Note: I’m not entirely happy with the precise flow and balance of this post. There are segments I’d rather rephrase and I’m concerned about whether or not my central point is even clear. Worse, it was about 40 words over my preferred limit even before I added this note. Still, it’s better than it was when I hammered out the first few drafts, and it’s possible I could edit and re-edit it for days with no significant improvement. Besides, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’d really hoped to get something new posted before now. Looks like I’m going to have to compromise a bit if I want to keep moving forward.
Other Note: See what I did there?
Every local musician knows the dilemma. What you really want to play are your own songs – the ones into which you’ve poured your heart and soul and time and skill. What most audiences really want to hear (and thus what most venue owners will pay you to play) is “Jesse’s Girl.”
Again.
Many find some way to compromise between what they love and what will pay the bills. The same guy you see playing guitar and doing backing vocals on “Uptown Funk” and “Hold Me Now” at your sister’s wedding is probably cranking out his own material for eleven people at some dive downtown you’ve never even heard of two nights later.
Some remain true to their artistic vision, of course, and refuse to compromise. They’re the ones taking your order at the Hardee’s drive-thru during lunch rush. We’re torn between mocking them and pitying them. Why can’t they be a bit more realistic about things… you know, like we are?
UNLESS, of course, they end up somehow breaking through the noise and launching into genuine celebrity. In that case, we praise their commitment to their vision and their refusal to compromise. When that happens, we always knew they’d make it and wish every musician followed their example (although this would make it rather difficult to book a decent band for your sister’s next wedding).
In other words, the validity of their choices is really only determined after the fact. All that nobility without a hit single or viral video and you’re just another delusional wanna-be. Land one track on the right movie soundtrack, on the other hand, and you’re a visionary who stuck to your values.
Great painters throughout history have encountered their own version of the conundrum. Whatever their internal visions, whatever sights or ideas or techniques stir their passions, the real money comes from painting Mrs. Eunice Carbunkle in the most flattering (yet recognizable) manner possible. Barring that, another take on the Virgin Mary and her naked baby (or some other iconic bit of Bible narrative) might get you enough patronage to put food on the table.
Some, of course, stick to their own visions and ideas, and occasionally we do end up greatly valuing and appreciating their creations… long after they’re gone and everyone they love has died in poverty, illness, starvation, or some combination of the three.
Politicians who may start out with a handful of good intentions and lofty plans quickly discover layer after layer of games which much be played and compromises which must be made to have any chance of securing even local office, after which one may or may not be able to make minor headway towards those pretty goals.
Republicans are currently dancing a sick, sad dance with fascism, white supremacy, and the imminent destruction of democracy as we know it. While many of them clearly rejoice in the demonic avarice of it all, others are no doubt telling themselves that it’s just a little game-playing, a strategy to gain or retain the positions they need to do the truly important stuff – whatever that might once have been. Those who refuse to compromise may gain a burst of love from social media or other purists, but it won’t matter because they’ll soon vanish from sight and lose what little leverage they had to do whatever it was they wanted to do.
Democrats, on the other hand, keep telling themselves there’s a sweet spot somewhere between rational progressivism and nutty left-wing extremism, but every speech and every policy proposal proves this to be a tad optimistic. They’ll never be able to please critics who’ve already labeled them the Antichrists of the new age, but neither will they ever go far enough to satisfy their most vocal supporters and the fairy tale policies they demand. As with their nemeses on the right, those who refuse to straddle the divide may sleep with purer souls, but it won’t be long before they’ll be living their purest lives in the private sector somewhere… if they’re lucky.
In short, compromise is rarely as neat or as laudable as we’d like to think. That doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing, but the results sometimes feel just as sullied as the problems we initially set out to rectify.
Perhaps it’s an issue of scale. My wife watches some of the dumb stuff I like with me, and the next night I stay in the living room while she’s binging on Christmas Cookie Challenge (in October). I occasionally give in and eat at Panera. A week later, she finds something she can live with at Fiddlers’ Hearth. We stay an extra night at her parents’ place over the holidays, but I stay at the house when they head to Ikea. The stakes are low, and for the most part all we’re really doing is negotiating peripheral details in a relationship we both like most of the time.
The trio deciding whether or not to learn a few songs from the latest Taylor Swift album when they’d rather be the next R.E.M. faces a tougher conversation. So does the pastor whose faith is prompting him to speak out against some of the ideologies popular among the highest givers in his congregation. An entire generation of doctors and other medical professionals have learned to juggle their commitment to the health of every patient with the realities of economics, insurance, and legal liability.
The dynamics of compromise are a little different for educators. We’re not really a factor when it comes to setting education policy (which is a whole other issue) and the decisions we make each day aren’t likely to have an immediate impact on people outside our classrooms. Most of our compromises occur in the moment and remain primarily internal. And since compromise by its very nature means no party gets everything they want, our decisions are at least partial failures before we even make them.
At least, that’s how it sometimes feels.
I care about the subject matter I’m teaching, but I often end up grading based on “effort” or “improvement”… however minor or late in the game it occurs. It’s a compromise between academic expectations and not wanting so many kids to fail.
I want to do creative, engaging lessons, but so many of my students are low-performing or only present a few days a week. They lack the confidence, foundational understanding, and consistency for most activities I’ve used in the past to be successful. So, we do the sorts of things which require minimal buy-in and are easy to hand to anyone who’s just missed a few days with reasonably hope they can do it if they choose. It’s a compromise between engagement and accessibility, I suppose, or between the potential of the few and the needs of the many.
When I hold the line on disruptive student behavior and end up following formal disciplinary policies as a result, I spend the rest of the day wondering if I could have done something differently to avoid the problem altogether. When I let something slide in order to avoid escalation, I can feel the vibe of the room shift a teeny tiny bit towards chaos and insecurity. Every day brings a dozen minor compromises between safety and security and a relaxed, low-stress atmosphere.
I realize there are bureaucratic hoops through which we all must jump and legislative requirements we all must meet. And yet… we waste so much time and energy on stupid required stuff, and far too often we fall into the trap of dragging our kids through it as well. When I go along, I feel like part of the problem. When I resist or refuse, I feel like an agitator or, worse, a whiner who’s making things difficult for my coworkers. At best, it’s a compromise between red tape and righteous fury. Other days I think I’m just throwing a fit because I don’t want to watch the same 78-minute seizure training video we’re required to view (the browser knows when you skip it or change tabs) again.
I’ve written before about nudging a few grades in order to get kids eligible to play sports or participate in other activities. Too dogmatic and I’m closing doors they’re not mature enough to keep open themselves; too generous and I’m undercutting the whole point of eligibility to begin with. For that matter, letter grades themselves are an ongoing compromise between our desire for useful information about a student’s academic progress and our need to have something concise and artificially precise so we can do calculations with it or send out easy-to-read reports for parents or other involved parties.
I realize the decisions I make each day don’t start or end wars. Nothing I choose in my little world is likely to impact legislation, other people’s career choices, or the fate of anyone’s eternal soul. At the same time, I think it very much matters sometimes how we handle grades and grading. It matters how manage classroom behavior and attitudes. It matters what we teach and how we teach it. Most of the compromises we’re all making each day are tiny in and of themselves, but collectively, and over time, I suspect some of them matter a great deal in ways we can’t possibly predict and don’t always understand even when we do.
The best we can do is to stay transparent with one another and to keep making the best on-the-spot compromises (and other decisions) we can. Until someone finds a way to make the ideal answer to every situation both clear-cut and universal, our messy little compromises will simply have to do.