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You
are here: Leading with Hope and Trust
It's not easy being a public school superintendent these days. This was the conclusion of the report entitled, "An Impossible Job? The View From The Urban Superintendent's Chair," released this summer by the Center On Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. The report states that nine out of ten urban school superintendents need stronger authority to change curriculum, make personnel changes, and reconfigure under-performing schools.
While the issues around authority are significant for superintendents to be effective in this age of accountability, I am concerned that greater leadership authority will not, by itself, address the problems impacting schools. There are, of course, many leadership issues which influence the effectiveness of superintendents and their impact on school systems. However, if educational leadership is the ability to produce change for teaching and learning, then there is a need to create a strong sense of community in each school and in each school system. Schools and school districts are complex systems requiring a collaborative approach to leadership by superintendents.
In describing the impact of future trends on schools, Gary Marks (2000) describes leaders that connect people. He writes, "Consistent with a pronounced trend in the direction of continuous improvement and collaboration, leadership is being redefined as connecting the people and organizations that can work together to get the job done. Effective leaders draw on the knowledge, experience and talents of a vast array of people inside and outside the organization to address an issue, to accomplish a task, or to improve the system." (p. 46)
Superintendents need a new language of leadership that explores the powerful role to build community both within and for schools. A language of leadership is needed to call together those that can act on the issues that face children, so that those issues can be better addressed and so that schools can do better at teaching and learning. We need a language that provides a depth of capacity to know that leadership is not about pointing out what is wrong and how to fix it, but rather the ability to engage others in what is possible, and with an authentic voice, ask who will care. I believe we need a language of leadership that inspires hope and trust.
Documenting their travels around the world, Francis Lappé' and her daughter, Anna, have written a sequel to their best selling book, written thirty years ago, called Diet for a Small Planet. The recently-published book is called Hope's Edge (2002). In Hope's Edge, the Lappé's visit nine countries, on five continents, to research the impact of globalization, of both environmental and social change, and food, and our ability to feed the entire planet's population. So what is hope's edge? Let me quote the Lappés.
"By hope's edge, we mean many things.
Yes, with global warming melting the polar ice caps, with the obliteration
of thousands of species each year, with the loss of almost one-third of our agricultural land over a single generation, our planet is nearing the point at which hope, honest hope, will no longer be possible. Yes, every day, we are pushing our little planet closer to hope's very edge.
But something else has been happening over these thirty years, too. The people we met on our journey are living this story. They are pushing forward the edge of hope with what they prove is possible. They are creating new space in which each of us can find hope.
We must warn you, though: this kind of hope isn't clean or tidy. Honest hope has an edge. It's messy. It requires that we let go of all pat answers, all pre-conceived formulas, and all confidence that our sailing will be smooth. It's not a resting point. Honest hope is movement." (p. 11)The language of leadership suggested here and the work of superintendents in building community support for schools are grounded in hope and the aspirations for a better tomorrow. With student success, as both the starting point and the bottom line for the work of superintendents, we have been jarred out of the ordinary ways that schools work, and we have been open to new, uplifting and empowering possibilities for school renewal. As superintendents, we can do this by acquiring and providing resources, being visible, engaging others in conversations about instruction and school improvement, and empowering collaborative risk-taking.
Along with hope, I believe trust is essential in leadership for building community support, but what can we do about building trust in an age of growing distrust? To build trust, we need to know what generates it. Trust implies caring, involvement, teamwork, effective communication, participation, and a whole host of other traits that define community. To build a pattern of trust in our institutions and agencies, we need to show again how our work can improve people's lives.
Schools and our partners - like local, state, and non-profit agencies - exist to solve problems that individuals or communities cannot solve on their own, or can't solve in ways that seem equitable and fair to all. Trust is necessary so that people will be able to enter into the kinds of long-term relationships necessary for political and social interaction in a democracy. Trust is a necessary condition for our work as leaders so that people can talk to each other, advance ideas, provide evidence, and weigh and consider without resorting to physical or verbal violence. Trust is a condition necessary for our democracy to survive.
In her new book, In Schools We Trust (2002), educator Deborah Meier states "Never has it been more important that we learn how to relate to people we don't automatically trust, who aren't kin or otherwise are obvious allies, but strangers we must deal with "as if" we trusted each other, as if being human itself was grounds for respect. Because while probably all human civilizations require some mutuality, democracy lives off of that "as if" the quality of trust is central to democracy."
As leaders, we know that partnerships and collaborations do not just happen, they are built. They are steeped in the political will and wherewithal to get things done, and at the heart is respect and trust. It is an upward spiral. Genuine participation fosters respect; respect fosters trust, and trust must be earned by actions and re-earned.
The Lappés say that hope is more verb than noun. We find hope by taking action. We become hopeful by working for change. When you are enthusiastic and hopeful, your perception of the number of available opportunities is much greater, as is your ability to pursue them. I believe that school and school district leaders represent hope's edge for community building and collaborations to make a big impact on the lives of children. What that means to me is that all of us need to take a bold stance on behalf of youth to make a ferocious commitment to the power of collaborations and partnerships.
Elizabeth Sawen, (2003) of the Sustainability Institute in Vermont, expressed an awakening I sense in myself and in many people I talk with involved with community leadership. She says: "There are people who will beat at flames or claw at rocks with their bare hands to save one child. We tend to call these people heroes, but that capacity is in all of us. There are also people who insist that no child is safe until all children are safe. We tend to call such people dreamers or saints, but we also have the capacity to see their point for ourselves. I don't think heroes are enough today and neither are dreamers." (p. 10)
I believe that today, superintendents must use their considerable strengths and talents as leaders, heroes and dreamers to connect schools and community and to build a more enduring future for our youth. The hallmark of youth is optimism and high idealism. The young are constantly challenged to open the door to new eras. The hallmark of our work as leaders is to raise hope and build trust for community.
The opportunity to shape the lives of children calls us to hope's edge. As leaders who can make a difference for schools. Superintendents must represent honest hope and movement to influence the course of public education in ways that cannot be imagined right now. Does anyone want to help?
References
Lappé, Frances Moore and Lappé Anna, Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002.
Marks, Gary, Ten Trends: Educating Children for a Profoundly Different Future. Arlington, Virginia: Educational Research Service, 2000.
Meier, Deborah, In Schools We Trust. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.
Sawen, Elizabeth in "Fear Comes Out of Hibernation," Utne Reader, January-February, 2003.
Michael Silver, Ph.D. graduated from Central High School in Omaha, Nebraska in 1966. He went on to complete bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. Silver was a teacher and served in school and district office administrative positions in the Parkway School District in St. Louis from 1972 to 1986.
Silver was formerly Superintendent of Schools for the Tukwila School District in King County, Washington, but now is Director and Assistant Professor of the College of Education- Educational Administration at Seattle University. His honors include the Arts Education Tribute Award, by the Washington Art Education Association (2001); Superintendent of the Year Award by the Washington Library Media Association (2000); recipient of an Excellence in Educational Leadership Award by the University Council for Educational Administration (1998), an A+ Award recipient by the Washington Council for Economic Education (1992); and selection to the Executive Educator 100 by Executive Educator magazine (1985).
You may contact him at Loyola Hall 415, Seattle University or via email : silverm@seattleu.edu
© August 2003 New Horizons for Learning
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