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Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance
This groundbreaking volume encourages today’s educational leaders to reposition the way they think about leadership and its challenges. Experienced school and district leaders reveal how they conceptualize their roles, how they learn by posing and solving problems of practice, and how they cope with increasing expectations and complexity in their work. This compilation of compelling narratives demonstrates the power and efficacy of what can happen when school, district, and other educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, bringing forth broader social justice and equity implications. Readers see how leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments for both adults and children. At its heart, Repositioning Educational Leadership is an invitation to practitioners and scholars to make space for new critical questions and perspectives. This book nurtures an expanded discourse about leadership, generated by leaders themselves, and arising from some of the most vexing and often invisible aspects of their important work. Book Features:
192 pages, Paperback
Published September 7, 2018
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October 25, 2018
The idea of using inquiry to drive change is both inspired common sense and not entirely obvious. That’s why when I heard about Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance (Teachers College Press 2018), I was thrilled to read it. Teachers are familiar with the inquiry classroom but it doesn't always filter up to administrators.
“…educational leadership for k12 schools is increasingly complicated, as demands on educational leaders and schools continue to escalate.”
“Leaders need opportunities to learn from the ‘inside’ of other leaders’ experiences, doubts, and all. This volume addresses that need.”
The authors, James Lytle, Susan Lytle, and Michael Johanek, collected evidence from school leadership who used inquiry to solve recalcitrant problems in their schools. The result is this book with a simple rationale: Education leaders must position themselves as inquirers. They must lead from an inquiry stance.
The book is organized into three sections: Learning from and with Students, Collaborating with Teachers and the School Community, and Leading System-level Inquiry. Each chapter within the theme is written by a school leader and shares their story of how leading with inquiry solved a problem they faced. These range from struggling to serve diverse groups of students to addressing where the usual education practices were failing. I found all of them interesting and instructive, each resonating with some aspect of my own experience. In all of these, solutions included the application of inquiry--talking to students, to faculty, to groups, to parents. And listening.
“As a new CFO transitioning into a K-12 urban school district, I saw myself as a positive deviant who through inquiry could general new thinking among other administrators.”
I didn’t feel the goal was to pedantically teach me the right path, rather to share how each individual solved a particular situation, their solutions heavily dependent upon their own specific set of circumstances. What I got from their retelling was an understanding of how they evaluated situations, a model I could take with me to solve my own.
“Though none of the chapters is a traditional report of research, we believe that these varied narratives about inquiry-driven leadership could be considered something of a new genre with the potential to make a significant contribution to the professional literature…”
But be forewarned: This book is not for the faint of heart. The introductory sections on Rationale, Inquiry as Stance, Genesis of the book, and Practitioner Inquiry are not a casual read. They are thick with leadership jargon the editors felt necessary to relay the topic. For me, it required considerable concentration. Phrases like:
“Who does the sense making…” (page 3)
…and neologisms like:
“Problematize” and “problem posing” (page 3)
“…their own dis-ease…” (page 2)
“Inquiry as stance is perspectival…”(page 4)
… made the content difficult to access. I had to decode the words, unravel the context, and then re-read, this despite my Masters, post-grad classes, and thirty years of teaching from Kindergarten through grad school. It may be that the preferred audience is not the passionate future administrator who might casually pick up this book but the highly-schooled current one with a PhD in his/her field. I have to admit, I was glad this pedantic voice ended with the introduction and the personal experience stories were much more down-to-earth and clear.
The introduction notwithstanding, by the time I finished the book, I had a broad and robust construction of inquiry well beyond what I had when I started. Fixing the systemic problems in education is at the top of every administrators ToDo list. This book provides real solutions that have worked. I highly recommend it for all education leaders in search of fresh options for age-old problems.
“…educational leadership for k12 schools is increasingly complicated, as demands on educational leaders and schools continue to escalate.”
“Leaders need opportunities to learn from the ‘inside’ of other leaders’ experiences, doubts, and all. This volume addresses that need.”
The authors, James Lytle, Susan Lytle, and Michael Johanek, collected evidence from school leadership who used inquiry to solve recalcitrant problems in their schools. The result is this book with a simple rationale: Education leaders must position themselves as inquirers. They must lead from an inquiry stance.
The book is organized into three sections: Learning from and with Students, Collaborating with Teachers and the School Community, and Leading System-level Inquiry. Each chapter within the theme is written by a school leader and shares their story of how leading with inquiry solved a problem they faced. These range from struggling to serve diverse groups of students to addressing where the usual education practices were failing. I found all of them interesting and instructive, each resonating with some aspect of my own experience. In all of these, solutions included the application of inquiry--talking to students, to faculty, to groups, to parents. And listening.
“As a new CFO transitioning into a K-12 urban school district, I saw myself as a positive deviant who through inquiry could general new thinking among other administrators.”
I didn’t feel the goal was to pedantically teach me the right path, rather to share how each individual solved a particular situation, their solutions heavily dependent upon their own specific set of circumstances. What I got from their retelling was an understanding of how they evaluated situations, a model I could take with me to solve my own.
“Though none of the chapters is a traditional report of research, we believe that these varied narratives about inquiry-driven leadership could be considered something of a new genre with the potential to make a significant contribution to the professional literature…”
But be forewarned: This book is not for the faint of heart. The introductory sections on Rationale, Inquiry as Stance, Genesis of the book, and Practitioner Inquiry are not a casual read. They are thick with leadership jargon the editors felt necessary to relay the topic. For me, it required considerable concentration. Phrases like:
“Who does the sense making…” (page 3)
…and neologisms like:
“Problematize” and “problem posing” (page 3)
“…their own dis-ease…” (page 2)
“Inquiry as stance is perspectival…”(page 4)
… made the content difficult to access. I had to decode the words, unravel the context, and then re-read, this despite my Masters, post-grad classes, and thirty years of teaching from Kindergarten through grad school. It may be that the preferred audience is not the passionate future administrator who might casually pick up this book but the highly-schooled current one with a PhD in his/her field. I have to admit, I was glad this pedantic voice ended with the introduction and the personal experience stories were much more down-to-earth and clear.
The introduction notwithstanding, by the time I finished the book, I had a broad and robust construction of inquiry well beyond what I had when I started. Fixing the systemic problems in education is at the top of every administrators ToDo list. This book provides real solutions that have worked. I highly recommend it for all education leaders in search of fresh options for age-old problems.
October 29, 2018
Read my full review here: https://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot....
This posting is a brief look at a book on educational leadership sent to me by the publicist. Information on the book says, “This groundbreaking volume encourages today’s educational leaders to reposition the way they think about leadership and its challenges. Through essays, experienced school and district leaders reveal how they conceptualize their roles, how they learn by posing and solving problems of practice, and how they cope with increasing expectations and complexity of their work.”
There are eleven essays by educational practitioners on three basic elements of educational leadership: learning from and with students; collaborating with teachers and the school community; and leading system-level inquiry. “The argument is that when school, district, and other educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, their leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments - for both adults and children"
Like everything else in the country, K-12 education is in a major transition, and these essays seek to understand the challenge of looking at education from the standpoint of inquiry learning. Reading them should benefit educator leaders everywhere.
One of the editors, Michael Johanek, recently was interviewed for the Education Views website about the inquiry stance for educational leadership as presented in this essential book. You can find the interview here.
This posting is a brief look at a book on educational leadership sent to me by the publicist. Information on the book says, “This groundbreaking volume encourages today’s educational leaders to reposition the way they think about leadership and its challenges. Through essays, experienced school and district leaders reveal how they conceptualize their roles, how they learn by posing and solving problems of practice, and how they cope with increasing expectations and complexity of their work.”
There are eleven essays by educational practitioners on three basic elements of educational leadership: learning from and with students; collaborating with teachers and the school community; and leading system-level inquiry. “The argument is that when school, district, and other educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, their leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments - for both adults and children"
Like everything else in the country, K-12 education is in a major transition, and these essays seek to understand the challenge of looking at education from the standpoint of inquiry learning. Reading them should benefit educator leaders everywhere.
One of the editors, Michael Johanek, recently was interviewed for the Education Views website about the inquiry stance for educational leadership as presented in this essential book. You can find the interview here.
December 26, 2018
A rare view of the process an administrator takes when engaging in school-based research as part of their doctorate work. More importantly, it reveals the complexities of being a leader in education.
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