The Nature of Educational Administration: Theory and Practice EDPS 511 Daniel Jay Cottell

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1 PRACTICE 1 The Nature of Educational Administration: Theory and Practice EDPS 511 Daniel Jay Cottell Art, science, management, leadership and administration are all elements of what we hope to understand in an educational context. What does it all mean and why are there such issues over these simple words. Are they simple? In place of words can I write nouns? Can I switch that to verbs? I think that this point here is crucial to determining which may be nouns and which may be verbs. Is there a significant difference and does it really matter? There are advocates on either side of an argument or debate as there always are. Both have valid claims and neither can survive for very long without relying on the other. Is educational administration art or science? If it must be both then which side do I lean towards? Does that matter and how will this perception change for the individual? As English (2008) outlines in his text, The Art of Educational Leadership; the complete leader will have experienced formal academic study, undertaken an internship and become engaged in continuing personal and professional development (p. 5). There can be no doubt in the value of an internship and ongoing professional development and personal growth. There can also be no doubt in the need for formalized academic study. The real issues are what to study, who is the mentor, and what processes are in place to ensure that effective personal and professional development is actually taking place. I will argue specific possibilities for all three of these elements that make up the complete leader and attempt to identify exactly what it takes to become, a complete leader. My current school division is heavily invested in mentorship programs. As a new teacher seven years ago I joined a group with 33 others and stayed in the cohort for three years; meeting on a monthly basis. I had a mentor teacher to rely on and was encouraged to access him for support. The cohort changed significantly over these three years and when we were finished there was a ceremony and certificate for completion. No doubt that there was some value in it but what do I recall from this experience? Missed days with my students, extra readings, assignments and preparing sub plans for all the meetings. I met with my mentor teacher once as prescribed and never contacted him again. I remember few from the cohort and have no idea who still works in the division. Strangely enough though, a colleague in the current Master s cohort

2 PRACTICE 2 was in my new teacher cohort and I believe we had a University of Alberta undergraduate course together in Edmonton for our first degrees as well. Did I develop and grow as a teacher? Absolutely. But I was part of a supportive and open staff with an amazingly collaborative nature. I have close ties to those who I worked with and it was not the system and processes in place that helped me to grow as an educator and leader. The life-world of the building; the culture of the school represented by the values, norms, and beliefs that determine the social interactions between students, teachers, and administrators, (Anderson, 2004, p. 250) encouraged me to become a leader and find my path. I had a conversation recently with a colleague I had assumed to be a new teacher taking on a coaching role in the school. After getting to know each other a little I found she had been teaching for many years and was absolutely enthralled with her coaching role which had never appeared to be an opportunity for her before. She credited this directly to the leadership and culture of the building which includes the community at large and the entire context of her situation in the same building but with a new administrator. Potential resides in all of us and I feel lucky to have been in a situation where mine was encouraged and developed. Is it possible to build a mentorship program that will be as effective as a positive and supportive culture that you can feel in a building? While this may not be possible it would be great if a mentorship program could be powerful enough to support those that do not have the benefit of an amazing building and staff to work with. This same school division has another three year cohort for new administrators. To what purpose is it of a new administrator that does not have the benefit of a positive and supportive staff? When new teachers and administrators are not successful I often wonder if they would have been in another building. I can see staffs that are struggling and administration that do not have a pulse on the culture of the building. As a new administrator coming in to a building with a toxic culture I cannot imagine the struggle of turning a staff around. I have seen it done and will watch closely at a new situation where I see the same problem. Do the administrators that can turn a staff around have an amazing cohort of peers to collaborate with or is there something more? It s rather obvious I think. Though mentorship programs can be of great value, it is far more beneficial to be a part of a staff that can work collaboratively in an open and safe environment where leadership thrives in everyone. Distributed leadership though, is only effective when the right mix of ingredients come together. This is another potentially mechanistic part of the system that is designed to promote

3 PRACTICE 3 collaboration and efficiency but cannot match good leadership. English (2008) notes that Faceless bureaucracies may be efficient, but they can never be inspiring or even constructed in the beginning without visionary, motivating, or charismatic human beings drawing other humans to them and who confer on those individuals the role of leader. (p. 94). My personal growth and professional development journey has been incredible over the course of the last few years. I cannot imagine too many other teachers being involved in all the opportunities that I have been fortunate enough to participate in. I have been a school team member in multiple division and provincial pilot projects that always involved mandatory professional development. These opportunities were designed to support the initiative and help to ensure success. While some of these professional development events were exceptional and did provide wonderful supports, I often found that they were too far behind where we had come on our own as a collaborative, high-functioning staff. As we pushed the limits and explored beyond the general mandates we found that we were being looked to as leaders within the pilot and provided guidance for others to reference. In my role at our division office I have again been exposed to far more professional development opportunities than most teachers. In the instances where I have been able to select my preferred professional development, I have been more invested in and gotten a lot more out of the events. Professional development organized by and for a school division is generally all about supporting the vision or specific goals and initiatives within. In these instances I have been told many times that in my specific role I needed to attend certain sessions or in-services. There were many other opportunities that I was interested in but was just unable to be a part of. The division I am in hosts an internal two day Summer Institute, Technology Symposium, Support Staff conference and also strongly encourages and supports particular events offered throughout the province. I have been an attendee in all of these for years and have graduated to presenter and organizer in my ever-changing role. As I have become involved with designing professional development opportunities on a very large scale as a division staff member, one of my goals has been to provide a vast assortment of opportunities for staff. Alongside this I attempt to provide staff with the chance to speak up about what it is exactly that they are after. I don t want to only provide sessions that fall in line with what is expected or subtly encouraged. Through the development our own Central Alberta Technology conference, it has become more important to me to maintain an inclusive lens on all that we do. It is never about the

4 PRACTICE 4 technology but how it is being used to meet a goal. This goal should be all about student engagement and learning but must also be for the teacher to improve their practice in a way that they are invested in. So many times I have offered the mandated session to a group that just wasn t ready to hear what I had to say. The appropriate scaffolds had not been in place at the right time. Now three years later, I have staff coming back to what was a priority for me quite a while back. Do I urge them on to catch up really quickly to where our leaders appear to be going? Or do I help them on their own journey at the appropriate pace for them to be most engaged and thus benefit more from the training? Everyone needs to have the right supports but also at the right time. So often this depends on the readiness of not just the staff member but the administration and culture of the building as well. Black and white opportunities for professional development do not fit for all and divisions need to be more willing to meet specific and relevant needs of their staff. If the division cannot provide on a more individualized and specialized basis, it must fall on the administration to support their staff in the best way that they can. In terms of professional growth plans we are also seeing division and school based goals becoming front and centre. When there is so much paperwork and tracking involved with the mandated pieces, how many staff members are realistically going to make effective and meaningful personal goals that relate to what they specifically are interested in? I have never completed a professional growth plan that actually had any truly personal development goals based on my interests alone. The one that I still need to complete for this current year will be filled with evidence of meeting goals that are only going to exist because they will fill up the paper. This evidence will be from those events that I have been encouraged to attend in order to better support staff in my role. How valuable are these professional growth plans when they are not personal and meaningful to the person completing them? In our busy worlds of extras and an overfilled (or spilling over) plate it is hard to expect that some meaningful and applicable personal development will be taking place. After hearing our refined division goals and the new professional growth model, a colleague questioned the addition of another personal goal. Without pause, the leader of the organization remarked that this is often left off as the division and school goals become the personal. To that end, another colleague mentioned how their school made personal goals such as losing weight for general well-being. And then this same person quipped how there would be zero accountability. Funny, yes but is this where we want to find ourselves in a learning organization?

5 PRACTICE 5 In developing leadership potential and aiming to nurture that complete leader, the need for formal academic study cannot be denied. So what does that study comprise of? Masters programs abound and anyone can get an online degree in about a year. What merit is put into these degrees and how far beyond the credentials is the validity of these degrees challenged? I think to the Master s cohort that my division endorses based upon the work of Robert Marzano ( Online Master s Degree, n.d.). The cohort consists of recording yourself teaching, reflecting upon experiences, completing assignments and posting in online courses. Classes are entirely virtual with students who may get together physically once or twice a year. It is based entirely on instructional leadership and I have to wonder if it supports the development of administrators we need as leaders in our schools? Interestingly enough it is labeled as a graduate program in the art and science of teaching. What about administration and leadership? Many organizations have division or district level curriculum, technology or inclusion coaches. I see this particular program as a perfect fit for this type of role support, but not necessarily for administrators. A program that is well grounded in the historical study of educational administration will serve to build an understanding of how the field developed over time. No period of time and a given general theory of the time can be entirely discredited or forgotten. It is part of a greater path that has hopefully brought us to the best form of study. Why do we even encourage a study of educational administration, or should we at all? English (2008) argues that theory informs practice and without good theory there is little chance for positive change to take place in order to advance and enhance the status of educational administration as a profession (p.12). If theory informs our knowledge and this has become the foundational epistemology (p. 11) behind what educational administration is, then is there not value in understanding how this developed or came to be over time? Critical analysis of some previously held assumptions can help to see where turning points came and what caused them to happen. Certain elements of each set of theories over time will always have a place in the discourse around educational administration, as well as the practice. Alison (1989) contends that the academic and the practical worlds naturally intermingle and overlap in many ways, and each must necessarily complement and inform the other (p. 5). It is also crucial to understand the context of the times and why a certain viewpoint may have been held. It likely met the need at the time and as times change, so do needs.

6 PRACTICE 6 The study of practitioners in the current landscape of educational administration is crucial to understanding change and how theory is being applied in an ever-changing context. The more we are made aware of the complexity of situational factors affecting decision making, the more prepared we will become to make rational well-formed decisions, even more so when lacking in time. This is why an actual program with a solid foundation of theory on educational administration is so crucial. Masters programs in business administration are being endorsed as effective replacements for educational administration programs in order to get strong business managers in place of school administrators (Bolton & English, 2010, p. 563). Ribbins references English s concern for American programs in particular and the continuing dominance of positivism and the pursuit of the scientific in the study of leadership in education (2006, p. 117). Starrart sees the administration of schools as a rational pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness (2004, p. 261). The bureaucratization of education takes the people out of an equation that is built upon relationships and meaningful interactions between all those involved. With an effective program of studies in educational administration that is well thought out, one would like to assume that this academic study will have an effect on the practitioner once the study is complete and the administrative role begins. What about for those who formally began a leadership position before taking meaningful coursework? Practice should be effected is the program is valuable. To what benefit is that experience of being in the role and having the opportunity to relate to the program throughout the completion of studies? Should academic study then parallel internship like an undergraduate degree? I would be very interested to hear from administrators who completed a program in this manner as I am certain it has been tried. I believe that the value in a practicum during the undergraduate degree was far more valuable than the coursework. Being able to have the initial experience and come back in for more coursework gave a context for the content. Perhaps this was attempted and the logistics just didn t work. It is relatively easy for a teacher to have a substitute or someone else come in to the room and take over the teaching assignment. It would be a little more complicated for an administrator to be replaced or supplemented by someone unknown to the school. In a simple acting-administrator role that I often took on in their absence, I was amazed at the complexity of some of this issues that I ended up dealing with. Nothing was ever truly cut and dry. A good administrator will take time (when they can) to fully understand the story and what implications it will have for those

7 PRACTICE 7 involved. This as opposed to applying a one size fits all solution for whatever comes up. Keegan points out that context is all (as cited in English, 2008, p. 40). The complete leader will have experienced formal academic study, undertaken an internship and become engaged in continuing personal and professional development (English, 2008, p.5). This is limited in its scope as there are so many potentially harmful forms of academic study that will not do educational administration the justice it deserves. How can internship be made effective for the new administrator? Or is it more realistic to look towards a form of mentorship instead? Professional growth is easy; making it personal is the factor that will enhance school leadership. Leadership is an art form that must be practiced, reflected upon and refined. Management is the science of organizing people and resources in the school environment. School administration is all these combined. Balance and to where do we find ourselves on a continuum of these elements will not be known until we have the actual context to apply them all accordingly. In this short paper I have asked over 25 questions. Who am I asking and where will I find the answers; or, is the answer in the questioning? (+3)