Abstract
The BELMAS DRIG has had a very busy year 2018–2019
The year kicked off with an exciting event in Chicago reaching out to Black Superintendents in the South Side of Chicago very close to the new Obama Centre where the former First Lady Professor Michelle Obama grew up and was educated. The event was called ‘Empowering Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER) Call to an Interactive Leadership Seminar to: Review Strategies to Improve Education in Diverse Communities and Review a Deweyan Framework to improve Democracy in Education’. The event was held in The Global Kitchen, Mexico Room, Western Avenue, Chicago, in April of 2018 and coincided with the AERA 2018 conference in New York. The keynote speakers were Dr Carole Collins Ayanlaja, a former superintendent of a large district and now a professor at North Eastern University, Illinois, and Dr Alison Taysum, University of Leicester, United Kingdom. The event started by explaining the values of British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS). We explained that BELMAS was established to maintain, promote and extend public education by advancing the practice, teaching, study of and research into educational leadership, management and administration.
We explained the BELMAS DRIG research into educational governance systems had identified that aspiring and seasoned professional superintendents, principals and middle leaders in education need wise mentors like them to improve education for all. In this spirit, we sought their input as expert senior-level leaders to advise us on the potential effectiveness of two strategies to emerge from the international cross-cultural research into educational governance systems with the United States, England, Arab-Israel, the West Indies and Northern Ireland:
Strategy 1
Superintendents and principals improve education in diverse communities with staff, parents and students by putting postgraduate research, massive online open access courses and BELMAS networks to use in order to describe and understand how policy has the back of professional educational leaders fighting institutionalised racism and working to raise up marginalised children from poverty.
Strategy 2
Taysum synthesised Deweyan Blueprint of Moral Training for Democracy in Education to offer superintendents and principals the thinking tools they need to reach out and engage with diverse communities and give them access to the thinking tools they need for middle-class benefits.
The feedback we received was that many high-quality initiatives have been implemented, but senior credentialed leaders are prevented from mobilising their outstanding track records of school improvement by school boards and policy. This echoed the international cross-cultural research and informed our next BELMAS DRIG agenda focusing on different epistemologies of educational leadership, management and administration and epistemologies of educational leadership and management and administration development to try to understand what kinds of policies are required to empower these highly effective senior-level credentialed leaders.
The next BELMAS DRIG event was knowledge to action, empowering diverse communities with a consideration of the intent, implementation and impact of education policy. The event took place in November 2018 with Chair and Discussant Mr Shailen Popat (Oxford University Doctoral Student) and keynote speakers Mrs Rubina Darr (Chief Executive Officer/Executive Headteacher of Cromwell Learning Community Academy Trust) and Madam Shamin Durrani (expert advisor to BELMAS DRIG and former recipient of Business Person of the Year). Mrs Darr explained what worked in the empowerment of communities and focused on the moral compass of her Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) and how this was connected with an ethical framework that she had brought to education through her own values system and that had been encouraged through professional standards and mentoring. However, policy had not always supported her focus on inclusion in schools that shared different world views and that policy could help better support this. Madam Durrani focused on the importance of policy in supporting the development of character in schools, including resilience and doing the right thing. The exciting key notes informed the agenda of the following event, which was helping the BELMAS DRIG understand epistemologies of leaders from diverse communities.
The next BELMAS DRIG event on 14 July 2019 focused on reflective practical workshops to generate multicultural understandings of intersectionalities of discrimination to build capacity for professional educators, leaders and administrators to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 in different contexts. SDG 4 is ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (United Nations, 2019: 1). The event was held on Friday, 5 July 2019 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the School of Education, University of Leicester. The keynotes were delivered by Dr Rosangela Malachias of Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – Faculdade de Educação da Baixada Fluminense/Rio de Janeiro State University – School of Education from Baixada Fluminense. Her workshop focused on African Brazilian epistemology for training principals and teachers from public schools in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Dr Taysum then explored the key issues that emerged by considering ‘Epistemologies of Professional Educators and Administrators’ Committees for Empowerment’ (PEACE) applying A Blueprint for Character Development in Evolution (ABCDE).
Connections were made during the workshops that epistemologies of leadership development are crucial for policymakers to consider when writing policy to achieve the SDG 4.4, which is to substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship, by 2030 (United Nations, 2019: 1). We talked about how ABCDE provides the thinking tools to achieve all other targets for the other 16 SDGs taking a grass-roots-up approach supported by policy, and that this is the focus of Dr Taysum’s forthcoming monograph to be published by Emerald, entitled ‘Education Policy as a Roadmap for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals'.
The events of the BELMAS DRIG this year inform an exciting agenda for the forthcoming year looking particularly at the role of policymakers in empowering professional teachers and how PEACE can be mobilised to engage teachers with policymakers. The year starts with a meeting on 9 October at the Houses of Parliament: ‘Women researchers and the UK Parliament: Increasing women researchers' impact and engagement at the UK Parliament'.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.