Monthly Musings

Hi Everyone,
 
Sorry I’m a bit behind on my musings this month. Lately I’ve seen various retrospective writings on the Children First reforms, bringing me back to the first moments of our work and how the system and our responsive programs have evolved. One question that some of the researchers piecing together this history have asked has been about the role of instruction and instructional leadership in the reform.

Dear Team,

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we look at systems and the individuals within them. Our individual and collective mental models tend to lead us to look for individual behavior (that we can then judge to be “bad” or “good”) rather than the broader system that governs our behavior. I often talk with new principals about that moment in which they see themselves doing something that as a teacher they swore they would never do, but now as a principal they believe needs to be done (the same, of course, is commonly said about parenting).

Dear Team,

I continue to find wonderful lessons about leadership, facilitation, and education in music and the arts. Recently, I read Wynton Marsalis’ Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (great for anyone interested in the academic language of jazz—although it may be a bit introductory for the jazz aficionados among us). I have been particularly focused on Marsalis’ treatment of improvisation, especially as it relates to our efforts at co-facilitation. In this book, Marsalis discusses how various players in a jazz improvisation group will take subtle cues from each other, understand when to speak (play) and when to listen, and know how to listen to co-improvisers. Listening is one of the most important improvisational skills, and probably one of the most important leadership skills as well.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Over the weekend I watched a video entitled Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician within featuring Kenny Werner, a jazz pianist who authored a book by the same title. Werner discusses the ways our minds get in the way of our creative pursuits. While the focus is on music and musicians, I found several parallels to the work of education. For example, Werner discusses how difficult we make our own work/art by doubting ourselves, caring about external approval, and second-guessing our instincts. His premise is that players are much better when they actively free themselves of such judgments, and I would argue that based on our experiences, leaders are not much different. That is not to say that leaders do not need to work strategically in highly political contexts. They do. However, they do not benefit from their self-doubt, working against their own internal wisdom, or from looking for personal approval from the various stakeholders in their work. So what does this mean for a disciplined leadership practice (in the sense of daily rehearsing leadership through exercises and performance—which we facilitate for folks both in pre-service and on the job)? Are there parallels in Werner’s stance on practicing music?