A tentative balance of authority exists between administrators, teachers, and students. All three components interact within the social structure known as the educational system. Sociology, or the science which examines the origin and evolution of human society and social phenomena, the progress of civilization, and the laws controlling human institutions and functions, is concerned with the human institution of the public educational system and the process of socialization within its domain.
The process of education, then, is the process of socialization. The school socializes students in order that society perpetuate itself according to a common base of accepted rules, and it is the job of education to impart such rules. As De Castell observes, "The school instills in students a knowledge of, and respect for, established authority structures" (70). Teachers are presumably socialized to relate (and submit appropriately to) administrators, and, further down in the hierarchy, students are expected to acquiesce to the guiding hands of their teachers.
In effect, such boundaries of authority are tentative at best. Students challenge their teachers daily, and administrators wrestle with teachers' demands for time, money, or power. Students have a right to a public education, and teachers have the right to teach indefinitely, given that they have sufficient tenure. Administrators (somewhat hypocritically) challenge teachers over the issues of time, money, and power, but inherit those same benefits if school boards can be coerced by teachers' unions into higher salaries and benefits.
Teachers must use what little authority they have, either real or imagined, to "first, do the patient no harm," in the words of the Hippocratic Oath. In reaching their students, they must teach, rather than indoctrinate, guide, rather than force-feed, and lead by example, rather than by authority. Administrators should support teachers, while t...