KLS Form Culture
By Ali S.
May 27, 2022
On a cold Monday afternoon, March 7, 2022, one Brandon Lee took the stage of Agora to discuss his thoughts on the Khan Lab School culture problem. The disconnect between students’ and teachers' understanding of school norms and our lack of a clear definition of respect were just two of the many issues he identified. To solve this, he proposed a solution he called the “Cultural Reset,” in which teachers and students alike were expected to rethink the cultural values of our school. Immediately, the presentation inspired much reflection and change. It was discussed among advisory groups shortly after, and numerous teachers took time out of their busy lesson plans throughout the rest of the week to discuss how they could rethink their classes' culture. The leadership team even started a breakout session to even further brainstorm ways to improve the school on the basis of this reset.
However, 2 months later, our shiny idea of a cultural reset faces unexpected hurdles. Let’s look at it in the context of the Shopping Cart Theory of Self Governance. Once you’ve finished shopping, you take your shopping cart to your car and put the groceries in your trunk. When you’re done, there are two options for what you’ll do with your shopping cart. You can return it to the proper cart area, or you can leave it at the curb. Returning the cart is the respectable action to take andhere are very few scenarios in which a person is physically unable to return their cart. However, there is no incentive to do so. It is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Should you choose not to, there will be absolutely zero consequences. The cost is a few seconds of your effort and time, and the personal benefit is nothing tangible. Yet, not returning it is recognized as inherently immoral, as it burdens the inconvenience of having to return the cart on another human being. Those who do not return their carts do so because they don’t have to, because the only driving factor behind this person’s actions is that of the laws standing behind them. At this school, our shopping cart is the Google Form. When a form finds itself in the inbox of a KLS student, they must make the decision between filling out the form, which likely won’t take longer than a minute, or completely ignoring it, which won’t take longer than a second. It is extremely concerning how many people choose the latter. The lack of students filling out simple forms has caused a severe strain on several students and it must be addressed should KLS want to truly maintain a good school culture.
Google Forms are an essential tool to the operation of numerous school projects. They present themselves as the easiest and most reliable way to obtain information from the student body. A form can be sent out to ask for opinions, collect numerical data, or gauge interest for new programs. In practice, however, since so few students will actually respond to forms, the metrics they provide tend to be unreliable. One student in particular tells a story of how the lack of form responses affected a school project they were doing. The first form they sent out had a very healthy 60 responses (though only after lots of reminders both public and individual). However, their project mandated a second form be sent out later to gauge how people’s responses would change. The second form barely received half of the number the first one did, even after constant email reminders. They expressed their frustration with how this affected their project, confiding, “I could not conclusively say that they improved or not, putting my whole project at risk.” A lot of the data collected from the original form had to be purged, forcing them to do a lot of extra work reformatting the earlier stages of this project. The inability of students to take a minute out of their day to help out another by responding to a form is extremely unfair.
In more leisurely settings, Google Forms also see heavy usage in the world of KLS extracurriculars. Large scale events depend on usage of forms as a method of signup or RSVP. It may be argued that forms used this way don’t necessarily warrant every single student responding, since not everyone may be interested. This is true, yet the problem isn’t with the lack of responses of those who aren’t interested. Quite ironically, students who are interested in these events still fail to respond. The TWOW technical director complains that reminding people to respond to TWOW is “harder than I would like….” Even after multiple emails, announcements, and pings, he still describes having to “occasionally confront people directly” in order for them not to get eliminated. Why the hell is it so difficult to remind people who are willing participants in the competition? The answer is entwined within a deeper issue in KLS culture: procrastination.
Procrastination has devastating effects on anything, as every single teacher at the school will tell you. In the context of extracurriculars however, its effects are strong enough to turn events on its heads. Event planning is difficult enough, and without people committing on time, it becomes even more of a frantic shuffle to get everything organized. Our talent show found itself on the other side of this just a few weeks ago. Due to students not signing up on time, the deadline for registration had to be extended numerous times until it was practically the day before the event itself. The Silent Talent Display had to be fully canceled because no one signed up in time to get it organized. Even the main event barely had enough acts to fill the time. The talent show MC confided shortly before the event that she’d prepared a full plan to do 5 acts if enough people didn’t pull through, including:
Meditations from Thais on violin
Singing "Basta Ya" by The Marias
A “Billy la Bufanda” tango
Falling asleep standing up
Writing an essay and submitting it on canvas in 5 minutes
There’s no denying that this would have been great entertainment, yet the existence of such a fallback plan sets a frightening precedent for students’ procrastination.
If you find a form in your inbox, take a second to think about the sender and their project or club. All it takes is a minute for you to have a huge effect on their project. And don’t be the idiot who leaves their shopping cart at the side of the road; just fill out the damn form.
