Reflective paper on democracy in society

Leadership Reflection by Sunny Dawn

March 9, 2013

Instructional Leadership Spring Course

Mills College

“What do you want me to do with these assessments?” Erica asked me.

“When are they due?” I replied. She answered, “Not for 3 weeks.”

I held back my real emotions about those inappropriate assessments for my special education students and just said, “Put them in my box I’ll process that later.”

Those assessments stayed right there in my box because I knew I was going to check in with a lot of people about my feelings and professional opinion in regards to giving them. I guessed they stayed there for about a week as all the ethical questions brewed in my head like: those kids aren’t going to know a thing in those exams - we’ve been doing 3^rd grade math skills and really mastering that, will these tests damage them psychologically? What is the district directive on that? What about getting me something in writing saying I have to give it to them? What has been done to these children in the past with district assessment? What is the point? What does my Para who actually works with these kids (every day all day) think? What does their original Special Education teacher who had them for over three years think? And many, many more questions…..

I would like to tell you the happy ending to this story is that everyone supported me in my confusion and advocating of kids with special needs. Or that the principal agreed that I had an ethical dilemma on my hands or that the mainstream teacher whom I work with supported me in not wanting to give to the inappropriate exam to them. I would love to report that I decided not to give the district the mandated benchmark assessment that had very little to do with my student’s IEP, but the truth is I will be giving the test to these kids tomorrow after about an hour of material they should have mastered in two years.

However in the middle of this story is the “secret” back story. I went over to my friends house, who also happens to be the Special Education teacher on maternity leave, on a Friday night. We talked about this dilemma as well as other special education issues. Over a few glasses of wine we were both angered by the injustice behind “it” all. I told her though my real fight with getting assistive technology for one of the students and that I know we could “slip it into an addendum”. She completely agreed and by the end of the night I walked out of her place with a decision about the stupid test and an amended IEP, that one of our students who has a drug addicted mother, will benefit from for the rest of his educational tenure.

I use this long story to show the type of leadership I bring to the table. The table that has people used to doing things that “we” know are damaging to children, but we do them anyway. I share this story to show I know what the long and awkward process real conversations take. I also know that those conversations are sometimes just conversations with people who don’t support you or believe in what you believe in. However those same conversations with the right person can move mountains even if I have to move mountains by any legal means necessary.

In the past 2 assignments for this leadership class I’ve had to really examine what I bring to leadership and my personal philosophy. It has become very evident that all my know how around getting things done rests on “my professional thugishness”. At this point in my career, I get a lot done, if I want to. People rally behind me if they know I am passionately willing to take a mission on because they trust them. I bring a certain value to any project that I am willing to fight for or fight against. I use the word “fight” because I am a fighter. I bring this sense of passion and urgency to my educational career because of the many personal stories I have about my own education and the families I have worked with over they many years. I have seen how public education needs to be challenged in order for those without a voice to be involved in the process of learning.

I wish I could feel this page with words of critical pedagogy, but the honest truth is I am a worker bee. I am a doer. I get things done. I will go to battle for you if you need me to be in your corner. Knowing that those battles are a calling to our higher greatness as a democratic society. That those battles people are trusting me with are so sensitive and personal that they are mine to take on and I do so knowing that if it is meant to be in the name of equality and democracy then I have all the information I will ever need.

I have also learned from our abstractly looking at my leadership with various art projects we have done is that although I am in education a greater calling to society is what motivates me. Am an Educational Leader now, but my leadership will not stop with public or private education.