Abstract
Personal and professional histories can provide insights into educational leadership and administrative practice. Drawing on a life and professional historical narrative of a Black, female principal, this case explores the intersection of race, spirituality, and social justice based on excerpts from a life narrative of a Black, female principal. This case provides opportunities to explore spiritual and religious aspects of educational leadership practice, and also explores issues of church and state while asking the reader to consider their epistemological assumptions relative to sociocultural dynamics of leadership such as race, gender, and social justice.
Conceptual Preface and Background of the Case
This case not only offers opportunities for readers to reflect on their assumptions about educational leadership practice but also explores issues of church and state while asking the reader to consider various epistemologies of leadership, such as race, gender, and social justice (Jean-Marie, Normore, & Brooks Normore, 2010).
Bobbie is a 52-year-old, self-described “warrior.” Bobbie is in her 32nd year in education. Her career is unique in that she was an assistant principal for 3 years, a principal for 2, and at the time of this interview, near the end of her career, she transitioned back into an assistant principal position after suing the district for wrongful termination. Her story recounts portions of her life and work as she narrates events and relies on deep feeling, social justice, and a sense of passion while being deeply critical of marginalizations in the institution of school (Howard-Pitney, 1993). Her principalship coincided with a resegregation process into neighborhood schools after 30 years of working under a desegregation order. Bobbie was placed in a middle school that once housed all middle school students across the district, but with resegregation had become a neighborhood middle school located on the “Black” side of town. The school was 100% African American and more than 60% of the students were on free and reduced lunch. The school was also considered “failing” due to low achievement scores in every subject. Bobbie frequently spoke of her actions to achieve what she considers “right” outcomes for her students and her community and that this is what “got her in trouble.” This school and the community had become by her own expression her new battlefield in her “journey for justice.” The following narrative was developed from interviews with Bobbie. Her story is presented here in two related storylines: (a) her family, church, and community as initiations and cornerstones for her faith (getting churched) and (b) her school experiences as an educational teacher and leader (being schooled).
Bobbie: Getting Churched
My soul became filled with a holy indignation. I complained.
Needless to say, my family was a big influence on my faith in God. Even from an early age, believing in God was just something I knew I had to do. I joined the church when I was 9 years old but I believed even before then, it was just—you know how those old traditions are—that you have to confess and they have you out there seeking God for a week or two, praying. I had to go through the ritual. Daddy was very spiritual. My grandmother also lived with us at the time. She had a lot of influence on me. Even when you are young, you are taught what is right and what is wrong. My mother was real strong-willed and she would stand up for anything. They all taught me to stand up for what’s right. Nobody could run over her. I take after my mom in that regard. She was and is that kind of person. Whoever I took after, I am who I am.
Paths and Callings
Needless to say, I grew up in church. My dad was a deacon and mom taught Sunday school and sang in the choir. After I left home and got married, we started going to another church. I learned new things and I wasn’t simply relying on the same faith as my elders. I began to focus on what my faith meant to me and how it should look. I was still a teacher then, but I think that this new experience in church was prophetic in a sense because I think it was the foundation of what I would become as a teacher and later as a school leader. Growing up, it seemed everybody in our community went to church. That sense of community served me well as a teacher and as a principal. I always believed that I needed to connect with those who I was serving. I tried to become a part of my students’ lives—inside and outside of school—I wanted to be a part of their community, not just their classroom. I ate there. I shopped there. I knew where and how kids lived. I got a beautician in the community where my school was located. I still go to that salon even though I have moved to another school. That school is a part of me, and it always will be. The kids and the parents who came through there, they got to see me on their sidewalks and in their shops, they got to know me, they talk to me without fear and with respect—that got to see I’m just like y’all.
I did not always want to be in education. When I got to college, I still wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do. When I was first hired, the district was not fully integrated like most other towns were. There were a total of five Black people in that school when I went there—five. Well, this is not counting custodians and cafeteria folks because they were Black, too. Even then, I knew that I was gonna go further than that. Shoot, even when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, I was already looking towards the future! I had already enrolled into the master’s program before graduation. I got my master’s degree, and after I had taught 7 years, I knew I needed to do something different and I wanted to go into supervision. I ended up getting a certification in supervision and administration. Eventually I went on to get my education specialist degree and my doctorate in education.
Bobbie: Being Schooled
It’s funny, but when I was a regular classroom teacher, I did not feel as much a need for my spirituality as I do as a principal. This total reliance on God did not come until later. I think I got more into a spiritual mode because I really began to feel a lot of pressure while pursuing my principalship. I then had the pressure of returning to the school district after having had this opportunity and that did not sit well with some people. In either setting—both at the university and back at school—being a Black woman didn’t help either. I began to rely heavily on God to help me overcome the racism, bigotry, and ignorance I found in both places. I found myself constantly in prayer about what was going on. My principalship certainly kicked up the spirituality thing a notch.
Spiritual Fruit and Doing Justly
Oh how did I make sure my God was pleased? Well, I think that I had to make sure that my principalship bore fruit—that it honored all my experiences. I believe since these are all the parts that make me as a person, they are also at the heart of who I am as a principal. My first principalship was very hard. I have so many stories and many that would take a long time to tell. The superintendent sent me to a school that had all African American students and 90% of the students on free and reduced lunch. It was a Title 1 school. The school also was the lowest performing middle school in the district. The school had also been designated as underperforming by the state for its failure to reach adequate yearly progress for 4 years. When I got there, I was the third principal in 4 years. The superintendent sent me there without me even applying for it, so I thought this was where God wanted me to be. Well . . . not at first. Even in spite of so many things that happened while I was there, I did believe I had a mission and that I was on a mission. I had a lot of compassion for that school, the community, and for the children. They all needed someone who was compassionate and who cared about them. That’s the simple principle of the thing. I couldn’t help what school I was placed in. I could only decide what I would do while I was there.
I grew up in the Civil Rights Movement. It was a crazy time, but I am really thankful that I grew up then. It taught me about justice and God’s role in it. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. That’s Micah 6:8. That means that every part of our life should be about justice. And I don’t mean only punishment, the letter of the law or whatever. I mean doing right by folks, and especially by kids—to me that means doing right by my kids, the kids in my school. It was unjust that my school was built in the 1950s and had not had meaningful repairs in many years while students across town in the more affluent areas enjoyed the most modern schoolhouses. The first thing I knew I had to do was improve the physical plant. Those facilities courses I took came in handy! I fought by repeatedly making my position known in school board meetings. I also mobilized the community. I wrote letters, got my teachers to write letters, got parents to write letters. We spoke up in the newspaper, we spoke up in community meetings, and generally made the state of our school an issue. And you better believe I called it like I saw it: racism. The district wasn’t happy with me and it made a lot of people uncomfortable, but so what? My poor Black kids deserved a pleasant place to come to school just like the rich White kids. Eventually school board members were advocating for us. We needed a new school and our kids were no less than anyone else. And you know what? We got our school. The forgotten became empowered.
Now, one thing I didn’t do was just rely on the district. I think being a good steward of what God gives you is to always be searching for ways to do something and provide for student needs, by any means necessary. I saw a lot of poverty in the neighborhood and certainly a lot of my kids suffered terribly. But I worked with the places in the community, such as churches and businesses to get things for my school. When I knew that students and their family had a need, I contacted the various community agencies and people in my network. It is always good to make strong connections with social service agencies and community organizations. Sometimes kids didn’t have coats or food or shoes. Sometimes people or organizations would make donations. Sometimes a group would even sponsor a dance or something cultural like a community dinner. We also held fundraisers. Now just because you gather funds, you’re not done. You also need to distribute it the right way. I see so much of that in schools and districts. People in charge don’t always do things the right way. Other schools in my district have families with money—lots of money. There are schools that have money just sitting in a general fund that is made up of donations from parents in their community who can afford it. If another school like mine needs books or computers, why not give the money to my school that doesn’t have families who pump extra money in the school? Other schools had computer labs that the school itself had funded, but I couldn’t always put toilet paper in the bathrooms. Why would you give that other school computers when they already had new ones? I told the central office that my kids needed computer labs more and I don’t think they were used to hearing that kind of criticism. After the fuss I raised to build the new school they knew they had to take me seriously. Advocating for your school, for your kids, means you always have to be thinking about equity throughout the system, not just in your building.
Initially I resisted getting all up in arms about student achievement. I thought this school was just too bombarded with district and state folks in and out of the school all the time with the latest and greatest “solution.” I felt like what we really needed to do was take care of the basic social needs before emphasizing testing. The longer I was there, my view changed. The academic part became important to me. I didn’t care about test scores the same way other principals probably did—they weren’t my sole purpose for being there. But I have come to think that (a) the students also needed to know that they could have success academically and (b) poor test scores would be a barrier to their life in, and beyond, school. They needed the social and the academic to give them a shot in life. I remember during the Civil Rights Movement that education was also considered a part of justice as a right given by God. I made sure students got the right interventions if they needed it, and I suppose I rode teachers hard to make sure they were actually teaching. I always did walk-throughs in classrooms. I also checked all grades and I signed every single report card with a personal note.
The older I get, I recognize how more deeply involved I am in my spirituality. I am at a different level. Earlier in my life, I just considered it was the right thing to do. My faith has always been a part of my life and not just an isolated part. Through my principalship, I think I learned that my faith has to reach another level so you can take things to another level. I rely on that as my main source of strength and guidance. It really is what keeps me going and keeps me focused. I don’t know how people, especially any principal, survive without it.
I guess no amount of schooling can ever really prepare you for the principalship. I think I got a lot of skills in school, but that wasn’t everything. My faith, though, is what gives me the on-the-job, day-to-day stuff of being a principal.
I could have retired several years ago. I have been in education for 30 years and in administration for 10 years. I could walk out of the school today and get full retirement. But who am I to retire myself? God hasn’t retired me. And I still have work to do.
Teaching Notes
This case illustrates several points instructors can use in educational leadership preparation programs. We have organized some of the salient points into several activities.
Activity 1: Educational auto/biography. This case suggests the importance of students reflecting on and ultimately being critical of their assumptions about their core values and the way these values shape the practice of leadership. Students can certainly write their autobiographies, but we also suggest the possibility of students writing and sharing them as a dialogic activity (Brooks & Tooms, 2008). The kind of reflection and critique has a great deal of potential to help students understand not only their own epistemological stance but also ways in which they might communicate and coconstruct a new paradigm collaboratively. These auto/biographies can be presented as oral histories, but instructors should also consider making these histories visual by asking students to present them in a poster session. In addition, it may be insightful to have students consider how, where, and when their histories overlap and where they do not. Likewise, as students view each other’s posters, it will be helpful for them to identify critical incidents that influenced their thinking about leadership, religion, spirituality, and social justice issues.
Activity 2: Discussion about church and state. The case also brings up tensions in the relationship between church and state. Is there a place for religion and spirituality in schools? What ethical boundaries and current case law frame this relationship?
Activity 3: Defining social justice. Students will infer and discuss how the principal in the text defines/enacts social justice. As students are asked to reflect on and share their beliefs about social justice, it becomes clear that no person’s definition is universal. As such, this case can be used to prompt a conversation about the compatibility or lack thereof between researchers and practitioners who claim to practice leadership for social justice. Social justice can be difficult to define and is often viewed in the abstract rather than practice. Using your note cards, create a class chart similar to the one below on social justice in theory and social justice in practice.
What are some of the various modes and understandings of social justice? Is it possible to develop a typology of social justice practice? And what is it that makes leadership for social justice in educational settings different or similar than the way it is practiced in other sectors of society?
Activity 4: Conversation about gender and race. What are the intersections of gender and race in this case? How does it impact the principalship? What other forms of intersectionality do principals encounter or live in their practice?
Activity 5: Narratives of leadership. This case represents a departure from traditional narratives regarding leadership. In Bobbie’s case, the themes of spirituality, social justice, and leadership metaphors are prevalent. For instance, Bobbie associates social justice as an import of spirituality and describes her principalship as a “calling.” Students will write their own list of metaphors for their teaching and/or leadership and locate parts of their autobiography that inform that description.
Activity 6. Students will read one of the articles in the supplemental readings that discuss the intersections and negotiations of spirituality and school leadership and their influence on socially just outcomes in school. Students will prepare a critical/evaluative annotated bibliography entry. The instructor will place all electronically submitted annotations in one document and make available to all students.
Activity 7. Further information of life writing. These forms of reflective research were once considered vital sources of information on leadership (Andrews & Grogan, 2002; English, 2006; Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993; Schön, 1983, 1987; Short & Rinehart, 1993). The exclusion and marginalization of these texts have led some to conclude that there is little historical research about the American public school principal, thus leaving very little documentation or understanding about U.S. principals (Rousmaniere, 2008).
The scholarship of educational leadership must constantly explore and embrace new forms of research or risk becoming extraneous to the field (Bogotch, Beachum, Blount, Brooks, & English, 2008; Greenfield, 1995; Warnick, 2004). New forms of research, methods, and texts are being promoted to gain a more holistic understanding of the field and one that seeks to better understand the individuals engaging in educational leadership (Brooks & Tooms, 2009; English, 2006). Among these new forms of research are various applications of narrative inquiry, which give voice to traditionally silenced leadership narratives (Shields, 2005; Shields & Edwards, 2005; Shields, LaRocque, & Oberg, 2002).
“Over the last two decades, a body of empirical and philosophical scholarship has emerged making the case that some significant portion of educator knowledge is narrative in form” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996, p. 15). This knowledge is often best presented by, or in collaboration with, the researcher and researched in narrative form (Cochran-Smith, 1999). Narrative modes of practice and inquiry are important to building what Connelly and Clandinin (1999) called “personal practical knowledge.” In applying these same understandings to leadership, leadership heuristics are actively built in leadership practice and new narrative understandings are warranted. We acknowledge that stories in-and-of-themselves do not dismantle the status quo (Stone-Mediatore, 2003). However, by telling leaders’ own stories, we are able to retrieve the epistemic value of leaders’ lives as cases of possibility and practice that unpack and problematize stories, policies, and belief systems so imbedded in leadership knowledge production.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.