“Workers of the world, unite!”
This probably isn’t a sentence you expect to see in a blog about IEPs and the special education process. But I’ve often found myself thinking about a metaphor from Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless.
Living within the System
Havel tells the story of a greengrocer who hangs the political slogan in his shop window. However, the greengrocer may not even believe in the slogan. Hanging it in the window is about compliance. He doesn’t want any trouble, so he tells the world he agrees with the powers that be. He displays it because that’s what everyone does. It’s expected. It keeps him from being perceived as making waves or being defiant. It signals that he’s willing to go along with the system, even though he knows it’s wrong. But this has nothing to do with dyslexia or special education, or does it?
Sometimes, when I think about the special education process and the dozens of IEP meetings I have attended, I often wonder how many times I have unknowingly met a version of the greengrocer. Is that why the IEP process is so difficult? Is it because we know the team knows better? We know they don’t believe what they are saying, but we can’t seem to get them to admit it – or even be aware they have fallen into the metaphor.
Before anyone thinks I am comparing IEP teams to authoritarian political systems, let me be clear: I am not. I am not suggesting that schools are authoritarian systems or that educators are intentionally doing the wrong thing. Most of the educators I meet care deeply about children and work incredibly hard. But every institution develops routines. Over time, those routines can become so familiar that they begin to replace individual thinking. The danger isn’t that we stop caring. The danger is that we stop noticing when habit quietly replaces individualization. When that happens, we may find ourselves relying on “the way we’ve always done it” rather than pausing to ask whether our decisions truly reflect the unique needs of the child sitting in front of us.
A greengrocer might look like this in an IEP meeting:
- The team says, “We don’t use the word dyslexia.”
No one pauses to ask why.
- An IEP goal is copied from last year.
No one asks whether the student’s needs have changed.
- A parent says, “She’s still not reading.”
The team responds, “Let’s wait a little longer.” or “She’ll grow out of it.”
When one person stops and asks the difficult questions and refuses to accept usual choices, we begin to see the illusions of an easy, bureaucratic fix. When even one person decides to stop acting like the greengrocer, the entire system is forced to realign. Only then can we place the child’s actual, unique needs back at the very center of the room.
Easier said than done though, right?
Questioning established practices isn’t always easy. An educator who challenges long-standing routines may worry about being viewed as difficult, unrealistic, or not being a team player. Parents often experience something similar. Families who continue asking difficult questions may find themselves labeled as “that parent.” Whether those fears are realized or not, they can discourage people from questioning routines.
Living in Truth
This brings us to Havel’s most powerful alternative: “living in truth.” In the essay, this simply means aligning your actions with your authentic internal beliefs. It is a refusal to play along with institutional myths or pretend everything is fine just to blend in. Havel’s core idea is that broken systems don’t survive because everyone genuinely believes in them; they survive because enough people go along with them without questioning the routine. Choosing to “live in truth” means making the decision to do what is right, even when the system makes it uncomfortable. During the IEP process living in truth might look like this:
- Following the evaluation data even when it’s inconvenient.
- Acknowledging when a student isn’t making appropriate progress.
- Saying, “I don’t know,” instead of pretending certainty.
- Admitting when a previous intervention didn’t work.
- Listening to parents as equal members of the team rather than treating participation as a procedural checkbox.
We All Have a Little Greengrocer in Us
The challenge is to notice when we’re holding up the sign simply because it’s always been there. Havel argued that people often maintain systems through ordinary acts of compliance rather than deliberate wrongdoing.
Every IEP meeting presents us with a choice. We can repeat the familiar. Or we can pause long enough to ask a different question. Are we making this decision because it is what this child needs or because it is what the system expects? That’s the moment when the greengrocer disappears. That’s the moment we stop protecting the process and start protecting the child. Because the “I” in IEP has never stood for institution. It has always stood for individualization.
Reference: Havel, V. (2018). The power of the powerless (P. Wilson, Trans.). Vintage.
