Reflection

My identity as a leader for social justice has evolved significantly since joining the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA. Perhaps the largest piece that has shifted my entire perspective on social justice is this idea of power. When I entered into the program, I knew that social justice was at my core as an educator. However, I predominantly centered my perceptions around race and prejudice. This program opened up my eyes to how truly the imbalance of power is what perpetuates racism, and that systems can either perpetuate or mitigate oppression. This program allowed me to reconsider many of the definitions that I held around social justice, such as marginalization and inclusivity. For example, when I entered the program, I thought marginalization was merely a group of folks that were not given resources, however I have now come to understand that marginalization is a process that is an acute and persistent disadvantage that is rooted in underlying social inequalities. I learned how many aspects of social justice are tied to greater systemic barriers, and that there are multiple ways to combat such oppression and marginalization. To do so would require “magical realism”, a concept that allows us to dream as social justice leaders and reimagine what is possible. Now, as a social justice leader, my identity is grounded in this principle and it guides the work that I do and will continue to do in the future.

My leadership skills and knowledge have evolved tremendously since entering PLI. Although I knew coming into the program the importance of relationships, I did not realize the power of having strong, authentic relationships based specifically on care. Having these relationships is the basis for any and all things for a social justice leader, and is the prerequisite for change. This type of relationship humanizes all parties involved, and shifts the dynamic from transactional to relational trust. Part of this required me to employ “quiet advocacy” in which I would check in individually with staff members and ask about their personal life and things that they cared about. Another aspect of building these authentic relationships was by scaling this from a 1:1 setting to a larger group. For example, in professional development sessions, we created norms that set the standard for how we operated as a collective and allowed us to garner consensus. Another concept that I have learned over my journey through PLI was sociocultural learning theory. I was familiar with the idea of building off of people’s experiences, however learning more about different types of theories gave me a new perspective on how I view learning for students and adults. Whereas I knew bringing folks’ background knowledge was important, sociocultural theory helped me to rethink learning and gave me perspective on how the process alone can be learning and how it can be transformative. Lastly, upon entering the program, I prided myself on the ability to collect and analyze data. This program allowed for me to see different types of data and how this can be used to address equity gaps in education. Qualitative data is just as valid as quantitative data and by having data as part of a regular practice, I am better able to facilitate discussions that identify equity gaps. This allows me to ask the hard questions - Who is this school benefitting and why? What are we going to do about it?

My leadership journey through PLI was incredibly unpexected, filled with a wide range of emotions from despair to pure joy. When I entered the program, my goal was to be able to move into an assistant principal position at the end of the school year. When my principal transitioned out, I was “thrown in” to do the work, and being in this role, particularly so abruptly, was my greatest challenge and my greatest success. Perhaps my biggest success was being offered the opportunity to lead and serve the community. This in itself was an extreme honor, and I felt that I had achieved a goal that I set for myself years down the road. Being put in this position, I was also offered an extremely unique opportunity because I was able to immediately implement everything that I was learning in “real-time” and able to try on different practices from the program with my school. Interestingly , this was my biggest challenge because I realized very quickly that I cannot do everything at once, and to create sustained change takes time. By implementing new practices and systems mid-way through the school year, I rattled some of the current structures and subsequent predictability for staff members. I also realized the systemic and mindset barriers that can prevent social justice work from happening. For example, I learned about how enrollment drives our budget, and because we have low enrollment, the grand and unconventional ideas that I had dreamt about came to a grinding halt. In addition, our staff is burnt out from the school year, and I found it extremely challenging to get buy-in when the community is exhausted (and rightfully so), including myself. This serves, however, as a much needed reminder when planning for next year how we can create opportunities for rest, self-care and self-preservation so that we are all able to be social justice advocates.

In my leadership journey, my biggest next step is to remain true to my beliefs and my values as a social justice leader. I find myself getting caught up in the day-to-day operations of running a school, and reverting back to some elements of white supremacist culture, such as urgency, individualism and perfectionism. I also “catch” myself being indoctrinated with some of the behaviorist principles that are ingrained in the foundation of the charter organization for which I work. Consequently, my biggest next step is to find ways to consistently and routinely revisit my core values as a leader, and self-assess how and when I am living up to those values. I also hope to be in frequent communication with leaders and educators that share similar values to help ground me and to help keep me in check. Another next step of mine is to listen more. I cannot do this work alone, and to bring folks along with my social justice vision, I must listen to folks who have been marginalized in the community, listen to the teachers, listen to the families and most importantly, listen to the students. I hope to create systems that allow for listening to occur including listening triads, empathy interviews and having folks listen to each other’s stories of self.

There are several leadership standards, skills and dispositions that I would like more experience with however a couple come to top of mind for me. The first skill is how to handle the balance between compliance and equity leadership. There are many aspects of a principal role that require behaviorist approach practices, and something I am learning how to navigate is determining when it is appropriate to push back and when it is not. There is an element that I am grappling with in terms of how to dismantle hegemonic structures that were the foundations to our educational system from within the educational system itself. Along these same lines, I find myself in my current role running into many tactical and mindset barriers that I am unsure of how to approach from a democratic and equitable standpoint. Something that I particularly appreciated from Dr. Roger and Dr. Lazo’s class was being able to hear from Dr. Lazo real-life experiences of how to address certain situations from a social justice leader standpoint. Many situations in education are extremely nuanced, dynamic and complex so I know that through experience, I will continue to grow, but providing more of those opportunities to listen to principal anecdotes would make me feel more prepared.