The 21st Century Principal

Even some college professors in Educational Leadership Departments view everything people do through the lenses of Business and Utilitarian perspectives. I am reminded of this when I recall an event before I completed my doctorate, where one of my professors asked, "What is your dissertation about?" At that time I did not have a title, but told him that I was doing a historical some kind critique of using value-added measures to determine teacher quality. I was not really sure what I was doing anyway. After all, my doctoral experience was a journey of traveling down false paths and backtracking, not a linear journey from A, the beginning to Z destination. I allowed my reading and thinking to guide me. His immediate reaction? "What the hell are you going to do with that?" Obviously his question was well-intended, but it betrays the business-minded cultural underpinnings of an Ed Leadership program. He had in mind a linear process that ultimately would lead to some kind of fulfillment of personal ambition.

The dissertation experience in his eyes should have been about the utilitarian purpose of promoting career and future business prospects, not genuinely trying to add knowledge to the field, following where curiosity leads, or trying to call attention to an educational practice through critique. I am afraid that such thinking as this professor demonstrated is really indicative of how many educational leadership professors think in administration programs. You earn the degree to further your career. Sure, this is part of the reason. In my case, however, as I read and explored and read some more and explored, the ultimate product of the end my dissertation journey was the only possible outcome.

Several years out from graduation, I can really appreciate the experience, and not entirely for its potential to advance career or ambition. For now, through the doctoral process and through the act of wrestling with a dissertation, I know that I think more deeply and critically. My reading has broadened enormously as evidenced by my own library. But most of all, I exist in a field that is in need of individuals willing to live and do the work, but also be willing to ask difficult questions. I don't denigrate those who pursue higher education degrees entirely through professional ambition. That's as good a reason as any. But I also will always value both the journey and the product I produced at the end of the doctoral process. It's existence changed me forever.

In 2013, I embarked on a journey. I began working on my EdD degree in educational leadership. There are many reasons why one would take on such a monumental task. Some do so for career advancement, and others do so for career changes. My reasons for doing so have been a bit more complex, often including many of these, but they have actually changed over time. Personally, I have treasured the intellectual challenge it has brought me. Many would perhaps argue that doctoral degrees should have an immediate practical application, but I would disagree; it should disturb us profoundly. I would argue that my experience of doctoral education has forced me to re-examine everything I believed to be true about myself as an educator and human being. It has in many ways placed everything I held to be true about the educational field in question. To me that is the practical application of my doctoral education.I now savor more than ever the intellectual side of our enterprise as public educators. I enjoy questioning myself and the entire discipline of education, and I have had some of my beliefs about education reinforced. I’ve had many of my beliefs placed in doubt, and I have formulated some new beliefs based on all that I’ve learned and read. But even these new beliefs are subject to change as experience, reading, and thought changes. That’s where my disturbance lies: everything for me is tentative.
Ultimately, doctoral education has changed my work. Principals can get into “automatic-pilot-mode” where they simply make decisions and deal with issues, hardly ever taking time to examine deeper issues and problems. Obviously, when crisis decisions arise, there’s little time to analyze and engage in deeper thinking, but those everyday decisions we make, such as how to address a disciplinary issue, or how to make suggested improvements to a colleague, do allow for time to think and analyze rather than following a script. That’s the practical application of much of my reading, writing and intellectual thought fostered by my doctoral work. I practically every day find myself looking to the deeper side of what I do and that makes for some amazing reflection.
Doctoral work is rewarding. It becomes particularly rewarding if it disturbs your own beliefs and thoughts about education and life, as mine has done. I became an English teacher years ago because I treasured the engagement of my own intellect with reading and writing. Literature that is worth its weight does that: it engages the intellect and leaves you disturbed. Just reading and writing inside your comfort zone hardly leads to intellectual growth. I that is one big practical application of my doctoral program studies. I am disturbed (not mentally mind you, though some would perhaps disagree) and will probably remain so for the rest of my life. The disturbance I feel is simply the realization that perhaps I did not have all this figured out after all, nor will I ever. Those who realize this, I contend, are perhaps better educators. There are far too many education reformers, educators, policymakers, politicians, corporate leaders who think they have figured it out. They haven’t.
Knowledge is liberating in many ways, and it can liberate you as well from thinking you know for sure how to teach, or how to lead, which means you’re more free and open to creativity and innovation. Pursuit of education is perhaps liberation in more ways than we think.