Why Educational Leadership?
While at a seminar in 2018, I reflected on the futility of being involved in educational leadership. That is, sometimes involvement in leadership feels like jumping through bureaucratic hoops, documenting the activities of your unit, reporting on what seems like the least important aspects of your work. When I shared my thoughts, an instructor who had a lifetime of experience in both teaching and educational leadership remarked, "Leadership is the price you pay to be able to affect change."
He did not elaborate, so I'm not sure what level of change he was referring to: unit, institution, or society. Regardless, his words have stayed with me. When I think back to why I originally became involved in activities outside the classroom, it was to develop the program. I wanted to design curriculum and offer better educational opportunities to students. When I moved into a formal leadership position, it was to mentor and guide instructors, so they could be as effective in the classroom as possible. It was to launch program expansion, thus improving access to education. It was to support students and to advocate for them beyond the classroom. As an instructor I could advocate for individual students, but as an administrator I could advocate for the group as well as individuals.
Taking a leadership position means cycles of being marred in reporting, buried in administrative work, and "encouraged" to participate in activities that can feel like a waste of time. However, a leadership position also gives me the opportunity to be at an important table. At this table I developed into the the person who suggests and enacts the changes about which I dreamed as an instructor. Most students, especially students in prison education, are not welcome at these tables. How different would things be if students had a place in the leadership of their educational institutions?
I believe that in order to remain effective in this work, I must keep one foot in practice. The further removed from students and the classroom a person is, the more likely it is for them to forget the students' and teachers' voices that should drive all conversations in education. Although an interesting proposition, this does not mean that all people in educational leadership should carry a teaching assignment. It means that we have to strive to hear the voices that should guide us. We have to seek out conversations with instructors and students, and chase opportunities to be reconnected to the core activity of learning. We have to allow ourselves to become students, and to learn from the students and teachers for whom we are advocating.
He did not elaborate, so I'm not sure what level of change he was referring to: unit, institution, or society. Regardless, his words have stayed with me. When I think back to why I originally became involved in activities outside the classroom, it was to develop the program. I wanted to design curriculum and offer better educational opportunities to students. When I moved into a formal leadership position, it was to mentor and guide instructors, so they could be as effective in the classroom as possible. It was to launch program expansion, thus improving access to education. It was to support students and to advocate for them beyond the classroom. As an instructor I could advocate for individual students, but as an administrator I could advocate for the group as well as individuals.
Taking a leadership position means cycles of being marred in reporting, buried in administrative work, and "encouraged" to participate in activities that can feel like a waste of time. However, a leadership position also gives me the opportunity to be at an important table. At this table I developed into the the person who suggests and enacts the changes about which I dreamed as an instructor. Most students, especially students in prison education, are not welcome at these tables. How different would things be if students had a place in the leadership of their educational institutions?
I believe that in order to remain effective in this work, I must keep one foot in practice. The further removed from students and the classroom a person is, the more likely it is for them to forget the students' and teachers' voices that should drive all conversations in education. Although an interesting proposition, this does not mean that all people in educational leadership should carry a teaching assignment. It means that we have to strive to hear the voices that should guide us. We have to seek out conversations with instructors and students, and chase opportunities to be reconnected to the core activity of learning. We have to allow ourselves to become students, and to learn from the students and teachers for whom we are advocating.