# Assignment Jethro Jones [[EDUC 7630 Notes]] ## Assignment Directions First, please share your reactions to (a) Grace Lee’s visit and (b) Gina Davenport’s visit. Second, after reading the chapter, “How a Servant Leader’s Ethos of Service and Stewardship Can Support Teachers’ Professional Ethos in Twenty-First Century Schools,” respond to the following questions. (If you are not currently working at a school, think back to your most recent school experience.) - How would the staff at your school react to the term “Servant Leadership”? If they are unfamiliar with it, what might you do to cause the staff at your school to have a positive reaction to the term? - Note the conceptual model of moral school stewardship on p. 403. In which of these components is your school the strongest? Which needs the most attention? What could a leader do to make progress in this area? Please DOUBLE-SPACE your response. ## Assignment ## Reactions on Gina Davenport (July 25, 2024) Gina Davenport focused on fostering an inclusive school environment. She discussed inappropriate student comments and the importance of teaching values and Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Davenport emphasized global community citizenship for all students and encouraged asking students what makes them feel "othered" to understand their experiences better. Davenport highlighted the courage needed to have difficult conversations about inclusion and equity. She advocated for building trust by trusting others and criticized strict adherence to the code of conduct due to potential bias. Instead, she promoted using discipline to build relationships rather than break them. I connected with her on LInkedIn and I look forward to having her on my podcast. ## Reactions on Grace Lee (July 23, 2024) Grace Lee stressed the importance of consistent discipline and the need to involve the entire team in creating disciplinary plans. Lee emphasized including students in decision-making, giving them a voice as a catalyst for change. She also critiqued school board members' limited knowledge of education, highlighting the need for their professional development. But this is the ideal situation, because school board members are not supposed to be educational experts. They are the stewards of the public trust and funding that makes up schools. The professional development I believe they need is to make sure they know what their boundaries are and how they hold the schools accountable to the families. ## Reactions to Bier et al 2021 To me stewardship has deep spiritual meaning. In the bible we read that man is given dominion over all the earth. And while some people have taken that to mean we can do whatever we want with it, I have taken that to mean that God has given it to us as a gift. I've struggled for years with the idea of ~~[global cooling](https://archive.is/PCO0H)~~, ~~[global warming](https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/25/concerns-mount-as-met-office-fiddles-with-historic-temperature-record-in-exact-way-planned-in-leaked-climategate-emails/)~~, ~~[climate change](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/02/biden-climate-factories-industrial-sector/622810/)~~, [climate crisis](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/16/europes-energy-crisis-is-making-the-market-nervous-ahead-of-winter.html?__source=iosappshare%7Ccom.apple.UIKit.activity.Mail). It's certainly more a [marketing scheme](https://www.feedstuffs.com/agribusiness-news/arkeabio-raises-26-5m-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions-with-methane-vaccine) than fact. I also am not on board with the idea that there is some radical conspiracy to [destroy the humans](https://m.journal-neo.org/2021/12/15/will-fed-crash-global-financial-markets-for-their-great-reset/) and save the planet. As with most things, we need a more nuanced approach. We need to be good stewards over our planet. What that means is that it is not ours. We are only here to manage it. I was a guest on a podcast with Joshua Spodek where we talked about this idea. I said, "Because of technology I believe that we also need to use the fossil fuels and renewable energy that is available to us and we need to do that in a way that is appropriate and shows stewardship rather than shows...destroying everything so that we can have this for 20 minutes and then leaving a horrible mess in our way" (Spodek, 2018). In the same way, schools we run are not our own. Our chapter 1 is not the school's chapter 1. Nor is it the chapter 1 of any teachers, students, or parents. We must respect that and do the best we can with what we have been given stewardship over. The conceptual model of moral school stewardship that included six interdependent components mentioned in Bier, et al (2021) highlights this belief. I tried to implement these ideals in the schools I led. Allow me to review them below: ### Commitment To A Shared Mission In my schools, I got very focused on what our mission was: Give kids what they need when they need it. If you weren't interested in putting kids' needs before your own, you weren't invited to be a part of the school. We weren't there for ourselves, our role was that of service to our students' success. ### The Development Of A Democratic Learning Community Students, teachers, parents, community members were all invited and expected to engage in the learning process for the benefit of our students. ### Dedication To Whole-School Renewal I had never thought of it this way but when I read this quote I knew that's exactly how I saw it: "The terms *regenerative* and *renewal* are similar in their optimistic and forward marching tone while the term school reform conjures up the terms deficit theory and disruption" (Bier et al., 2021, p. 405). The emphasis on solving our own problems within the school and the emphasis on the school personnel knowing best what the school needs hits the nail on the head for me. I didn't use these words, but I will from now on! ### Engagement In Critical Inquiry One time, we attempted to change the school district dress code to make it more modern and appropriate. Ironically, in 2018-2019, as we were working on this, the biggest push back against hats and hoodies was that we wouldn't be able to see students' faces and heads. Just a short 9 months later, the COVID-19 pandemic made these staunch repudiators do a complete 180 and endorse mask wearing for everyone, all the time. The issue was that they were unwilling to engage in a critical inquiry about WHY they didn't want kids to wear hats and hoodies. They claimed safety, but it was really about control. And this is a big problem in schools. We claim safety, but safety should actually be the price of admission, not our priority. We keep kids safe is a commitment we make. To say it is a priority means we don't really believe it is actually going to happen. ### Participation In Professional Development At every chance I had with my teachers, I gave them choice and voice when it came to professional development. I was clear on our mission and I gave them every opportunity to choose their own professional development. Even when I was in charge of leading professional development, I still gave them as much leeway as I could manage to make sure they were engaging in that which would be most beneficial to helping us achieve our mission. ### The Preparation Of Future Educators While I've been wholly unsuccessful, I've long advocated to employ alternative approaches to getting teachers certified. Anyone who is interested in working with kids should be given a path to become a school administrator. That doesn't mean they will, but if we are really learning organizations, we should start with elementary age students that have an interest in teaching and start moving them in the direction of becoming educators. I say a path to become a school administrator because that is the terminal position in education. One doesn't have to accept or even pursue a job with that role, but they should have a path to obtain the qualifications necessary. Furthermore, kids who graduate high school and want to be teachers should start working in schools as they are going through college in a way to get them embedded in the profession as early as possible. Schools of Education should collaborate with district partners to place college students in k-12 schools to provide support, earn a living, and know that education is the right place for them. References - Bier, M. C., Sherblom, S. A., Berkowitz, M. W., & Sterling, E. (2021). How a Servant Leader’s Ethos of Service and Stewardship Can Support Teachers’ Professional Ethos in Twenty-First Century Schools. In F. Oser, K. Heinrichs, J. Bauer, & T. Lovat (Eds.), _The International Handbook of Teacher Ethos_ (pp. 393–412). Springer International Publishing. [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73644-6_23](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73644-6_23) - Spodek, J. (2018). _099: Jethro Jones: No Excuse Stewardship_ (99) [Mp3]. [https://shows.acast.com/5a481aca95dfbf9d13d4dc6f/5bd21591d65aeae016f7c82c](https://shows.acast.com/5a481aca95dfbf9d13d4dc6f/5bd21591d65aeae016f7c82c)