Dr. Hawkins

Reflection #3EDU 505

This week we grappled with elements of systems thinking and with the factors that administrators control and factors that are (initially) beyond our control. Gun violence and the debate surrounding school shootings are contentious topics. Leaders can become frustrated and overwhelmed by the number of factors in the hands of the federal and state governments. However, I walked away from this week’s learning, from the readings, and from Dr. Hawkins’ lecture, enlightenedbecause there is so much in our control. We need to constantly employ our systems thinking to identify these elements. Positivity must reign, because the negative approach will freeze us in our tracks.!!! (ELCC 2.2) According to Dr. Hawkins we must “Find a way or make way”. And this week we received many of the tools needed to make our way: embrace social-emotional learning, sort through the bundles of data to find what is relevant to instruction, apply skills thinking to educational leadership, involve parents in meaningful ways, and constantly apply virtues and ethics to our mission statements. (ELCC 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1)

Social-emotional learning is extremely valuable and necessary in schools. It is core to raising well rounded people and, unlike gun control laws, this facet remains in the control of the building leaders.!! In fact, as Dr. Hawkins states, it should be a new leader’s first priority even over academics. I agree!(ELCC 2.1, 2.4) As teachers, we know that when a student is struggling emotionally, mentally, that is a barrier to learning that the best pedagogical technique struggles to overcome. In addition, as a society we continue to contextualize and grapple withthe importance of the #metoo movement. In class we discussed unintended outcomes of policies or movements, as occurred when incident rates decreased on the William Floyd busses after they implemented social-emotional learning. One unintended outcome of the #metoo movement has been the realization that the emotional health of men is long neglected in our society.! Increasing social-emotional awareness for all students will also help eliminate the stigma that sharing emotions is “not masculine.”. Students of all genders should be encouraged to identify emotions and express them in a healthy, appropriate way. One suggestion Dr. Hawkins provided was to teach and engage all members in the community about the benefits of the Ladder of Inference. (ELCC 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.3, 2.5, 5.1)

One of the themes in this week’s learning was loneliness, which I see as an obstacle to social-emotional health. Schools are traditionally geared towards fulfilling basic economic needs and even basic intellectual needs, but not the needs that appear higher up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualizationaha (Razik and Swanson, 2009, pg.113). Students struggle with isolation and this is a long standing tradition we are battling in this country. (ELCC 1.1, 2.1) Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker (2008) state “The greatest advocates of public education in this country, Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann, always assumed that one of the functions of universal schooling was to sort and select students- to identify the gifted and to weed out the less capable as students advance along the educational system” (page 115). It seems that stratifying the classroom contributes to isolation, as was displayed by Dr.Hawkins’student government story. Some students at William Floyd felt excluded by the organization’s structure. They perceived it as somewhat elitist, controlled by the most academic students motivated by their college applications and resumes. As a result, Dr. Hawkins’ principalinstituted the same system the anti-federalists demanded when the Constitution was crafted, a bicameral system that ensured equitable representation from each homeroom. Mr. F was a very wise SS teacher! I think this idea is a brilliant plan to provide all students with access to representation, and I will be sure to implement a similar model in my school. (ELCC 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 4.2, 5.2)

Isolation does not only impact students but teachers as well. !!According to Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker (2008), “Isolation is the enemy of teaching” (pg. 176). This chapter resonated with me because I distinctly remember, before I started teaching, I believed it was a very “social” profession. Then I completed my first week and I felt shockingly lonely; I felt lonelier than I did working in an office in private industry. I do not want to assume but I am curious as to the connection between loneliness and the teacher attrition rate. High I would imagine if it was framed in that mannerThere were overwhelming struggles in my first year of teaching, from learning 10,000 years of history, lesson planning all hours of the night, grading, and managing student behavior. However, when I came close to leaving the profession, it was because of loneliness. This chapter was such a relief to read because it made me feel like this was not a personal problem!LOL It is an issue with the system and I vow to prioritize this issue as a leader. (ELCC 1.3) “Principals who support the learning of adults in their school organizeteachers’ schedules to provide opportunities to work, plan, and think together” (Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker, 2008, pg. 176). As a leader I must confront this issue by guaranteeing teacher meeting times. These meetings not only foster pedagogy and cross-content collaboration, but they validate teachers’ voices and combat teacher loneliness. (ELCC 1.1, 1.3, 3.1, 3.2)

Parents can struggle with isolation and feeling removed from the school community as well. An EDU 505 student, asked “How do we help the parents?” Dr. Hawkins addressed this issue one Sunday morning. He attended an 11:00am Mass, gained credibility through the priest, and met personally with the parents and families to advocate for healthcare enrollment. I think Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker (2008)also provide suggestions for leaders to include parents in the community: volunteer options, parent orientations, outreach that includes improvements and positive feedback (pg. 400). We cannot assume parents know what we want from them. Teachers rank reading to children as a primary importance but parents ranked it as 15thon a list of priorities! !!!!(Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker, 2008, pg. 383). Most parents want to be involved; it is our responsibility as leaders to steward them into the PLC. They cannot just be members on paper, but must be real, contributing voices to the school’s mission statement. We must reach out to them, sometimes in new and creative ways as Dr. Hawkins did that Sunday. I see now that this outreach needs to be incorporated into my leadership model and the systems I employ to run my school. (ELCC, 1.3, 2.1, 4.1, 4.2)

I found the comparison between the power of the law profession and education profession compelling. The law profession mostly trains lawyer how to think. They learn content but they primarily focus on how to apply legal concepts to different situations. According to Cunningham and Cordeiro (2009), “Lawyers do understand legal principles and knowledge of cases… this knowledge is secondary however to knowledge about how to employ legal principles (guiding ideas) and case knowledge in the process of legal reasoning about a particular case” (pg. 22). The authors continue to state that this skill may be just as important in the field of education. I concur. Me 2Leaders must be able to apply their strategies to a wide and unpredictable variety of situations. However, I feel it is imperative that this is practiced in conjunction with ethics and virtues (which, as we learned in class, are different from personal values). (ELCC 5.1, 5.2) Using the legal comparison, I noticedthe following possibility. Sometimes when the brightest minds adjudicate cases absent from virtue, operating on their one-sided mental models, then they apply their legal skills, laced in the most sophisticated language, to deprive people of basic rights.!!!!!! Notable decisions include the majority decision in Plessy versus Ferguson (1896) where the Supreme Court used their legal expertise to declare that separate but equal is somehow constitutional. Similarly, in Dred Scott versus Sanford (1857), the Court actually found a legal way to deprive Congress the power to legislate in any territories obtained after the US borders were set in the original Treaty of Paris, 1783. Free States north of the 36’30 latitude, as determined by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, were deemed unconstitutional. When you break down this decision in simple language, the logic is ludicrous, but it is shrouded in fancy legal jargon to ensure and justify the protection of slave ownership in Free States. Hence the need for an educated populace who can call BS!This illustrates that the most skilled and trained leaders in any profession, whether law or academics, can be as dangerous as loaded weapons if they apply their skills in an ethics vacuum.Great line! Maybe a new tattoo! (ELCC 1.1, 5.1, 5.2 6.1) Therefore, it is critical that I constantly assess and incorporate ethics and virtues into my mission statement and into the systems I use to practice that mission statement. Morality as an educational leader is not just about your personal, moral choices, but fostering education as a pursuit for general moral principles, for individual and global truth, no matter how difficult that may be. It is important for leaders to research and embrace a code of ethics. Codes of ethics stress“the common values of honesty, integrity, due process, civil and human rights, and, above all, the well-being of students”(Cunningham and Cordiero, 2009, pg. 22). Leaders must constantly reassess their mental models and the mental models imposed onto their communities. (ELCC 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 5.1, 5.2)

I see a connection betweenthe ethics topic discussed in Cunnigham and Cordiero (2009) and the social norms topicaddressed in Owens and Valesky (2011). I think leaders must constantly evaluate the social norms within their schools, possibly imposed from outside stakeholders, for elements of ethics or a lack of ethics. !!Owens and Valesky (2011) state “Many schools tend to evoke behavior that is conventional, conforming, submissive, and controlled- many would describe such schools as oppressive. Conversely, the norms of such schools discourage behavior that questions the established order…” (pg.4). I see the example below as relevant.

Like any country, the United States has a complicated past with some established traditions that are not overtlydiscriminatory. As leaders we must be examine our schools for these hidden elements. I recently collaborated with a principal on a change in thestudent hat policy. The Chancellor’s regulations prohibitstudents from wearing hats in New York City school buildings. However, after research and discussion, after examining mental models and using systems thinking, we realized this policy is racially and economically discriminatory. We first researched the history of the rule. Why was it implemented? City government claim hats are disrespectful and impede professional success. However, we do not require students to arrive in suits and ties every day. Not all jobs prohibit hats and, in addition, more and more of the 21st century jobs will be virtual; students can work from home in whatever headgear they choose. We also discovered that standards of beauty in this country were primarily established from European features. Whether one agrees or disagrees, some students of color feel pressure to conform, mostly through their hair styles. In fact so do other students, includingsome Ashkenazi Jewish students with curly hair, as is the ethnicity and experience of this particular principal. When students miss hair appointments, they feel self conscious and insecure, so they wear a hatfor a few days until they can return to a hairdresser. This does not impede the learning process at all. (ELCC 1.1, 2.1, 6.3) The rule is based on an antiquated fashion model of respect. Wearing a baseball hat in class is not disrespectful to a teacher, interfering with the educational process, or impeding their future career success. However, it is entirely disrespectful (and possibly a learning impediment) to force a student to remove a hat. Thispotentially causes insecurity;they might withhold from participation, or tune out the lesson completely because they are embarrassed and upset. I have experienced this firsthand and it is one of the few policies from early on that I refused to enforce in my classroom. However, before examining it from a system approach, I never understood why. It was more of a gut feeling; it felt wrong. Now I understand why. This practice essentially punishes students for feeling insecure and/or lacking the funds to maintain a particular standard of beauty. Finally, weimagineif and when a future employer tells them to remove a hat (or else), then they will. Along with that job also come a paycheck; then they can visit a hairdresser as frequently as they desire.

The principal removed the hat ban in his school, which happens to be the largest school in the United States. There were no catastrophes. Students reported feeling less pressure and humiliation as their “hair cycle comes to an end”, to quote one student. Teachers and deans reported more time available to teach and address behavior issues that actually impede the education process. We are currently in the process of drafting a letter to include the chancellor on this discussion. Cool. I am also thinking that Muslims do not comply with a requirement to remove their headgear, correct? Equity? They will likely also raise the arguments that hats can coceal drugs or weapons. Be prepared. (ELCC 1.1, 2.1, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3)

This week’s readings also discussed the value of data in education and how to tackle the overwhelming amount of data educators are faced with. While working on my Master’s in Public Policy I took two graduate level statistics courses. Before those courses I was absolutely terrified of statistical computations; afterwards I felt slightlymore confident in working with quantitative data. However, looking back now I see the courses failed to put the raw numbers into perspective. I learned the importance of various types of data from this week’s readings. (ELCC 3.1) In terms of public education, we must sift through excessive data to figure out which is most meaningful. One way that data collection can be simplified is by asking the right questions. This concept is illustrated in the student drop-out story from Kowalski, Lasley, and Mahoney(2008). Teachers assumed it was because students did not know how to speak and express themselves properly. “Based on this ‘knowledge’, the school district began an extensive restructuring effort centered on working with K-12 students to develop their social and communication skills” (Kowalski, Lasley, and Mahoney, 2008, pg. 109). However a consultant came in and suggested they poll the actual graduates and ask them what happened.Wow. Pure genius! The students almost unanimously responded that it was because they did not know how to write, and the district adjusted their approach! Data collection does not have to be overly dominated with numbers and equations. aha Assumptions are the first road block to discovering the truth in any data collection process and I think this example shows us we simply need to start by asking the right questions, to the right people. (ELCC 1.1, 1.4, 3.1, 3.3) And that is a concept all educators can understand and cooperate around. Manley and Hawkins(2009) explain clearly why quantitative data based strictly on summative numbers creates an incomplete picture. They compare summative data to an “autopsy” and formative data to a “check-up” (page 50). They relay that data needs multiple access point because there are always circumstances unique to each school district and, for that matter, to each student! According to Cunningham and Cordiero (2009), “Fourth grade African American males tend to respond positively to certain strategies and negatively to others, however they also know that not all African-American fourth grades fit the general pattern” (pg. 4). That generalization needs further research. What specifically about being African-American, what about the African-American experience is causing them to generally react in these certain ways? And even once that is determined, there will still always be exceptions. Manley and Hawkins (2009) state this best. “When student data are empirical and anecdotal, quantitative and qualitative data are produced. By including mixed methodologies, teachers have standardized test data, interview data, and portfolio data to inform them. The unifying factor is the data reveals what teachers need to recognize to guide student growth” (pg. 53). Dufour, Dufour and Eaker (2008) concur on a similar principle. “Ongoing monitoring is one of the most powerful ways organizations communicate what is truly important and valued. Schools may not be able to measure the specific degree to which a student has learned emotional intelligence… but certain indicators could be used to clarify expectations and assess improvement” (pg. 164). Overall, I have learned that quantitative data can and must be managed. We need a plan to identify the most important quantitative data and determine how it can be used to impact learning. We must also incorporate it as part of a comprehensive data package with qualitative and anecdotal data. This will also reduce the stress on teachers as they gently dip their toes into the data pool. We can start by asking the teachers which quantitative and qualitative data they feel is most relevant and how can we collect it and organize it into categories. Like other factors of a PLC, data collection cannot be mandated onto teachers. The process in and of itself must be cooperative. (ELCC 1.1, 1.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3)