Final Reflection

Evolution of leadership journey

At the start of the PLI program, I felt confident in my ability to be a leader for social justice. Having started my career with a social justice lens thanks to preparation by the UCLA Teacher Education Program (TEP), I felt that my practices still reflected some of the learnings from 15 years ago. During my time at Berendo Middle, and at John Adams Middle, I felt confident in my capabilities as a social justice leader.

However, PLI forced me to take a hard look at some of my assumptions and practices shaped by 15 years of teaching in schools that primarily run based on a behaviorist theory of learning. Much of my classroom practices still functioned through a behaviorist theory of learning lens, with some notable attempts at breaking with the norms with Project Based Learning (PBL), and changes to move toward grading for equity. I also considered myself a reflective teacher, with an eye for equity, but this program forced me to take a hard look at my own experience and the experiences of my children. Realizing that the tracking and othering I experienced growing up was still occurring for my children was a tough realization. However, it helped impact my practice immediately, as I approached my students the way I would hope other teachers would approach my children. My ideas of how to be a leader for social justice have changed from simply helping students succeed in a system that doesn’t value them to how to change the system so that every child is valued.

Another major area of reflection and change was my ideas of leadership. Prior to coming into the program, I always expected adults to be treated differently than students within a school setting. Before starting the program, I assumed and looked up to principals that were very strict, and set rigid boundaries for what the staff could do. At my first school, there was a principal who mandated teaching strategies to be done school wide, and then focused instructional rounds to check if every teacher was using them consistently. At the time, I admired this principal, for making quick change happen. For the next two years, I did notice an improvement with students using this strategy. However, PLI really helped me analyze this improvement -- viewing it as a behavioral change with short term results that were not sustainable. This realization allowed me to reflect on my conversations and professional collaboration with other colleagues, noticing that my judgement was impeding the progress toward my equity goals. My identity as a leader has shifted to start with dialogue first, recognizing that understanding the why for a single teacher, and community, and building on that dialogue will be much more effective for creating the long term changes our students need.

Leadership Skills and Knowledge

I entered PLI with 14 years of teaching experience within middle schools, and a wide variety of leadership skills and knowledge. I considered myself efficient at getting things done when given a task. During our last class with Dr. Rogers and Georgia Lazo, we were graced with a visit from Dr. Sylvia Rousseau. When talking about the efficiency of schools, she stated: “We have become proficient at being efficient - at the sacrifice of substance.” She further explained that our schools are set up to perpetuate the injustice we see in society, and we as a school system help support this system out of “Habitus” (Bourdieu). While we tend to admire schools and programs that are run efficiently, this is often at the cost of perpetuating the system. From this viewpoint, my efficiency is not something to be always admired, as it helps maintain the status quo. While I am still efficient, I will definitely work on developing the critical eye needed to evaluate an efficient system and see where the system is excluding others.

Other skills have gone from developing to mastery. One of these skills is my ability to write. I am still amazed to look at my master’s thesis and see the 100+ pages that I have written over the year. Through this process, writing went from a beginning level of communicating my thoughts to a tool to clarify my thoughts and promote reflection. My ability to dialogue with others has also developed throughout this year. I previously struggled with my ability to dialogue with others, and share my authentic self. This program has given me the opportunity to practice that in all of my classes, and allowed me to “Speak up, Speak Out, and Speak Truth” at my school site. The program has allowed me to develop the skills and knowledge that I need to challenge inequitable practices at my school.

Changes in Leadership Perspective

My perspective on leadership for equity, social justice and anti-racism started last summer. Dr. Rogers and Dr. Franke’s class was a good refresher on many topics that I felt I had stayed abreast of, but Dr. Cooper’s class was when the deep reflection and questioning of my classroom practices, pedagogy, and leadership really started. The Miner’s Canary forced deep introspection as I wondered if I was part of the system that “raced white” some students at the cost of others who were “raced black”. This system extends much beyond my classroom, as resources and opportunities such as summer classes are typically utilized by students who are “raced white”. I also had the opportunity to think about Cooper and Chickwe’s “Institutional Culture of Care” - which was pivotal in framing my future goals and framework for leadership for equity, social justice and anti-racism work in schools.

Another pivotal class was Dr. Lozano and Dr. Garcia’s class on Improvement Science. This class challenged me to look at the school as a system, and provided the tools and practices needed to implement systems of change. In this class, I worked in an Absenteeism group -- a group of PLI members at different schools, with vastly different roles ranging from elementary to high school, and counselors. At the beginning, it seemed impossible to come up with any real substantial look at a system that would apply to all of our different situations. However, the process map and driver diagram really helped show how important hearing from multiple voices is - as every member of our team added valuable insight that helped us understand the process and the system breakdown around absenteeism in our schools.

While many other classes provided the tools and language needed to build on these two classes, the two classes really challenged me to look at the norm of hierarchical leadership that exists in our schools. While I previously considered myself a leader for equity in our schools, I never truly considered how the leadership system itself impedes this process. Thanks to support from Professor Isken’s class and others, the program has allowed me to flush out ways to accept the hierarchical role of principal as well as work to develop a sociocultural theory of learning within staff and administration.

Successes and Challenges

Many of the challenges came from outside factors that occurred during my PLI leadership journey. Soon after my admittance to the program, schools shut down during the COVID pandemic, and stayed close for longer than a year. All of a sudden, I was thrust into the difficult work of finding how to “teach” - creating community, and allowing students to explore and learn while also learning new strategies on how to engage students via Zoom, and strive to create equitable classrooms while students learned from home. Most of the work was time consuming, as strategies that worked to build relationships and engage students while in person did not transfer. This work was also complicated with supporting my own 2 children with distance learning, while simultaneously entertaining my 4 year old. My students frequently got used to watching my son jump on me during Zoom class. To cope, my family moved around to different residences that afforded more space and areas for my children to play while also social distancing. On top of this was the challenge of returning to school after 15 years. Despite my successes of being the first in my family to graduate college, I struggle with writing, and it takes me a while. With the support of Jo Ann Isken, the other PLI faculty, and my PLI cohort 21 family, I navigated through these difficulties.

The other final challenge was simply to be faced with the sheer number of inequities within our schools today. UCLA PLI clarified how difficult the work is, but also reinvigorated me with the importance of this work. Some of my successes came from my work within the PLI program. I have developed so many skills this year, from analyzing data, to coaching a teacher via Zoom, to improving my speed and ability to write cogent thoughts. Other successes of my leadership journey occurred within the cohort itself. During these difficult times during the pandemic, it was great to be a part of a group of like minded educators, and share successes and difficulties. PLI definitely felt like joining a family, and I look forward to having this family to lean on in the future.

Next Steps

My next steps are unknown. I wanted to obtain an administrative credential to be a social justice leader. This is still my goal. The pandemic however gave my family and I an opportunity to spend time with each other and reassess our family goals. At the moment, we are considering moving out of state. No matter where we land though, I will continue to be a social justice leader, using the learnings and skills that PLI has provided with me to seek out voices of those who are marginalized, look to see who is not participating, and work with others to change those circumstances.

Standards, Skills, and Dispositions

While this program has been a wonderful experience, conducting my leadership project and research during a pandemic did have its disadvantages. I look forward to exploring and participating in instructional rounds and supervision of teachers. While I had the opportunity to coach a teacher, I want to explore how to take these learnings and apply it to supervision to ensure that the process is beneficial for the teacher and students as well as supervisory in nature.

As a teacher for social justice, I also plan on applying my own learnings from this year to my practice. In the past, I frequently judged teachers whose views and practices were different from my own. After my learnings this year, I will continue to try and bring staff members in, and open up dialogue, finding ways to include these staff members, and increase their participation.