Following, Staying Centered, Gross continued to develop his turbulence theory, and further inculcated it into school leadership with the publications of the following books: Promises Kept: Sustaining School and District Leadership in a Turbulent Era (2004), Leadership Mentoring: Maintaining School Improvement in Turbulent Times (2006), and in partnership with the educational researcher Joan Poliner Shapiro, Ethical Educational Leadership in Turbulent Times: (Re)Solving Moral Dilemmas (2013). Gross (2006) tells us,
Since we are truly in turbulent era, filled with ethical dilemmas, a leader who values democratic schooling, based on clear ethical decision making, will, in my opinion, best be able to navigate effectively and support the development
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The type of positionality taken by Gross is a combination of both the Standpoint Theory and the Positionality Theory. According to Gross (2006), “Positionality is the concept that everyone in the organization does not experience the same level of turbulence at the same time” (p. 56). Furthermore he goes a bit further on positionality by stating, “Turbulence might seem uniform viewed from far away, but at the level of the specific case, where one was, in relation to the organization, seemed very meaningful” (Shapiro & Gross, 2013, p. 44). Accordingly, because of the importance of an individual’s orientation during moderate, severe, and extreme turbulence, Shapiro and Gross (2013), then, are suggesting that “When thinking of positionality as developed in Turbulence Theory, it is important to understand the relative situation of individuals in the organization in a multidimensional fashion” (p. 45). In other words, in each degree of turbulence, various school stakeholders—including superintendent, principal, teachers, parents, and students—will experience it differently based on their …show more content…
In the following scenario I intend to describe a possible cascading of events that may occur as a result of a principal using Glenn Singleton’s (2005, 2014) Courageous Conversations About Race to initiate teacher professional development (PD). The principal encountered the first “cascading” event during the first PD meeting, where staff engagement was limited. The principal, then, noticed a second cascading event during the following PD when several disgruntled teachers made a subliminal protest by simultaneously taking a personal day to avoid participation in the equity PD meeting. In fact, the absent teachers had made the other staff members aware of their silent
I had the pleasure of being able to shadow Superintendent Shirley Hall of the Maplewood School District. Ms. Hall took the reins of the district over in 2012 from a very popular superintendent who was credited with making great strides within the district. Although Ms. Hall had very large shoes to fill, she seems to be doing it with grace and enthusiasm. She credits the previous superintendent with making systemic changes and establishing the overall forward momentum of the district, but recognizes that she cannot rest on past success. Her goal is to take the district to the next level of educational excellence by focusing her and her administrative team's efforts on the P.E.L.P. coherence model from Harvard University. This model focuses the leadership's attention on the interdependence of the various aspects of their school district and how they reinforce one another to support the implementation of an improvement strategy. One of Ms. Hall's mantras was change, but not just for change sake, deep change for sustained improvement. Therefore, although Ms. Hall's predecessor was able to put the district on the right path, Ms. Hall has taken the baton and run with it; establishing her own style and path to excellence.
Courageous Conversations About Race: Chapter 5. Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom. The first step towards addressing the racial achievement gap begins with educators addressing their individual racial attitudes for, as the authors purport, “As we become personally aware of our own racialized existence, we can more deeply understand the racial experiences of others” (Singleton, Linton, 2006). In all honesty, I think Singleton and Linton hit the bull’s eye by suggesting that the first step towards initiating culturally relevant teaching is for the teacher to really examine his or her attitudes, values, and principles.
On a personal note, the reason I have selected the topic of racism in the classroom is two-fold. First, I am employed in a suburban school district where I occasionally witness social inequalities for students of color that play out and dramatically impact learning. Secondly, I was brought up in a family which espoused racist beliefs and principles. This self-examination serves as a critical means for me to come face to face with aspects of my own distorted misconceptions, and perhaps begin to undue a familial legacy of injurious thinking and
As a leader candidate, I can understand the challenges and multiplicity of complications that administrators must face each day. However, I will not accept any remote possibility that the students must be affected by some flaws of the school organization. We all as leaders, must be strategic with people, time, and money to guide our students towards an academic success.
Leading organizations of school administrators offer educators various opportunities to encourage educators to become leaders. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has mandated that leaders be better prepared for the task of providing quality education to all. NCLB “… is forcing all educational stakeholders to face the weakness of contemporary school leadership and is making it impossible to ignore the need for higher quality principals” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.1). It is believed that all educators can be and are leaders in their own right. A leader is a visionary and has the ability to inspire others to aspire to greatness. Of the numerous opportunities that are offered, those that are most beneficial include but are not limited to leadership training programs, professional development, and creating shared leadership opportunities for teachers to become leaders. The systems “…that produce our nation’s principals are complex and interrelated – and governed by the states. Each state establishes licensing, certification and re-certification” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.1). States use the ISLLC standards “…as the framework for preparation programs and in service professional development of school superintendents, principals, and other leaders” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.3).
Frank, V. V. (2009, September). Framework for Improvement: Effective School Leadership Translates into Increased Student Learning. The Learning Principal: National Staff Development Council , pp. 2, 6-7.
In public schools, students are subjected to acts of institutional racism that may change how they interact with other students. In the short story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by Packer, readers are allowed to view firsthand how institutionalized racism affects Dina, who is the main character in the story. Packer states “As a person of color, you shouldn’t have to fit in any white, patriarchal system” (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere 117). The article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” by Brodbelt states “first, the attitudes of teachers toward minority group pupils” (Brodbelt 699). Like the ideas in the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” Dina encounters institutionalized oppression on orientation day at Yale.
I have decided to take certain steps to grow as an individual with the intent to move forward as a justice based social worker, with particular regard to race and being aware of my own race and what that means to my career. The first step in my action plan is to take the valuable knowledge I learned throughout this course, which is mostly recognizing what it means to be White, and try to practice it every day in all social settings I am in. I strongly believe in teaching as a way of learning, so I plan to take what I have learned in class and explain White privilege to my closest friends and family members. I seem to have a better understanding of what the benefits of White privilege are, but I would like to work on having a better understanding of what the consequences are for people without White privilege. There is an annual conference called “The White Privilege Conference” that examines the concepts of White privilege (www.whiteprivilegeconference.com).
"If teachers across America would arise and make the personal commitment to do something about racism, beginning with their own selves, their eventual impact would, I believe, be tremendous" (Hacker 191).
Miller, M. and Hart, C. (1998). Bridging the gap. Thrust for Educational Leadership, Vol. 28 Issue 1, p22.
School administrators are important in setting the path for a successful school (Glickman, et al., 2014). The principals could play a dynamic leadership depending on how they exercise their beliefs of the organizational and social environment (McNair, 2011). The principals are the primary facilitators for developing the foundations in learning that will last, to manage the student’s performance at schools, and seeking the improvement at school that will cause great impacts in school‘s education (Gordon,1989). In the recent years in the U.S., education has change in a more cultural diversity population, it is imperative that school supervisors, are trained to encounter this cultural issues, but also assisting others with the opportunities to develop appropriate abilities to deal with different cultures (Glickman, et al., 2014).
With the passage of NCLB, many school reform efforts have been initiated using top-down model in which each school leaders have been charged with initiating bold administrative changes to address the legislation. With the number of leadership theories and models, researchers have become interested in studying those to determine which might bring forth the most significant results for leading such change. Due to the lack of highly qualified administrators and the increasing demands for administrators, Bush, O’Brien & Spangler (2005) studied a program, the Southern Tier Leadership Academy, a collaborative of the New York Education Department. The study included three separate cohorts who completed an eight month program. Whereas, Somech (2005) chose to investigate directive and participative leadership approaches, and which would more significantly impact school effectiveness. Perhaps Somech’s reflect Scherer’s (2009, p.7) understandings as described in Educational Leadership, ‘broom-wielding leadership can indeed be beneficial’ as is putting advocates into positions of power and influence and building teams, both of which are seemingly contrasting opposites.
What does leadership mean in the context of educational leadership? Many definitions of leadership in education co-exist, attesting to the complexity and multi-faceted phenomena of the concept (Elwell & Elikofer, 2013). Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood organizational and psychological areas of study. Despite volumes of research and numerous theories, no one theory of leadership emerged as the sole predictor of the success of educational leaders. The current body of knowledge about leadership consists of narrow definitions of leader effectiveness that are disconnected from their context (Latham, 2014). Educational leadership influences and affects every dimension of the educational process from the
Principal Pettis has to come to the realization that it is not possible to “have all the competence, all the time, and all the information needed at any one time to get the job done.” (Sergiovanni, 2015, p. 12). She will have to empower and cultivate leadership skills in teacher-leaders to give her an equitable perspective on the needs of her school. In this way, learning is ongoing for all, making the important connection between leadership and learning that is so powerful in successful schools. With these few changes, the heartbeat of the school is
The first part of the meeting dealt with honoring the three members of the board with an award from from the PA School Board Association. This award is given for the first eight years on the board and every four years after. Mr.Troutman, Mr. Ridley, and Mr. Vigliotta were the recipients of the award. In class, we discussed that most members of the board are upper class, white males. Looking at this aw...