This topic has been very difficult for me to participate in when I am not working at a school. I have no access to the financial aspects of our school. I haven't seen the high school's vision statement or a mission statement. I can't even find one for the public library.
However, the local primary school was redrafting their mission statement last term. They had various drafts in the school newsletter. At the time I just thought it was a useless exercise. I can know see that it forms the bedrock of 'where we go from here'. I am still loathe to write one though. It's the imprecise language that I have no wish to copy.
I am a big fan of Don Watson's book Death Sentence where he laments that 'Today's corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most
dangerously, politicians – speak to each other and to us in clichéd,
impenetrable, lifeless sludge'. This sludge, I fear, is the mainstay of vision statements and mission statements.
So now I need to think of writing a strategic plan for a fictitious school library, using the sort of language I abhor. I am not relishing this next assignment.
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