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Social Justice: The Idea Has Been Around For Awhile

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Social Justice: The Idea Has Been Around For Awhile

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I'm bringing this oldie, but goodie, from my childhood...yes I am that old! Listen to the words and feel the hope Teddy gives us! He inspires us to be the best versions of ourselves while making sure everyone is okay. Wake Up Everybody, we CAN do this!

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Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody 1975

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My Future Self as a Transformative Educator

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My Future Self as a Transformative Educator

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The article by Carolyn Shields, as well as her video, provided me with the structure with which I have been looking to change my pedagogical practices as an instructor in a teacher prep program at a state university. She provided the indicators that qualified a person as a transformative leader.  She studied two successful principals that managed to turn a school around.  Using her characteristics of transformative leaders could also be applied to teaching.  As I finish my third year as an instructor at a university, I find myself seeking practices that would enable me to teach my future teacher students to be more culturally sustaining teachers.  I hold firmly to the belief that when you know better, you do better.  According to Scanlan and Theoharis, “Teachers have the most direct influence on student learning, since they are at the heart of the instructional core- the intersection of teachers, students, and content.” If I can inspire them to transform themselves, they will be the best version of themselves. They will have democratically inclusive classrooms where all children are welcomed, engaged, and achieving.  Education really is the answer.  I think if I can motivate them to accept their privilege, deconstruct misconceptions,

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Wanted: Transformative Leader ...Do YOU have what it takes to be a transformative leader? Take this quiz to see if you qualify!

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Wanted: Transformative Leader ...Do YOU have what it takes to be a transformative leader? Take this quiz to see if you qualify!

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1) Can you critique an educational setting and promise that the school will change?
2)  When you look at a program, are you able to see the inequities and enlist stakeholders to collaborate and think of resolutions that are equitable?  Will those resolutions last?
3) If you are a white male, are you able to recognize your privilege? Are you able to recognize the inequities in the school system and your role in creating that?
4) Are you able to recognize as a leader that your power is positional and yet you CAN do something that lies in the interest of the students?
5) As a leader, do you utilize new knowledge frameworks about teaching and learning?
6) As a leader, do you redistribute your power to work collaboratively with teachers, students, and families?
7) As a leader, do you facilitate a learning environment that fosters democratic learning in which all students' needs are addressed?
8) Do you have the courage to address negative and damaging attitudes and comments, especially microagressions when necessary?
9) Are you a reflective leader and willing to change what doesn't work?
10) Are you a leader that has high expectations for your teachers and students?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, you are the leader we want!!  If you answered yes to some of these questions, there is hope for you! With growth and persistence, you too can become a transformative leader! (Shields, 2010)

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My Definition of Leadership PRIOR to this class

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My Definition of Leadership PRIOR to this class

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A person in a leadership role that has a vision of where they want the school to be in terms of achievement.

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Nearly half of my teaching career, I worked for a principal I will call John. He was a white middle aged male. He dabbled in all three broad leadership categories. Category one, creating a school vision, mission statement, and goals.  We spent countless hours collaborating as a faculty to create these items.  Category two, developing people.  We had several book talk groups as well as continuous professional development.  Category three, redesigning the structure of the school.(Leithwood & Janzi, 2006) I will admit, he had a very difficult task to attempt.  We were a small magnet school, a school for highly gifted students.  As you can guess they were mostly white and affluent families in the school.  However, the school was relocating to a brand new building that would double in size and now be a neighborhood school for the children that lived in the neighborhood.  The neighborhood school was in a predominately black neighborhood with a low socioeconomic status.  It was to be a magnet program for highly gifted, mostly white and high socioeconomic students within a neighborhood school of mostly black and low socioeconomic students.

It wasn’t until I read about transformative leading that I began to think John was on the right track in his leading style, he just lacked a few indicators of true transformative leaders.  He knew it was important to have strong school-family relationships. He also knew it was important to have community buy in for the new school.  He attended community center meetings in the new neighborhood.  He began to build bridges.  He knew he was being culturally responsive in his pedagogical practices, however he missed crucial elements of transformative leadership:  he cared too much for what people thought of him and he engaged in deficit thinking. (Shields, 2010) He wasn’t leading authentically.  He attended neighborhood meetings, met with parents, and disciplined without recognizing the injustices our students faced every day.   Ultimately, this lead to his frustrations and he changed positions.

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My definition of leadership is changing as I complete the course readings. As I was reading about transformational leadership, I could picture previous principals I have worked for.  They cultivated relationships in order to inspire the teachers in the school to work harder. As I think of those principals, I have to reflect on how I followed that person. I did feel motivated to do my job to the best of my ability.  But when I reflect on what sort of things occurred at the school, for the most part, things didn’t change too much.  Essentially, I was working to make my principal, parents, and students happy.
Actually, transformational leadership no longer fits the work I want to do.  I will need to be the transformative leader if I want to make significant changes.