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Collection I Stories of Being Caring in Relationships With Students

Introduction

This collection of stories illustrates the first arena of caring school leadership practice: how principals and other school leaders can be caring in their relationships with students. These stories focus primarily on the interpersonal aspects of leadership. They show how principals and other school leaders can develop caring relationships with their students. They also show what principals and other school leaders can do so that these caring relationships become more trusting, helpful, and durable. Many of these stories illustrate the benefits to students and school leaders when caring relationships form and flourish.

Each story in this collection makes visible in one way or another the aims, positive virtues and mindsets, and competencies of caring. Like stories in the other collections, not all of these stories are positive. You may find some ambiguous and even troublesome. Some you might consider negative examples, revealing problems that may arise out of the best of intentions.

Description

Hug? Andrew Dominic Bachmann, Grade 2

The stories in this collection are grouped by level of school. Otherwise, they are not presented in any particular order. Nor do they represent the full extent of ways that principals and other school leaders might be caring in their relationships with students. You may begin by reading stories from the level of school in which you are most interested, but we strongly encourage you to read stories from the other level for the insights and lessons they provide. An example of caring in a high school or middle school may be very helpful in an elementary school and vice versa. Across the stories in this collection, pay attention to the importance of knowing and understanding students both as persons and as learners. Consider the role of context and how principals’ and other school leaders’ knowledge, skills, assumptions, biases, and sense of professional role function in their relationships with students.

A number of the stories in this collection illustrate accessibility and presence in developing caring relationships with students. It is difficult to imagine principals being able to know students, understand their needs and interests, and be caring of them if they are not accessible and present. Presence is both physical and mental, the latter meaning that principals must be continually mindful of students to be caring of them. Many stories illustrate different ways that principals and other school leaders can be attentive to students to know and understand them so as to be caring of them. Some of these stories show practices of observing and noticing and how leaders can inquire to increase their knowledge and understanding of students. Most of these stories also illustrate how principals and other school leaders not only listen but hear what students have to say. Several stories demonstrate the importance to some students of persistence and longevity in caring relationships—even what can happen when caring relationships end.

Most of the stories in this collection portray different ways in which principals and other school leaders can act or give care on behalf of students to address their needs and help them learn and grow. Some illustrate ways in which principals and other school leaders discern the needs and interests of individual and groups of students to provide meaningful help and assistance, doing so in a caring manner. Several stories tell how school leaders engage others on behalf of students. Sometimes acting in the best interests of students means making difficult decisions, perhaps engaging in what René Antrop-González and Anthony De Jesús call hard caring. Several stories illustrate hard caring, and some tell of decisions and actions with which you may not agree. Last but not least, several stories show how acting on behalf of students can conflict with district rules and how principals bend these rules toward the students rather than bend students toward the rules.

Figure 1.1 shows the stories in this collection, by number, in which examples of such caring school leadership practices can be found. You may use this figure to navigate your way through the collection.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

General Questions

1 How does each story reflect the three foundational elements of caring school leadership described in Introduction: Caring School Leadership in the beginning of this book? (a) The aims of caring? (b) Positive virtues and mindsets of caring? and (c) Competencies of caring? In what ways might these three elements be strong or weak in the story? How might these strengths or weaknesses shape the actions and interactions of the school leader and any outcomes apparent in the story? How might caring in the story be seen as a part of everyday work rather than as something extra that school leaders do? How can the caring demonstrated by school leaders in these stories help others in their schools to be more caring?

2 How might the school leader’s assumptions, understandings, and biases affect the way each story unfolds and the outcomes apparent or that might be expected? How might different contexts affect the story? The qualities and characteristics of interpersonal relationships? The organizational context of the school? The environment beyond the school?

3 What do you see as the main lesson or lessons of each story? If you were to write a moral for each story, what would the moral be?

4 What is your personal reaction to each story? Why do you react this way? What might be influencing your thinking?

5 Imagine that the school leader in the story met you and asked, “What do you think about what I said and what I did?” Looking through the eyes of the different people in the story, how would you respond? What advice would you give to this school leader?

Figure 1.1 Caring School Leadership Practices Represented in Collection I Stories

Collection-Specific Questions

1 Think about how the professional responsibilities of school leadership might shape the nature of caring interpersonal relationships that principals and other school leaders form with their students. Where are the appropriate professional boundaries? Where are the ambiguities and dilemmas? How do these considerations appear in the stories and, where they do, how well do school leaders attend them?

2 What professional and personal ethical issues do these stories raise? What legal issues? Where such issues are apparent, what advice would you give the school leader to address them?

3 In what ways are knowledge and understanding of students as persons and as learners important to the actions and interactions of school leaders in these stories? In what ways do school leaders’ efforts to further their knowledge and understanding of students contribute to their ability to be caring? In what ways do insufficient or incorrect knowledge and understanding make caring more difficult and less effective?

4 How do these stories illuminate the importance of the ordinary, everyday things in developing and deepening caring relationships with students?

5 How do these stories help you better understand the types of assistance that might be helpful to students? How do these stories help you better understand the ways in which the caring motivation and manner of rendering assistance influence how assistance is received by students and how assistance actually helps them?

Application Questions

1 How might your own assumptions, preconceptions, and points of view influence how you read and make meaning of these stories? Consider your understanding of yourself as a caring person and a caring school leader, including your strengths and weaknesses in being caring of others. Consider your understanding of what the professional role of a school leader requires of you; what your situation calls on you to do; and what your students, your staff, and your community expect of you. How does your thinking and sense of self affect how you practice caring in this arena of leadership?

2 Put yourself in the position of the school leader who is the focus of each story. Would you think and act in the same way in the situation described in the story? Why or why not? In what ways might you think and act differently? Why?

3 For each story, recall a similar, actual situation in your school. How would you retell the story for your own setting, with yourself as the focal school leader? In what ways would your story be similar? In what ways would your story be different? Why?

4 Consider the positive ways that school leaders in these stories form, maintain, and deepen caring relationships with students. How might you adopt and adapt these positive practices in your own setting with your own students? What factors—personal, professional, and contextual—might support or impede your effort? How might you address impediments to make your effort more successful?

5 Consider the difficult aspects of being caring of students that are revealed in these stories. Do you see similar difficulties with some of your students? Are there other difficulties? How might you address these difficulties? How do you think about being caring when the student or the situation is difficult as opposed to when the student or the situation is easy? What do you do in such situations to become more caring? How do you think about being caring when you have to make tough and unpopular decisions about a student or a group of students? When you must administer hard caring? When your decisions may be consistent with your understanding of the best interests of students but may not be understood or received that way?

6 What other leadership practices and strategies, beyond those illustrated in these stories, might be effective to strengthen caring in your interpersonal relationships with individual students and groups of students in your school? Explain why you think these practices and strategies might be effective in your situation. Explain the groundwork that might need to be done to increase the likelihood of their success.

Holding My Hand. Hadley Green, Grade 2

Descriptions of Images and Figures

Back to Figure

The drawing shows the following:

1 There is a clock showing three o’ clock at the top of the dome shaped structure.

2 One child has outstretched arms, and is approached by another child who is smaller than the first child.

3 A callout near the smaller child shows the text “hug” with a question mark.