Living Leadership Deliberately and Ethically: Focusing on What Really Should Matter

 "I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing....The principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In this statement from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the author questions whether our "factory system" of production is the best means to provide clothing for people. As he points out, the factory has an unquestionable objective or purpose, which is to "make money and enrich its owners." Its objective is not to see that individuals are "well and honestly clad." In other words, by its existence, the factory is not concerned with how well, functionally or comfortably, individuals are dressed; it seeks to make money. 

Now, that certainly doesn't mean that factories or businesses can't have two purposes. It could seek both profitability and the good of its consumers, but Thoreau points to that, inevitably, the factory has to sometimes decide which object or purpose is primary, and sadly, too often, we live in a world where material advantages outweigh the good of individuals or even society.

Educational leaders face this ethical choice every day, and even make choices sometimes unconsciously. They weigh the "good of the institution" with its sole purpose being survival against what it actually delivers of value to its students, teachers, and staff. In these instances, "Survival of the Institution" reigns supreme when leaders make decisions that try to preserve the educational system, school or even university, and ignore the needs of its constituents, or even take actions detrimental to those individuals. For example, when a new initiative, new program is to be implemented, the consequential effects of that endeavor can be easily ignored or cast aside if it is seen to support the primary objective of an institution of self-preservation. In this situation, it may even implement at the expense of one of its constituent groups or individuals. In the modern school, these decisions are sometimes made at the expense of a student.

All this raises an important question for me: To what purpose or objective does my institution align itself to? Can I ethically accept and work and live according to that in my own journey of living deliberately as a leader? 

Ultimately, as a leader, you won't find answers to these questions in mission statements. The answers to these questions are found in what your organization does on a daily basis. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of a school system, school or institution of higher education can erase any carefully constructed mission statement. I choose to "live deliberately every day as a leader" and that sometimes mean I am a "thorn in the side" or even that scratching sound on the chalkboard." I do not live by mission statements, because they can be easily be manipulate, twisted or ignored. I try to live deliberately by making each day count.

Beware the AI Hype in Education: Let's Be Critical

 "Stop thinking about what technology does and start thinking about who technology does it to and who it does it for." Cory Doctorow,  The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation

The latest "AI craze" has hit public schools. Educators have begun singing the chorus of praise for artificial intelligence and its promise of improving education. Have we not learned anything from the destruction that social media has wrought upon our society? It's promises of "connecting people" has been false, as it has only accelerated division and hate among people. The promise of "personalizing learning through technology" has equally proven false as achievement has gone nowhere as schools pushed to place technology in the hands of every student. The educational hype over Artificial Intelligence or AI sounds like a bad rerun from an old TV show, and I, for one, can't help but say, "Here we go again!"

Has any educator brain enough to begin asking the question "Who technology does it to and who it does it for?" in regards to AI or artificial intelligence technologies? To me, the first half of this question is asking "What are the consequences of adopting AI?" Instead of accepting the industry's notion of "inevitability of the technology" are we asking what overall adoption of AI is going to do to people? Not at all. We simply uncritically accept that AI is a good thing. That is a recipe of future disaster.

Educational leaders do not need to uncritically accept the promises of the tech industries when it comes to AI. We need to be asking critical questions about what these technologies do to people, and who is likely to benefit most from all the hype. In the end, it might not be the students; it is likely to be big tech companies and its evangelists who have led us down this path of false promises before.

We've Got the Teacher Shortage We Deserve in 2023

 American school systems are experiencing a teacher shortage so severe that some positions go months and months unfilled due to lack of applicants. This is especially true in some certification areas like math, science, and special education. And, I would add that policymakers can't apply band-aids fast enough to fix this problem, because it is a problem that unfortunately we deserve. 

In the past 30 years, education leaders and policymakers have done more to make teaching so unpalatable, that fewer and fewer people are choosing to become teachers. This is not a problem that we can easily market or buy our way out of, yet we have education leaders and politicians still trying to do just that.

Has anyone considered that perhaps we should look at what teachers are being asked to do? Maybe the work just stinks.

When Educators Use the Word "Science" and the Need for Critical Thinking

 "Science can be a language of distance which reduces a being to its working parts; it is language of objects."  Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Educators and education policymakers have discovered a new word "science." Well, it's not new to them, but some educators have figured out that by placing the words "Science of" before whatever topic they wish, somehow transforms that topic into something that is to be heeded and given authority. For example, I remember some state level educators throwing around the words "Science of Change" or "Science of Innovation" at a professional development session pushing some new curriculum scheme the state wanted to be accepted. It's as if by talking about "change" being a "scientific discipline, it should be accepted without question. Never mind that often with change, the important questions are not scientific at all. The questions of value, like "Who is affected by this change?" and "Who gains the most from this change?" are extremely important as well. Change and innovation are too often pushed for their own sake, or for the sake of some career that stands to gain from its implementations. 

We need to realize that the placement of the word "Science" before change, or innovation, or, most recently, "Reading" does not make the contents of that field any more legitimate and immune to critique. In fact, we should turn on the critical thinking even more when educators throw around the word science in this manner, because they have done it so often in the past...like at the turn of the 20th century with the term eugenics. At that time, education leaders and policy makers did a great deal of talking about the science of eugenics too, and we all know the ethical issues with that science.

As Kimmerer points out, it is important to understand the effects of imposing the language of science on anything, even reading. It creates a distance between us and that object. It tears it down into working parts pretty well, but in the end, you sometimes don't understand it any more than when you started your "scientific study." Sometimes, an act like reading needs to be understood as a whole too. If we reduce the act of reading too much as some kind of simple skill that can be taught, we actually ignore the fact that reading is really a personal, meaning-making experience too among other things. It is actually a subversive activity too if we let it be.

Educators always need to be skeptical of their colleagues and educational gurus throwing around the word science. It's very appropriate to ask tough questions, even the questions they would like to be out of bounds.

Time to Demote Social Media to Super-Market Tabloid Status

“Because corporations are not elected, they cannot be voted out, and yet they have become pseudogovernmental by virtue of their wealth, power, and the reach of their technological systems. Their leaders insist that they, and they alone, know what is best for us—from what information we should see to how much privacy we should retain. Increasingly, these companies have placed themselves in the role of determining how we move about in the world, literally and figuratively, and their power to define our reality increasingly extends to the power to decide elections in the US and other nations, taking away our most fundamental rights as citizens to self-determination." Mar Hicks, "When Did the Fire Start" in Your Computer Is On Fire

It's time to demote social media's status in our lives.

The problem with social media systems like Twitter, is that we have given them too much power over us. They have become "pseudo-governmental," to use the term used by Hicks (2021), which means they become the unelected governors over the information diet we consume. 

Place an autocratic, narcissistic CEO in charge of such companies, which is what we have in Elon Musk, and the real danger is that the social media system becomes at best a polluted information ecosystem flooded with misinformation and nonsense. At worse, the social media system becomes a propaganda mechanism, promoting what a CEO like Musk thinks is best for us. The question then becomes do we really want someone like Musk deciding what information is relevant for us? Do we want him determining what free speech means? I think not. 

We as consumers get to really decide how much value social media has in our lives. Honestly, I think we should not have listened to the techno-utopian hype in the 2000s that promised that social media would foster connections and community. It hasn't. We are more separated and polarized than ever, and social media is the cause. It is time to relegate social media to the same status as the super-market tabloid.

Edu-Techno-Utopian Voices Got It Wrong with Remote Learning

“No matter the problem, it seems, a chorus of techno-utopian voices is always at the ready to offer up 'solutions' that, remarkably enough, typically involve the same strategies (and personnel) as those that helped give rise to the crisis in the first place. We can always code our way out, we are assured. We can make, bootstrap, and science the shit out of this.” Thomas S. Mullaney, "Your Computer Is On Fire"

Interesting thoughts here by Mullaney and some truth. There truly exists “a chorus of techno-utopian voices…ready to offer up ‘solutions’ that…typically involve the same strategies (and personnel) as those helped give rise to the crisis in the first place.” Education has its own “techno-utopian chorus” that sings of tech-solutions to everything that ails us in education too. Educational problems are seen as opportunities to solve with technology. But, as the recent remote learning experiment clearly demonstrated, our educational problems are not always solvable with tech. 

In fact, the application of tech, like in this situation, often amplifies existing problems, and causes a whole set of new problems. For example, in the remote learning experiment, the problem of parental involvement in their children’s education was magnified for those students because parents who were able to assist were either non-existent or not available. The students that remote learning most penalized were these students. There was not a ZOOM technology that could solve this issue because it was a problem before the pandemic, and it was a problem magnified during.  A whole set of new problems accompanied the remote learning experiment too. For example, how to effectively provide the services, such as counseling, therapy, and lunch to students who were not physically present, not to mention the issue of missing socialization with peers that works best in physical presence. 

As Mullaney points out, our first reaction as educators is to try to “code our way out” of the problem, or “science the shit out of it.”  Perhaps the problem in education is our recurring turn toward technology for answers. Sure, the tech industry loves that thinking and helps foster it, but we need to think independently. 

A Dissertation Narrative: What's the Real Purpose for Pursuit of the Doctoral Degree?

Even some college professors in Educational Leadership Departments view everything people do through the lenses of Business and Utilitarian perspectives. I am reminded of this when I recall an event before I completed my doctorate, where one of my professors asked, "What is your dissertation about?" At that time I did not have a title, but told him that I was doing a historical some kind critique of using value-added measures to determine teacher quality. I was not really sure what I was doing anyway. After all, my doctoral experience was a journey of traveling down false paths and backtracking, not a linear journey from A, the beginning to Z destination. I allowed my reading and thinking to guide me. His immediate reaction? "What the hell are you going to do with that?" Obviously his question was well-intended, but it betrays the business-minded cultural underpinnings of an Ed Leadership program. He had in mind a linear process that ultimately would lead to some kind of fulfillment of personal ambition.

The dissertation experience in his eyes should have been about the utilitarian purpose of promoting career and future business prospects, not genuinely trying to add knowledge to the field, following where curiosity leads, or trying to call attention to an educational practice through critique. I am afraid that such thinking as this professor demonstrated is really indicative of how many educational leadership professors think in administration programs. You earn the degree to further your career. Sure, this is part of the reason. In my case, however, as I read and explored and read some more and explored, the ultimate product of the end my dissertation journey was the only possible outcome.

Several years out from graduation, I can really appreciate the experience, and not entirely for its potential to advance career or ambition. For now, through the doctoral process and through the act of wrestling with a dissertation, I know that I think more deeply and critically. My reading has broadened enormously as evidenced by my own library. But most of all, I exist in a field that is in need of individuals willing to live and do the work, but also be willing to ask difficult questions. I don't denigrate those who pursue higher education degrees entirely through professional ambition. That's as good a reason as any. But I also will always value both the journey and the product I produced at the end of the doctoral process. It's existence changed me forever.