Equity Oriented Leadership
WHAT?
SO WHAT?
NOW WHAT?
Equity Conference
February, 2010
Dr. Marsha Lay and Suzy Cutbirth
C & L Facilitation
Session Goals:
 1. To enhance participants understanding of
equitable leadership
 2. To provide participants with strategies to support
and strengthen the development of equity leadership
practices
 3. To introduce Experiential Education / Reflective
Practice as effective learning processes.
Equity Attitude
 The role of an educational leader…….
“goes beyond the notion of instructional leader to the leader
as a cultural change agent”
Kruse and Seashore, 2009
Systemic Equity Leadership
As a leader guiding the
development of a culture that
values equitable practices in
education, I must challenge
traditional leadership models
and insist on developing
leadership practices to identify
and dismantle systems that
produce and support
inequitable results.
Setting Expectation
If you can’t decide what an ideal
system would look like, you
can’t create policies to get
there.
It is easier to get from point A to
point B if you know where point
B is and how to recognize it
when you arrive.
Naisbitt and Aburdene
Ideal School
EXPECTATIONS
Behaviors/
Actions
Structures
Beliefs
The Iceberg Model ....
S urfacing and challenging our assumptions
What is seen
Events
What’s happening?
What is
generally
unseen
Patterns of Behavior
What’s been happening?
What are the trends?
What changes have
ocurred?
Structures
What has influenced the patterns?
(e.g. rules, lesson plans, curriculum)
What are the relationships among the
parts?
Mental Models
What values, beliefs and assumptions do you have about teaching?
Adapted from Innovation Associates, Inc. 2002
L
e
a
r
n
i
n
g
L
e
v
e
r
a
g
e
So What?
ALL systems
are
perfectly
aligned to get
the results
they get…..
Margaret Wheatley, 2000
Equally Important!!!
WHA T ABOUT ME!
Principles in Action
 Reflective Practice Activity:
 Complete and ask leadership team to complete as
they see your
“Principles in Action”
???????????????
“There is a mysterious
connection between
language and thinking”
R. Rogers, 2010
Are you asking the right questions?
Tinkering or Transforming?
Technical vs. Adaptive Change……
Significant systemic change requires more than
tweaking… it is the breaking down and rebuilding of
structures to support our expectations, beliefs and
values……
Built on Leadership Practices
© M.Lay,2007
Collaboration Survey
What skills, attitudes, experiences define a
………..good collaborator?
WHAT DOES RESEARCH SAY?
Adults learn best through
reflecting on their
experiences.
(Costa and Garmston, 2002)
All learning occurs
through conversation.
(Bruffee, 1999)
EE Activities
 Support the development of
Expectation
for equal participation (everyone
has a voice)
Relationship development ( the conversation is
the relationship)
Supports disequilibrium …challenges the status
quo through systematic and thoughtful
actions..
NOW WHAT?
 How do we know we are designing the experiences
to support the work?
 What is our evidence?
 Are we asking the right questions?
Session Goals:
 1. To enhance participants understanding of
equitable leadership
 2. To provide participants with strategies to support
and strengthen the development of equity leadership
practices
 3. To introduce Experiential Education / Reflective
Practice as effective learning processes.
Exit Activity – BRAIN FULL
Directions: On a post it write 3 take- aways from
the last 45 minutes.
When I say go..you are to find someone in the room
you don’t know and ask them for their 3, you share
your 3 and then you move on….
When your BRAIN IS FULL….. Go back to your table
and list all of the things you can remember…
NOW WHAT?
THANKS !
Dr. Marsha Lay & Suzy Cutbirth
C & L Facilitation
Springfield, Missouri
417-527-1833
[email protected]