I am currently having an interesting experience of working with current School Leaders and future School Leaders — folks who are currently leading schools and their communities, and those who have played this role in different ways but are now dreaming and designing schools/programs for their communities. There is one fear however, that seems to come up for both these groups — of getting/remaining stuck in the same-old-same-old cycle. For sitting Principals, this is a reality that they are dealing with, when there are conflicts among teachers, very real issues of student safety, and need for healing and comfort in the community, how do you think about the big picture without getting sucked into the everyday completely? For school designers, these are the exact challenges that they are scared of getting sucked into. Can they escape the trap of becoming the same-old? Or is there a way to stay energized, stay evolving — ‘onward, forward’, as Ted Lasso would say?
The school designers do have the benefit of community — of being surrounded by equally passionate school designers, all with their own set of brilliant ideas and values that they are hoping to actualize. Linda focuses a lot on designing the class to become a community so that this work is not so solitary. There is a feeling of ‘you are not alone’ — there are others on this same journey with you, grappling with the same problems, going through the same experiences as you. And so, even though every individual is working on their own project in very different contexts from each other, there is a connecting thread and there is a group of people that they can fall back on. Hopefully this feels like a safety net.
And that is what the goal has evolved to for the Professional Development work with School Principals, an opportunity to be able to create that community for sitting Principles that allows them to share space with people who are experiencing similar challenges and frustrations as them, but also, perhaps as equally important, can appreciate both the small and big wins in their work. So many times, professional development begins from the standpoint of transferring skills and sharing insights, and that is certainly important. However, from what I have observed, the precursor to this and perhaps the most important end goal as well, is creating a community for School Leaders to make this very difficult work feel less isolating and little less exhausting. Creating a support group that enables Principals to engage in their professional development while understanding and giving grace for the challenges of their day-to-day work. And this is not surprising, so much of the literature that talks about facilitating adult learning and learning in the workplace, emphasizes building a learning community that feels safe for the participants to be vulnerable in.
The question I ask myself now is that can this community evolve to support Principals in getting unstuck from the same-old-same-old cycle. Is this the space where they can come to think of the big picture? Is this the community that the school designers need to be intentional about nurturing so they do not fall into the isolation trap as they go outside the class and begin the difficult work of building their wonderful schools?
