More Than I Expected
David Bull
Five years ago I took my first class in this Masters program. I did it because as the Director of a Head Start program, and now also Early Head Start, I was uncomfortable in that role due in part to the fact that my Bachelor and Master degrees were in Economics. There has never been any doubt in my mind that I have performed my duties as Director well. However, being in a program that is run by a public school part of the culture is that Teachers become Principals and Principals become Superintendents. Essentially leaders come from the ranks of Teachers. Given that I was promoted against the grain of that cultural model I felt the need to bolster my credentials, plus I also viewed it as an opportunity to enhance my career possibilities moving forward. It is interesting that coming from this cultural perspective of leaders come from the ranks of Teachers I have found that perspective to both be confirmed and refuted by my coursework.
EAD 801 Leadership and Organizational Development
Beginning with my very first class I had the mindset of wanting to disprove that perspective because I did not fit it. You can be a leader in education without having a teaching certificate and I needed to show that. EAD 801 Leadership and Organizational Development was my first class and it supported my thinking that I could be successful as a Director without having taught in the classroom. I found what I needed to support my own perspective, that I could be an educational leader. The concepts of emotional intelligence, effective communication and effective organizational design are ones that allow for implementation by someone with the skill set to do it. No specific degree is needed to implement these concepts. The most important one was that of a learning organization. I latched onto this idea because I felt that as a program we would always be experiencing the need to make changes so that we could remain current and effective. The course helped me to understand that we needed to be a learning organization. We needed to be ready and willing to incorporate new ideas and we must also be willing to seek out new information and new methods so that we can always work on improving our provision of services to children and families.
In my role as Director of a learning organization I recognize that I need to provide opportunities for staff to be successful, I need to create the environment for and remove the barriers to staff success. This needs to happen, whether or not I have experience in the classroom. Our greatest resource is our staff, they have a lot of skills and this needs to be recognized so that they can benefit in their practice and the program can benefit as well. Initiatives, new ideas, teams that have staff support or are the brainchild of staff are much more likely to succeed than those very same efforts being imposed in a top down manner. In the last five years there have been new ideas from staff that have been implemented and continue to remain strong that have improved our services and all I had to do to support this was remove a few budgetary obstacles.
EAD 882 Shared Leadership In Schools
I began every course in this program with a disclaimer that I am not a teacher. It was a proclamation of sorts that I was coming from a different perspective and while the first class supported my thoughts that a different perspective can be successful in a leadership role the beginning of EAD 882 Shared Leadership In Schools refuted that idea. This course began with asserting the primacy of the Principal in the building. While recognizing this it also became clear that leadership in buildings needs to be shared. Principal’s can impact the environment of the school, which impacts the teachers, but it is teachers who are impacting student outcomes. Sharing leadership with teacher leaders creates an environment that is responsive to teacher needs. I have believed for a long time that the situation dictates, to a large extent, who should be the leader. One project it may be me, but on another project it may be a teacher. So, I feel that I am comfortable with sharing leadership.
This course also asserted the role of the Principal as a Master Teacher and this is where I felt my thoughts about leadership in schools were being refuted. This of course makes sense; the Principal for many is the first choice for a Teacher to seek support and guidance from. It took me awhile to realize that the Principal has the responsibility to remove obstacles to success and also has the responsibility to provide guidance. While I look at this issue in the same manner for myself I have come to realize that I do not need to be a Master Teacher or a Master Family Support Coordinator. Head Start programs provide preschool services to low income children, but what is not so apparent to those outside the program is that we also provide family support services. In fact, we have more regulations to follow for what happens outside the classroom than for what happens inside. EAD 882 helped me to recognize that in order for me to be an effective leader I needed to share leadership with others in the program. It is necessary for the leader to provide guidance for teams or project groups when needed but I must then allow the team or group to lead itself. I believe the very best leadership is the type of leadership that goes unnoticed. Where the group believes they have done all the work on their own and do not even notice the guidance provided by the leader then this is effective leadership.
TE 836 – Awards and Classics of Children’s Literature
After figuring out what kind I leader I was and wanted to become I decided to take my coursework in a different direction. I wanted more knowledge about literacy. Family literacy is a big topic in my program, which is what drew me to TE 836. This course is not about family literacy, but getting an opportunity to understand more about ‘classic’ children’s literature was beneficial. Learning about the different awards, such as the Caldecott, gave me an opportunity to converse with the Teachers in my program about something other than student outcomes. Of particular interest to me is the picture book because we have so many in our classrooms but also because I learned the most about them. What I did not understand but was delighted to learn was that reading a picture book is a collaborative act between the author, the illustrator and the reader. The author provides one part of the story, the text; the illustrator provides another part, the pictures; and the reader provides the final part, their imagination. The text and the pictures do not tell the whole story therefore it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks to complete the story. The beauty of the picture book is that this also means that each time a picture book is reread then the reader has the opportunity to fill in their part of the story in a different way. I never understood this collaborative relationship between author, illustrator and reader even existed, but I do find it profoundly meaningful. It has changed the way I respond to children when I am reading picture books with them.
After figuring out what kind I leader I was and wanted to become I decided to take my coursework in a different direction. I wanted more knowledge about literacy. Family literacy is a big topic in my program, which is what drew me to TE 836. This course is not about family literacy, but getting an opportunity to understand more about ‘classic’ children’s literature was beneficial. Learning about the different awards, such as the Caldecott, gave me an opportunity to converse with the Teachers in my program about something other than student outcomes. Of particular interest to me is the picture book because we have so many in our classrooms but also because I learned the most about them. What I did not understand but was delighted to learn was that reading a picture book is a collaborative act between the author, the illustrator and the reader. The author provides one part of the story, the text; the illustrator provides another part, the pictures; and the reader provides the final part, their imagination. The text and the pictures do not tell the whole story therefore it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks to complete the story. The beauty of the picture book is that this also means that each time a picture book is reread then the reader has the opportunity to fill in their part of the story in a different way. I never understood this collaborative relationship between author, illustrator and reader even existed, but I do find it profoundly meaningful. It has changed the way I respond to children when I am reading picture books with them.
TE 810 – History of American Education
One of the last courses I took was the History of American Education. My interest in the course came from wanting to understand the history of some of issues that we deal with today in education. One underlying question for the whole course was whether schools change society or whether society changes schools? As one might expect both arguments can be made quite convincingly and perhaps in some eras it might be easier to make one argument over another. For example, in the common school era as schools were created to serve students of different socio-economic classes and ethnic backgrounds it really seems that it was society changing schools. Society was creating a whole new system through the development of common schools.
On the other hand, the Civil Rights era had the most impact on me. In particular reading Melba Beals’ experiences as an African American student involved in the first attempt to integrate a public High School in the South at Little Rock’s Central High was very moving. Her book Warriors Don’t Cry made me angry. To try to imagine what she suffered through just to go to school is really just hard to comprehend, but it is an example of schools changing society. While it was a court ruling that brought this to pass, it really was the actual events at the school that really pushed along change it society. Did things change overnight? Not be a long shot, but it was the schools that were leading the way and it was the schools that were impacting society by seeking integration. Warriors Don’t Cry is a book that I have shared with others who are not in the education field. This is a piece of history that needs to be understand and appreciated by everyone, because the changes these African-American students were a part of are a very important part of the fabric of the society that we have today.
In conclusion
As I look back over all of my coursework I realize that I have achieved more than I expected. I have achieved my goal of being a better Head Start Director, but I have realized much more. This experience has created a more self aware lifelong learner. I am not constrained by the paradigms I used to operate within. My coursework has taught me a lot, but perhaps the most important lesson is not reflected in the grades that I have received but rather in the attitude I have developed. I expect to learn more, might that be reflected in another degree? – Maybe. Does it have to be? – No. I just know that I will always seek to learn and through that to improve.
One of the last courses I took was the History of American Education. My interest in the course came from wanting to understand the history of some of issues that we deal with today in education. One underlying question for the whole course was whether schools change society or whether society changes schools? As one might expect both arguments can be made quite convincingly and perhaps in some eras it might be easier to make one argument over another. For example, in the common school era as schools were created to serve students of different socio-economic classes and ethnic backgrounds it really seems that it was society changing schools. Society was creating a whole new system through the development of common schools.
On the other hand, the Civil Rights era had the most impact on me. In particular reading Melba Beals’ experiences as an African American student involved in the first attempt to integrate a public High School in the South at Little Rock’s Central High was very moving. Her book Warriors Don’t Cry made me angry. To try to imagine what she suffered through just to go to school is really just hard to comprehend, but it is an example of schools changing society. While it was a court ruling that brought this to pass, it really was the actual events at the school that really pushed along change it society. Did things change overnight? Not be a long shot, but it was the schools that were leading the way and it was the schools that were impacting society by seeking integration. Warriors Don’t Cry is a book that I have shared with others who are not in the education field. This is a piece of history that needs to be understand and appreciated by everyone, because the changes these African-American students were a part of are a very important part of the fabric of the society that we have today.
In conclusion
As I look back over all of my coursework I realize that I have achieved more than I expected. I have achieved my goal of being a better Head Start Director, but I have realized much more. This experience has created a more self aware lifelong learner. I am not constrained by the paradigms I used to operate within. My coursework has taught me a lot, but perhaps the most important lesson is not reflected in the grades that I have received but rather in the attitude I have developed. I expect to learn more, might that be reflected in another degree? – Maybe. Does it have to be? – No. I just know that I will always seek to learn and through that to improve.