Micro-Management: The Case of Education
There are three bases to an institutional effort; educational, commercial and welfare. An educational institution is formal arrangements of educators, children, and parents to create an effective learning environment for children. The educational environment aims to target all aspects of learning; knowledge dissemination, morale improvement, character building, and like.
In this paper, we will discuss, briefly, the meaning, source and effects of micro-management on educational institutes. It is our hope that readers will be focused more towards quality way of teaching after perusing this humble effort. Micro-management in teaching is managing or controlling learners with excessive attention to minor details and providing rapid criticism on mistakes, over and over. Micro-management kills intrinsic motivation of learners; consequently, self-motivated, self-regulated, and self-directed learners are a missing phenomenon of micro-driven setup, unfortunately. Micro-management disregards the significance of cooperation dimension during learning; as a result, the teamwork aspect is dilapidated, eventually.
Micro-management fails to respect the self-esteem of every learner of the institute; subsequently, frustration becomes commonplace among students. Last but not the least, micro-management fails to recognize latent talents of learners and focuses on goals only, disregarding means; and so, it fails to address learners’ passion and discipline, properly. Curiosity and creativity are essential elements of any excellence in human life. The two elements find their groundwork at the individual’s dominant area of thinking or intelligence, for example, some minds excel in logical reasoning, some in emotional/artistic depiction, etc. Generally, every individual is curious and creative by nature. Education is the name of providing knowledge, imparting wisdom and preparing students for practical life.
Curiosity is inquisitiveness for knowledge and understanding while creativity is the birthplace of wisdom and innovation. Educational institutions play the role of motivating curiosity and encouraging creativity in students considering their respective intelligence. Presence of micro-management in the system overlooks curiosity of learners, gradually, and suppresses their creativity, ultimately. The miscarriage in the outcome of expectations of a system can provoke micro-management in the administration or teachers. Failing to discover where the problem truly lies, the supervising bodies begin to reproach students for poor performance and, as a result, find refuge in rigid approach to teaching, such as micro-management. As far as the letdown is concerned, the issue might be in the scheme and structure, and not inside learners.
Sometimes, teachers express micro-management, unknowingly, simply due to ignorance of quality education. Either way, it is noteworthy, micro-management can direct, slowly but surely, the system towards corrupt-management – the worst type of management. It is destructive for all; affiliated public, learners and economy. It is a prerequisite for developing a fruitful environment in class that educators are aware of the true meaning of education and proper way of teaching. Assimilating the path of micro-management leads to alternative or conventional teaching methods. These methods or techniques are not productive, even unfavorable, in the long-run.
For instance, knowledge of books is given excessive attention such that concomitant objectives of learning, such as capacity building, physical education, intelligence, and insight are overlooked or postponed. Consequently, students, who are adaptive of their elders’ way of discernment, can disregard the importance of such objectives and activities. Sometimes, rote learning is massively imparted to gain quick results. The incentive to teach in order to gain appreciation from management/parents on account of outstanding class result doesn’t entirely serve the purpose of education. A true teacher understands this and prepares the learners not only for the annual evaluation to come, but also for their practical life.
The disciplinary counselling of students may require, sometimes, timely and comprehensive consulting by teachers/parents, but other missions of an educational institute demand, without exception, absence of micro-management altogether and implementation of quality education. Quality education or teaching aims for the inner gusto of learners, so more and more self-motivated students emanate, undoubtedly. Quality teaching recognizes the importance of cooperation and pays special attention to synergistic learning, now and again. Quality teaching never fails to respect each and every knowledge-seeker and addresses their issues in a timely manner. Lastly, quality teaching approves of the cause-effect duality and focuses on both – goals and means – for proper coaching of learners’ discipline and ambitions.
It is noteworthy, the self-regulated, self-directed learners, later on, are likely to become leaders/entrepreneurs of the next generation. Therefore, the success of educational institutes, which is possible by quality way of teaching, is precursor of emergence of innovation and good leadership in any society.
