Critical Literacy Through Administrative Eyes

Introduction

Craig Groeschel (2018) encourages leaders to be the type of leader people love to follow. He said a leader people love to follow will love and care about others. This leader must love people because people never forget how you made them feel. Groeschel states leaders need to use four words: “I notice” and “you matter”. Good employees do not leave organizations; they leave bad leaders. Groeschel shared he appreciates way more than he thinks he should, and then he doubles it. He started Gold Star Friday! He goes around and fist bumps people who are at work Friday after they could have gone home. He shared how one woman was in the restroom when he went through her department, and she ran out to the parking lot to find Groeschel to get her Gold Star fist bump. It mattered that he noticed and appreciated the people working hard to make his organization better. He encourages leaders to be a “you” centered leader. Tell your people “I’m glad YOU are here”. “YOU matter”. If educational leaders are “you” centered, then teachers may make a shift to be “student” centered in their classrooms or more “student” centered if they already allow student voice and choice in the classroom. Feeling appreciated and confident in their leader’s value of them, teachers might be willing to allow students to voice their own responses about literature - even when it deviates from the norm. As leaders pour into teachers an empowering spirit, the goal is that teachers will pour into their students the desire to challenge the status quo and feel empowered to search, critically question, and share oppositional views in a safe environment within the classroom.

Fullan (2014) makes a strong case that principals are no longer managers of their site building and its bureaucracy, but they are to be the lead learners at their school site. In his paper The Change Leader, Fullan (2002) states “learning in context has the greatest potential payoff because it is more specific, situational, and social (it develops shared and collective knowledge and commitments)” (para. 21). As a school leader, one must enhance a teacher’s pedagogy through their own personal experiences (Bennis & Nanus, 1997). As humans, we relate to each other through our previous experiences. As an administrator connects relationally with teachers, their mutual collaboration increases pedagogical knowledge and skill for all involved: teacher, student, and administrator (Hall, Johnson, Wysocki, & Kepner, 2008). One way for educational leaders to connect and lead their teaching staff is to engage in critical literacy and critical conversations.

Background

Dr. Fenstermacher (2000) wrote a speech he presented to superintendents in Michigan during a summer institute. He shares with these educational leaders how our government has required those in education to achieve ideals which are impossible instead of allowing ideals to guide goals which are attainable. He shares “there is a difference between what we can do and what we ought to hope for. Between what is real and within the realm of possibility, on the one hand, and what is ideal and impossible, on the other” (p. 1). The impossible should guide to the possible. Fenstermacher continues: