t sandbag here. Put your boots on the ground for one period a day and walk the daily walk. I have a feeling it would create revolutionary change for the better.

I know many of these people used to do it. But now that they no longer have to do it, they seem to have forgotten what it feels like to be asked to a buncha things that don’t really seem all that intelligent/practical/feasible and so on to do.

I figure at best, the dictates from above would show some empathetic common sense for what’s going on below. And at worst, we’d at least be provided with simpler-to-open dry erase marker tops.

Is it okay to have limitations?

Is it okay not to be the most cutting edge, 21rst century tool wielding teacher on the planet without having aspersions cast on my professionalism?

Is it okay to not be the most phenomenal teacher of persuasive writing, expository writing, autobiographical writing, compare and contrast writing and creative writing ever to hold a dry erase marker?

Is it okay to feel hurt when my kids feel hurt by the budget cuts, impacted classrooms and the sense of facelessness which my kids all-too-often feel in the halls of state’s schools?

Is it okay to feel sad when the fights break out?

Is it okay to feel triumphant when Jesus shows up for class three days in a row… and even has his homework for a change?

Is it okay to feel regret about the dismissal of the Year 2 teacher that got laid off just when it seemed she was starting to really get a handle on this whole “teaching” thing even though there are educators in our midst who should have hung up their spurs long ago to make way for a new crowd of eager, excited and talented young guns?

Is it okay to feel “stung” by the inanity of weight being placed on bubble tests?

Is it okay to want to close my door and just spend some time working with my kids serving their own best interests as I best interpret them based on all my years of experience and study without having to answer to a VP who doesn’t seem as if he could teach my class nearly as effectively as I teach my class should he ever be charged with the task of doing so?

Is it okay to simply recognize that wearing the hat of parent, friend, mentor, coach, teacher, social worker, and task-master — all at different times, without much rhyme nor reason to the order upon which these demands will be thrust onto me — is kinda hard without sounding like a whiner? (And kinda sets me up to not always be “incredibly great” 24/7?)

Is it okay to do the best I can… even when the best I can doesn’t feel like it’s good enough to solve all the problems I hope to solve?

Is it okay to even give voice to these fears — or am I to pretend that “I always have it all under control”?

Is it okay to show concern for the fact that California has just sliced its education funding in a historically unprecedented manner?

Is it okay if I still want to remain optimistic about what I do for a living despite the tenor of this blog because I know that without hope, faith and belief in the future, I am all too aware that I should hang up my own spurs, if for no other reason than the good of the kids?