Leadership is about managing ambiguity. Consequently, it is paramount to avoid the pitfall of binary thinking when facilitating intentional interruption to foster agency, engage in productive struggle, and ultimately broaden the cognitive horizon of those whose lives we impact. The transforming and transcending power of education provides unbridled opportunities. Here, the credibility of our students as learners is never questioned. Consequently, the mission, vision, goals, and even lesson plans of teachers should include a dream plan for every child. It is a declaration of the commitment of leaders to learning to position each student for prosperity.
Asking Simple Questions
Leaders must pause, draw back the blinds of their lives, and peek through the windows of their private and personal predicaments. Additionally, keep in mind some simple questions. Am I doing enough? Have I exhausted the breadth and depth of my talents and abilities to be an asset to someone else, namely the students I serve? Or am I blinded by biases, subsequently hindering someone’s pursuit of excellence?
Truthfully, students are all dreamers. Indeed, it is the responsibility of leaders to instill in them the notion to always dream big dreams and strive for extraordinary success. Students must be reminded every day that as long as their dreams are bigger than their circumstances, they cannot fail. Likewise, to fail does not make them a failure. That is why leaders for learning, those who choose to serve children and foster communities of learning, must be stalwart in the commitment to have a resounding and positive impact.
As leaders for learning, the role is to help students expand their circumstances to fit their big dreams and to be difference makers. The point should be punctuated that leaders for learning must live each day with a strident sense of purpose, knowing that the realization of the dreams of each and every student is indeed an intentional act. Such a commitment to conviction is particularly vital now in an environment marked by constant technological advancements and increased globalization. Increasingly, leaders are functioning in uncharted waters, facing unprecedented challenges, and relied upon to acutely manage ambiguity.
Pivoting the Fabric of Traditional Education
March 20, 2020 was a critical turning point for schools. It brought the closing of school buildings and the abrupt shift to online learning. The COVID-19 pandemic pervasively altered the very fabric of the provision of traditional education. School districts were compelled to develop and continuously expand upon comprehensive plans for continuity of learning. E-Learning Plans became a household name.
Schools were compelled to go from onsite learning and teaching experiences to totally remote eLearning. However, with that came:
- huge learning curves;
- huge deployment of technology to students and staff; and
- huge development of online content and shifts in delivery strategies.
At the core of such endeavors, students receive instruction based on continuity of learning, with an unwavering focus on providing equity in opportunities and outcomes for all students. The execution of any such plan must be contingent upon ubiquitous access to technology capacity, encompassing clear procedures to ensure the reliability and accessibility of technology for students and school personnel alike.
In other words, assumptions about availability and access to technology cannot be the basis for decision-making. The stakes are too high for students. Ubiquitous access must be verified for each child in a household. The technological divide is the new institutional discriminatory gap, disenfranchising many students in a technology desert. Consequently, any effort focused on continuity of learning must be prefaced on a model of service following needs to preserve equity in opportunities and outcomes.
Unfortunate Inequities
The veil of false parity has been lifted. Unfortunately, it has revealed the gross inequities that exist in society and that are manifested in schools. Economic and financial disparities correlate directly with the lack of ubiquitous internet connectivity and technology access. Coupled with a lack of parental capacity to effectively navigate the varied and seemingly changing technology platforms, debilitating discriminatory practices are fueled, and resource incapacity is the inevitable outcome.
The pivot to virtual learning keenly illustrated the need for leaders for learning, regardless of title, to diligently work to contend with one of society’s greatest dilemmas. What is that dilemma? The closing of the academic achievement gap between black and white, rich and poor. Likewise, preserving equity in opportunities and outcomes, parity in performance, and high-quality learning experiences for all students. Educational institutions are pivoting and changing the revealingly archaic model of seat time and lock‐step progression of achievement marked by assessment benchmarks. The pivoting of education in this era is both tactical and strategic…keenly analyzing and addressing the impact of technology on positioning school systems for continued prosperity.
Progressive Leadership Is Not Binary
Continuity of learning remains the North Star, the true north, the fixed point in a seemingly spinning equation for societal normalcy. Education remains oriented to the fundamental value and belief of preserving equity in opportunities and outcomes for all students. Correspondingly, the vast differences in student needs from special education to acceleration. The provision of support services from ENL to mental health and wellness are illuminated. Even the gap in educational achievement itself is firmly appreciated as being merely a symptom of a larger problem. It is, in many ways, a manifestation of gross disparities in society, the opportunity gap that stems from discriminatory practices, and the willful marginalization of certain individuals and communities.
Some also call it opportunity debt…recognizing that there is a sense that not only was opportunity denied, but it was denied despite being owed. Unfortunately, far too many children are victims of the unfortunate circumstances of their birth, living on the peripheries, at the outer edge of disappointment and despair…disenfranchised.
In these crucible times, where lives are being transformed daily, the fundamental values and beliefs that actions must always be focused on the best interest of students must not only drive the provision of education but fundamentally reform it. Unfortunately, there is no playbook to help contend with the challenges. Rather, there is only a steadfast commitment of conviction to do what is right and preserve equity in opportunities and outcomes for all students.
The Need for Change
The critical need for differentiated approaches to capture and engage students speak to a need. Indeed, that need is for demonstrative changes. The propaganda of academia can no longer be the running narrative. Truthfully, the old model of offering to serve but not effectively serving all students must be called into question. The seemingly innate connection between high performers and low achievers must be shattered. The endorsement of one is to reverse the acceptance of the other.
The integration of technology allows for the prioritization of learning standards. Likewise, it allows for the slowing down of the proverbial game. It also allows for deeper, independent engagement with content and multiple proficiency measures. It is about meeting students where they are and taking them to where they ought to be. Indeed, it endeavors to remove all the contradictions between those two points on the learning continuum. What are those two points? Where they are and where they ought to be.
As we lean forward, viewing the conditions and provision of schools prospectively, assessment of needs must be done through an equity lens with an undeviating eye on the WHY, the provision of Authentic Learning, based on tenets of education being Inclusive, Diverse, and Axiomatic:
- Inclusive: What else can we do to make the school and classroom experience more relevant?
- Diverse: How can we be more responsive to and capitalize on emerging changes and cultural shifts?
- Axiomatic: What else do we need to do to ensure equity in outcomes, all students succeeding and realizing their full potential?
Four Dimensions
A keen focus must be on organizational resiliency…finding the flow, the zone of seamless performance and productivity. Doing so necessitates leadership fortitude. However, this plays out in four dimensions:
1. Contending with systemic change—process and practices revamped to be rigorous and relevant, or even trashed and replaced
2. Mindset shifts—not succumbing to being prisoners of past assumptions, fostering resiliency to embrace the challenge of change
3. Personnel retooling and recalibration—practices becoming the common practice, grounded in a sense of responsibility versus responding to external measures of accountability
4. Contingency and scenario planning—allowing for seamless organizational pivoting in a fluid and uncertain environment without losing momentum
Additionally, as leaders for learning, we cannot succumb to the sucker’s choice of a binary view of progressive leadership. Of course, tchnology is the bridge to knowledge. Consequently, it remains a vital component of the eradication of gaping performance disparities. Access to and knowledge of the effective use of technology can exponentially move the proverbial needle of progress toward parity in outcomes. In a knowledge economy, fueled by technological advancements, a comprehensive STEM approach to education instills in our students a sense of significance and cultivates the ability to be self-directed learners, and innovative thinkers.
Doubting Objectivity: The Horizon Leans Forward
The crux of the matter is that people have a natural inclination to lean toward avoiding discomfort, hence defensiveness, or even engaging in dissonance…believing one thing, yet doing another. This is hard work, complex work. Why? Unfortunately, one of the most complicated components of being honest in our deliberations, diligent in our assessment, and acting with fidelity is the need to consistently doubt objectivity. Indeed, this means confronting the truths of current circumstances. It means challenging the subconscious that results from social conditioning and lived experiences. Doubting objectivity means being audacious enough to ask critical questions and to scrutinize ideas, constructs, traditions, and even our seemingly innate beliefs.
The End Game
Here is the end game. Doubting objectivity is about dismantling, disbanding discriminatory institutional practices that lead to the perpetuation of uneven outcomes and hinder the highest level of achievement for all students. It must all be a pursuit of Alpha, a positive return on the investment. That means sanctioning the inevitable. Being arrested by a commitment of conviction, possessing a keen sense of intentionality to challenge and change the status quo, which in itself is a luxury that paralyzes progress. It is critical to confront the reality that, in many ways, schools are merely creating test-taking soldiers and minimally compliant learners. Doing so creates seismic shifts toward STEM education and the cultivation of innovative thinkers. This paradigm shift manifests in cultural conditioning that defines expectations, norms for actions, the impetus for evasive measures to pierce the status quo, the natural enemy of progress, and consequently redefines new plateaus of progress.
The horizon for our students leans forward, and the gates of a new era have been flung wide open. Leaders must be directed by the optimism of the will and not by the pessimism of the intellect. So, draw back the blinds of your life and peek through the windows of your private predicaments. Ask yourself the right question. Am I doing enough, or am I blinded by my own biases? What’s your answer?
About the Author
DR. L. OLIVER ROBINSON
Dr. L. Oliver Robinson is the author of Naked in the Public Eye: Leading and Learning in an Era of Accountability. His recognition as the 2013 New York Superintendent of the Year speaks to his keen leadership. Dr. Robinson is one of the longest-serving superintendents of schools in the country. He has served as the Superintendent of Schools for the Shenendehowa Central School District since July 2005. He also served as the Superintendent for the Mohonasen CSD from 2001–2005. Dr. Robinson also serves as an adjunct professor at the Sage Colleges and the College of St. Rose. He received his bachelor of arts from Brown University. He also received a master’s and doctor of philosophy degree (Ph.D.) from the University at Albany.
