A few months ago, my relatives took my children to a pet shop and uttered the words every parent fears: “Get whatever you want.†I had hoped my children would choose fish. Instead they each chose a turtle - pets that can live for decades.
Six months later, both turtles have doubled in size. With winter approaching, they will need to move indoors, where space is limited. Nothing bad has happened. There is no turtle emergency. With some adjustment, we could make it work. We can manage.
But I found myself wondering when “we can manage†became a good enough reason to keep doing something.
Putting up with problems
Schools face versions of this question all the time. There is rarely enough time, space or resources to create the perfect arrangement for everyone. Much of leadership involves balancing competing needs, finding workarounds and making imperfect situations work.
At one school where I worked, there was never quite enough specialist teaching space, so science teachers occasionally used ordinary classrooms when a laboratory was unavailable. Drama and music faced similar constraints until renovations became possible. None of this was disastrous. We made it work.
But there is a downside. When people become skilled at accommodating imperfect circumstances, it can be easy to forget that the underlying arrangement may no longer make sense.
This matters particularly when school leaders begin looking ahead to the next academic year. Which staff will stay? Which programmes will continue? Which problems need addressing and what should become a priority? Amid all these decisions about what comes next, it can be easy to overlook what is already in place.
Never finding time to revisit decisions
Schools also rarely have the luxury of revisiting every decision. Once a problem has been addressed and things are functioning again, attention naturally moves to the next issue.
And often there was good reason for the original decision. But circumstances change, as do students’ needs and the school’s priorities. A decision that made sense one or two years ago may no longer be the best option, even if things still appear to be working.
A staffing arrangement may continue even when it no longer serves students as well as it should, because colleagues quietly compensate for what is missing.
A timetable may function because one department repeatedly absorbs the inconvenience. A programme or policy may remain in place because everyone has learned how to work around its weaknesses.
Everyone manages. Another term passes. Over time, what began as a decision can start to feel like a permanent feature of school life.
This does not mean every imperfect arrangement needs fixing. Schools will always involve compromise.
The cost of doing nothing
But there is a cost. Something can be manageable and still require significant time, attention and energy. Sustaining one solution inevitably means having less capacity elsewhere.
Perhaps that is what the turtles made clearer for me. We can keep both turtles. Of course we can. But as they grow, we also need to consider whether we can continue providing what they need, and whether keeping them still makes sense for our family.
The same is true in schools. Something does not have to become unmanageable before it deserves to be reconsidered.
Leaders will not always know immediately what the right decision is. Sometimes there is no better alternative.
But even then, they should be able to explain why an arrangement remains educationally defensible, whose needs are being compromised and what might be done to lessen its impact, rather than simply pointing to the fact that it still works logistically.
After all, what is at stake is not only whether an arrangement works, but what students experience while adults are making it work. Managing an arrangement should never become a substitute for asking whether it still serves students well.
Feon Chau is a former school administrator and educator currently based in Taiwan
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