I regularly talk about how my leadership style builds on my work in critical pedagogy. But if you haven’t had the opportunity or a reason to spend as much time immersed in learning to be a better teacher as I have, what does that even mean?
For the first half of my professional career, my focus was on teaching. I taught one to two sections per semester of a credit-bearing semester-long information literacy course and worked with faculty in my liaison areas to incorporate information literacy into their courses. Most of my professional development as a library faculty member focused on how to become a better teacher because that was such a central part of my job.
One of the cornerstones of good pedagogy is transparency. Anyone who has ever taken a Quality Matters course or read up on Universal Design for Learning knows well that clearly communicating how the course learning outcomes shape the design of the course, and how each lesson or module builds skills needed to achieve the larger course outcomes, enables students to connect the dots. Without this transparency, decisions can seem arbitrary and assignments can seem like busywork. Clearly communicating how assignments will be graded, ideally by providing a rubric in advance, ensures that students will be better prepared to meet expectations. Providing clear, constructive, and actionable feedback on assignments, especially those designed to scaffold toward a larger project, enhances students’ ability to improve their performance.
Respect for all students is another cornerstone of good pedagogy. Combining this with a critical consciousness is the foundation for real, not performative, inclusivity. The course I taught was not required in any degree program. At a university where more than half of the students were Pell-eligible, that meant working with students who were balancing full time jobs, family obligations, and 12-15 credit hours of other courses that were required for their progression. Respecting all students meant planning flexibility into the course. At a university where 35-39% of the student population is Black, respecting all students meant educating myself on structural racism and learning to advocate effectively for my students and my colleagues, both in the classroom and in limited access meetings. Respecting all students also meant doing my best to design for maximum accessibility in order to avoid making anyone have to single themself out by requesting accommodations.
Honesty and vulnerability are also cornerstones in my view of good pedagogy. Being willing to admit when I don’t know something or when I’ve made a mistake is an important component of modeling research as inquiry in an information literacy classroom. By modeling this approach, I do my best to create a learning environment where wrong answers are lessons in an iterative process, not mistakes or failures.
Leaning in to using critical pedagogy led me to explore ways to share power within the classroom. This didn’t always go as I hoped. One semester, for the “syllabus day” ice breaker, I asked the students to determine what the late policy should be for assignments. I broke the class into groups of four to begin the discussions, and then once they seemed to have agreed on a policy, I facilitated a full class discussion of what each group proposed. This backfired, because they were far less forgiving than I was comfortable with. I put myself in the position of needing to use my position of power to scale back the penalties from what the class had agreed upon. I learned from this experience to be more selective in how I solicit feedback and which policies I allow the group to decide. In subsequent semesters, I adapted the exercise to allow students to decide other topics.
Self-awareness and reflective practice are so foundational here that I often forget to explicitly mention them, but they’re key to continually improving your teaching, and that practice of turning “mistakes” into lessons.
Adopting a critical pedagogy, particularly as the instructor of record for a credit-bearing course, paved the way for my shift into leading a team of colleagues. This approach emphasizes interacting with students as full people with valuable experiences to build upon. Rather than simply pouring knowledge into students, I had opportunities to let their prior knowledge and experiences shape class discussions, while I drew connections between that knowledge and the course and lesson objectives.
These cornerstones of my vision of good pedagogy – transparency, respect, inclusivity, honesty, vulnerability, integrity, and self-awareness – are also cornerstones of ethical leadership.
An ethical leader is transparent about expectations and consequences. Unclear expectations breed anxiety among team members and create openings for biases to influence performance evaluations. This requires developing one’s ability to provide clear, constructive, and actionable feedback to ensure that team members understand how their current performance compares to expectations, and how they can most effectively improve their performance.
An ethical leader demonstrates respect for all team members by prioritizing inclusivity and accessibility. This implies an obligation to devote time on a regular basis to continue educating oneself on evolving best practices.
An ethical leader demonstrates integrity by leading by example and following through on the things they say. Honesty and vulnerability are integral here, because we all make mistakes. Being willing to admit to a mistake and apologize effectively enables the ethical leader to maintain their integrity when they fail to follow through on something. Being willing to admit to a mistake and offer a genuine apology are key to maintaining integrity when you do drop the ball on something.
An ethical leader encourages shared governance as much as possible, and is as transparent as possible about their decision making processes when they must make that decision themself. This can be complicated when decisions involve confidential information. Those exceptions make it all the more important for the leader to build trust that they consistently share as much as they can in any given situation.
An ethical leader maintains awareness of the ways their position in the hierarchy influences those around them and works to build a culture in which all members of their team feel confident speaking up.
Now, my questions:
Teachers: what would you add to this list of practices that transfer from critical pedagogy, or just good pedagogy in general, to leadership?
Those who took a different path to leadership: what did you learn in your leadership training programs that I’m missing here?