Happy T(of)urkey Day!

First of all, I'd like to say I hope everyone had a fun, turkey or tofurkey filled day. I am so grateful to have been able to spend the day with my family and to have a bit of time this week and weekend to get caught up on all the school work left to finish up the semester.

This post will be written in the theme of Thanksgiving about Chapter 21, the chapter on gender and race in education leadership.

First of all, I'm thankful that in this chapter I was finally able to see how a literature review leads to a research question and how that question develops from the leadership review. I have had the hardest time seeing this concept this semester, so it was nice to have it finally come together.

Secondly, I'm thankful for the fact that I could recognize some potential gaps in this research. Much of the data presented was now out-of-date, so clearly this topic is one that could do with some updating and a look at where we are now on this topic. This moment is one I'm thankful for because it makes me feel like what I'm learning in Dr. Lindle's class combined with Dr. Knoeppel's is finally starting to come together.

Finally, I suppose that this article made me thankful to be reading and discussing this type of topic; finding a way to make the world a better place for all people is something that I hold as one of my highest values. Banks and her research is just one more piece that contributes to this.

Directive?

One of those moments happened this week; those moments where it seems like things that are completely unrelated come together, match up, and wallop you on the head.

For me, this moment occurred during my English 100 course (getting ready for English 101 class). We were watching Wall-E, the Pixar film from 2008, as an example of how causes can result in quite unintended consequences. As we watched the movie, it occurred to me that the film could very well be a film that I used to spur a discussion of diversity as well.

What we see, quite clearly, in the film is that diversity is more than about race, gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, and all the other demographic categories; diversity can also be about "directives," the name given in the film to describe the role and mission of each of the robots. For example, Wall-E's directive is to compact trash and make giant trash monuments, in hopes that eventually the trash can be removed; Eve's directive is to seek and find life on Earth. These robots all come together in the end, with the humans, and find a common goal, saving Earth, with everyone working together, utilizing each others' directives, to achieve a common goal or vision, if you will.

How does this, different directives working together, come together in education? I started thinking back to the first chapter in the book, the Peter Senge chapter. In this chapter, he emphasized that we must "[destroy] the illusion that the world is created of separate, unrelated forces" so that we can create "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together" (p. 3).

Isn't that what education is really about? All us collaborating, working together, relying on our own directives to help others achieve their directives?

I hope so.

More in Common Than We Think

The quote on my Starbucks cup today reminded me of the Thomas and Ely chapter in our book. It said, "I wish we could all realize we have more in common than we think." To me, this quote sums up much of what we need to think about when considering issues related to diversity, especially when we think about diversity and how it relates to accomplishing goals.


First, Thomas and Ely (2007) emphasize that diversity is not about simply having members of different races or ethnicities working together, as some assume. They point out that leaders who utilize a diverse workforce effectively share a commonality:


[These] leaders realize that increasing demongraphic variation does not in itself increase organizational effectiveness. They realize that it is how a company defines diversity--and what it does with the experiences of being a diverse organization-- that delivers on the promise. (p. 271)


The authors then offer up three different approaches to defining and "doing" diversity. The first is a discrimination-and-fairness paradigm, that is most common and depends treating all employees exactly the same, thereby eliminating any rewards or punishments for difference.


The second is the access-and-legitimacy paradigm, a relatively new idea, that relies on leveraging differences for the company's (or institution's) benefit, which sounds great but potential isolates or pigeonholes the "different" members of the organization, excluding these members from opportunities others have.


And, the final and newest approach is the one that the authors label the emerging paradigm, or connection diversity to work perspectives. This concept is the synthesis of of the two concepts described above, which can be simplified as assimilation and differentiation, in that it both "promotes equal opportunity for all individuals" and "acknowledges cultural differences among people and recognizes the value in those differences" (Thomas and Ely, 2007, p. 279). The difference in this final paradigm is that the differences are not seen as either hindrances or assets (in the monetary sense), but rather just an essential part of the organization or the team.



This paradigm shift corresponds to me, with the ideas about authentic and transformative leadership since these leaders have a vision that all members of the institution believe in. The vision must be one that creates a common goal and bond for all members of the institution, so that the differences between people become just another part of what is needed to accomplish the goal.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

After this past week's chat session, where I felt like I completely missed much of the conversation, I went back to revisit the Schlechty chapter in our book to consider the ideas about the normative system more carefully.

I thought about norms this past weekend, as I walked through my neighborhood with my dog, checking out the decorated houses, surrounded by trick-or-treaters. The celebration of Halloween is, in some ways, very much a norm, a norm that is part cultural, part aesthetic, part technical, and also part conventional.

What made me think of Schletchy's chapter on my walk was my consideration of the history of Halloween; most of us know that our current celebration bears little resemblance to the reason and ritual of the ancient holiday. Yet, still, the norm of this holiday or celebration still exists in some, though much changed, form.

A contemplation of this holiday really helped me understand more about what Schletchy means by "To tear down the myth structure of schools without replacing it with equally compelling myths is irresponsible" (p. 232). We cannot simply disrupt the norms of society and schools; we must incorporate the existing norms, at least in some form, into the disruption in order for the innovation to actually work.

This analogy did also make me realize the importance of having good myths as replacements of the norm. While I am all for candy, costumes, and fake spiders, one could argue that the translation of the original myth/celebration has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous (like my dog, that I dressed up, as a Bat Dog, get it? Bad dog/ Bat dog? Ha, I kill me).