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In our course, Nature and Context in Education and Learning, we continued to prepare ourselves for the world of educational leadership. This course was a very flexible learning experience in that it focused on our needs. There was not an assigned textbook; instead our educational experience was gained from readings, discussions led by practicing administrators, as well as scenarios that we may face in our future positions. We also participated in “leadership practice fields” that allowed us to develop creative solutions to everyday problems.
Leadership practice fields are essentially a way for us to have a safe, non-threatening environment to practice our leadership skills. These fields emphasized creative solutions, forcing us to look beneath the surface to develop innovative problem solving. These activities included parent phone calls and developing presentations for the superintendent and school board. We then received feedback and were given the opportunity to reflect upon our work.
The first practice field assignment of the semester was a conducting a phone call with a parent (role-played by a course instructor) who was unhappy with his child’s teacher. This was an opportunity to get to know our instructor better and to develop our skills in dealing with people. We also were asked to develop an alternative plan for administering the writing SOL tests because of the unusually high number of inclement weather days across the state. We wrote these plans as letters to the Department of Education. Our largest leadership practice field activities required us to create a master schedule for a fictional school. Scheduling is a year long process that doesn’t receive much attention in principal preparation programs. Since we all had a middle school background, we developed a schedule for a middle school. We were not given any boundaries with this project, which enabled us to create a schedule without the typical constraints in a school. At first, we thought it would be more beneficial to be given a school, with the students, teachers, and classes intact and we would just plug the information in. As we worked, we realized that creating all of our information allowed us to research educational philosophies, to develop our school and schedule based on our priorities. We can then transfer this knowledge into our own schools one day.
“First comes thought; then ORGANIZATION of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” - Napoleon HillThe fictitious Blue Ridge Middle School is located in the mountains of Virginia. There are 646 students in the school; 211 6th graders, 224 7th graders, and 211 8th graders. There is little ethnic diversity within the school. Most of the students come from rural homes. To put diversity into perspective, there are only two ESL students in the entire school.
The school has 2 administrators, 32 academic teachers and 13 special education teachers. There are also ample support staff; 1 librarian, 2 counselors, 3 clerical staff, 1 shared resource officer, 4 custodians, 1 shared school nurse and 1 social worker. The diversity of the staff members closely resembles the student population. All staff members are Caucasian; there are 13 males and 62 females.
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