Successful Leadership in Urban Schools: Principals and Critical Spirituality, A New Approach to Reform
2010; Howard University; Volume: 79; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2167-6437
Autores Tópico(s)Critical and Liberation Pedagogy
ResumoThis article offers an alternative perspective on educational leadership based on the tenets of critical spirituality. It offers an educational leadership grounded in critical theory and African American spirituality. The two coalesce to provide school leaders with conceptual frame that not only centers on academic achievement but academic achievement in more equitable and democratic space. Critical spirituality dares to challenge leaders to serve as organic intellectuals and civil rights activists who have engaged in the spiritual exercises of critical self-reflection, deconstructtve interpretation or hermeneutics, performative creativity and transformative action, the four components of critical spirituality. Keywords: democracy, leadership, spirituality, reform INTRODUCTION Scholars and practitioners in the field of education are constantly exploring ways to improve schools. Numerous models have been developed, designed to bridge the achievement gaps among students, schools and school districts. Educational leadership has faced similar reform designs. The field of educational leadership has been critiqued through feminist, postmodern, critical, and critical race theoretical positions. Each of these portends change in how school leadership is conceptualized and practiced. They all require that practicing as well as prospective school leaders contextualize the technical/managerial responsibilities of leadership widun the values, predispositions, and assumptions they individually hold as well as those extrinsically foisted on school leaders that so deeply impact their work. School leaders who are influenced by these progressive theoretical perspectives recognize the dualistic nature of educational leaders' work. They clearly see die technical as well as adaptive challenges (Heifetz, 1994; Heifetz & Linsky, 2002) involved in school leadership. However, these leaders understand diat while the technical challenges of leadership must be embraced, (the nuts and bolts of administration), it is the adaptive ones; those that involve beliefs, values and personal predispositions that substantively impact the effectiveness of their work. The adaptive nature of leader's work actually operates from one's spiritual center. A person's spirituality is that ethereal part that establishes meaning in one's life. It dares to ask the hard ontological and teleological inquiries that help people to determine who they are and what their contributions to life will be. Spirituality is the instrument in our lives through which we build connectivity and community with others. Spirituality differs from religion in that religion is an institutionalized space where spirituality may be nurtured and celebrated. Religion is often used to codify moral behavior that works in collaboration witii civil authorities to domesticate society's citizenry. Religion is the formally recognized space where spirituality is legitimately to reside. However, spirituality far transcends me boundaries of institutional religion. Spirituality may certainly be nurtured tiirough the auspices of the religious experience and may be articulated by some through the use of religious language but the ethereal nature of our lives may also be fostered through life's experiences, relationship with nature, an appreciation for music and the arts, or even die dynamics of family and friendships. It is from one's spirituality that compassion, sense of equity, understanding and passion toward others as well as the life's work to which one has been emanate. Emmons (1999) defined spirituality as a search for meaning, for unity, for connectedness, for transcendence, for the highest of human potential (p. 92). Sergiovanni (1999) used spiritual context to describe what he called leadership grounded in purposing. He argued that purposing is powerful force that focuses on human needs for sense of what is important and of what is of value. …
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