The role of reflection in school principal effectiveness

Recently my colleagues and I in Western Kentucky University's Department of Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research attended an event in San Diego as part of our Wallace Foundation grant-funded initiative to rethink school principal training for the 21st century. The event was hosted by the educational leadership department at San Diego State University, one of our Wallace grant partners, and spotlighted key features of their principal certification program.

Of particular interest to us was San Diego's emphasis on reflection as a key component of principal training and practice. We had the chance to do a "fishbowl" activity with several of their current principal candidates discussing their Reflective Leader Rubric, which is used to assess aspiring principals' capacity to engage in deep reflection on their practice and their learning experiences.

What we observed in San Diego resonated for me because it closely mirrors work on reflective practice my colleague Tom Stewart and I have done in our principal classes, with teachers and administrators in professional development sessions, and in our research on school principal leadership coaching. Our efforts have been inspired, in part, by the book Reflective Practice for Renewing Schools: An Action Guide for Educators, by Jennifer York-Barr and colleagues, which provides a theory of action for reflective practice captured in the image below. Essential to this model is the idea that reflection requires a pause, a deliberate effort to refrain from activity, both outward and inward, to see what is really happening. From that pause the heart and mind open, and new questions and perspectives can emerge that lead to fresh ideas and more effective action, which in an educational context we hope always pays off in enhanced student learning.

Several dimensions of SDSU's principal program feature components of this reflective practice framework. These were especially highlighted during the fishbowl activity wherein current program participants reflected on these elements of their experience so far. Among the themes that we heard were the following:

• As the word itself implies, reflection is a kind of "mirror," giving the principal or principal candidate an opportunity to see themselves more accurately and clearly. My previous research collaborations around leadership coaching for principals reveals that, without structures for self-reflection, most school administrators lack the opportunities and routines in their daily work to observe their own thought processes in a critical, self reflective way.
• Similarly, reflection involves deliberately seeking out diverse and even contradictory viewpoints and evidence to challenge our core, often unrecognized, assumptions about ourselves, our problems of practice, and our action strategies for addressing them.
• Related to assumptions, like SDSU, WKU's principal program redesign will involve a much more intentional focus on equity. But so much of the equity challenge is bound up in our unrecognized biases and assumptions about ourselves, others, and how children learn. Reflective practices are essential for helping uncover and confront these biases and assumptions.
• SDSU's principal candidates all acknowledged the challenge of making time for reflection, but as the York-Barr theory of practice makes clear, that time commitment is an investment. It takes enormous courage to set aside one's pressing work tasks to engage in reflection with the faith that, if one does it well, the payoff will be improved communication, greater awareness of self and others, and enhanced professional effectiveness.

The final thing that struck me about the SDSU principal candidates was their frequent use of "practice" language to describe their work. They clearly viewed leadership as a practice, meaning that it is a craft requiring a combination of skills, knowledge, and dispositions, and that as such their practice should be constantly growing and evolving based on new data and changing circumstances. Reflection is key to the process, and positive change is the fruit of reflection. As one principal candidate described it, "Reflection is not about what you've been doing wrong, but how you can keep getting better."

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I am a member and chairman of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committee).