Written and Edited - July 1st, 2017 - 5:01 pm to 5:54 pm
Written and Edited - July 7th, 2017 - 6:35 pm to 6:43 pm
Line Leaders
When I was working at Club Boulevard Elementary School I greeted students getting off the bus every morning.
One morning interaction stands out to me. Two of the students I worked with, Nicholas and Jennifer got off of the bus. They started pushing each other, one getting in front of the other one saying, "I'm going to be the line leader. No, I'm going to be the line leader."
If I remember correctly, wanting to be line leader was a common desire for most if not all students. And I think it was across the board for this generation, maybe mine and maybe across other generations.
I think I had a sense of the dominant culture that leads to students wanting to be line leaders.
But observing these 2 white students, whose classmates were all of color, it became more clear to me. It's not so much external factors, like white, male over non-white, non-male. But rather ways or patterns of being.
There seems to be a view or expression of leading as hierarchal, patriarchal and 1 person or group
over other people or groups.
But I've seen other ways of leading which is more fluid and relevant to the moment.
I heard 1 description of leadership as, a good leader thinks well of the group. I think that was my friend Peg Lewis who said that.
And in my experience and reflecting, I came to appreciate that when we're in the flow of being in right relationships with each other, we respond to being relevant with the moment and each other. So, we're all leading or following at any
given moment. And I like that way of being because the human experience for me is fluid.
The arguing about being line leader was so pervasive that I found myself thinking about what does that mean, to be a line leader?
Maybe it was the intersection of line leader with being in a school setting. School is supposed to prepare you for jobs. After all, schools were shaped to match factories and corporations for the times they existed.
I mean you can't be a line leader as a job. There's no job as a line leader. So, I got curious. I looked up to see if there was a job description. I think it was when I left the job as a teacher assistant and was looking for a job.
So I was on websites like the Employment Security Commission and found a job description for a line leader.
I was kind of surprised when I found a job description for line leader. But I wasn't surprised after I read the job description.
I read the job description around 2000. So I don't remember all of the details. But in order to give you an idea of what I found, I'm enclosing a job description that I found online, today, July 1st, 2017, at 5:40 pm. I typed, line leader job description in a Google search.
"Job Description for Assembly Line Leader. An assembly line leader is typically a person who works in a production facility and is responsible for overseeing a variety of manufacturing activities within their department. This position can be found within a variety of production facilities, warehouses, and factories."
And it's interesting as I reflect. Because it seems like the student's orientation or perspective of line leader was to be in charge. And at school and work settings, there's an idea that's pushed, programmed that being a leader is in charge. And there are some hierarchal, patriarchal factors or ways of being in that description of leadership.
But all of it's done in the context of a capitalist system in which there's a bigger hierarchy and deeper patriarchy that's involved.