Reaction Paper: Social Justice Leadership for a Global World
The main purpose of this paper is to reflect and explore what comprises a just, favorable, and educationally empowered world as seen through the eyes of Gerstl-peppin and Aiken. The society today continues to emphasize the importance of education with the motivation being the benefits that can be accrued from having an educated society (Becher & Kogan, 1992). However, few institutions, organizations, and even governments have taken upon themselves to address the different challenges, setbacks, and odds that continue to cripple the right to quality, affordable, non-discriminatory, and globally acceptable education to all people across the world. Through an analysis and exploration of section I and II of Social Justice Leadership for a Global World, this paper seeks to show that education and leadership across different parts are the most important accelerators of growth, development and stability.
Throughout the nine chapters of the book, Gerstl-peppin and Aiken endeavor to address the question; how can enabling, sustainable, peaceful, just and performance oriented environments be achieved in schools across the world on the face of challenges in order to ensure that learning is as effective as possible? The authors explore the effects of school leadership, cultural disparities, language barrier, various incompatibilities, and many other challenges that face the process of learning in schools across the world (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012). They further go ahead to address the question of how can the society and school leaders across the world ensure that students who come from minority or vulnerable groups are kept in schools and get the same education with other students.
The most important information from this book is that education is one of the most essential requirements that everybody in the modern society ought to access and have without discrimination. Williams in the first chapter of the book acknowledges that even in most developed countries such as the United States, ensuring equality in education is still a challenge (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012). Students from the minority groups are often left behind notwithstanding the projection that by 2035, majority of primary and secondary students in the US will be from minority groups such as the African Americans and Latinos and immigrants as Chien and Chiu notes in the sixth chapter of the book. Wright and Nancy in the second chapter report that a study shows that discrimination against LGBT educators is still being witnessed, which is not only demoralizing to them but students as well who witness it. LGBT educators, who can be considered a vulnerable group, are prone to abuse and personal and job insecurity (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012, Sears, 2003). Baas on the other hand insists that cultural collisions in educational leadership threatens efforts to ensure that education becomes free to all people despite their cultures. More often than not, cultural collision especially in education comes about when individuals holding positions of power fail to observe ethics, respect, and consideration for other people.
Conflict that arise when individuals in the education sector contest for power waters down efforts to make higher education credible according to Shah. Shah uses college heads in Pakistan to show that power is one of the most contested fields in higher education in the world today (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012, Becher & Kogan, 1992). The study in the Muslim nation showed that political interference continues to play part in institutional decision making with most of the decision not being in favor of students or the management. Sun in the fifth chapter goes ahead to compared instructional leadership in American and Chinese schools and their effects. The authors believe that principals and other leaders of schools directly affect the process of learning in those particular schools. In line with the theoretical framework of instructional leadership, Sun presents a comparative report between Water Fall High School in the United States and Yellow Star High School in China (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012). In the every end, the conclusion that the study shows is that leadership is paramount when it comes to education.
The main conclusion in this book is that overcoming challenges and problems that continue to ail the education system will not be possible unless people make a decision to willingly address them. This includes students, teachers and educators, relevant agencies in charge of education and most importantly school leaders. The authors insist that possessing an understanding of other people’s culture and according it respect is not something that comes naturally, but it ought to be cultivated, supported, fostered, encouraged and expected by all those who come together courtesy of education (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012). The conclusion lies in the fact that as human beings can create problems, so can they solve them as Orr (1992) observes.
The key concepts that we need to we need to understand is that the quality of education leadership are directly related. In addition, proper leadership that is socially just and accommodative in education is both a collective and individual responsibility (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012). The quality of education is directly is almost directly related to the leadership in the sense that a proper and collective leadership that embraces shared vision in a school is likely to favor smooth learning, good student outcomes and good relationship between all stakeholders. Similarly, poor leadership is a sure recipe for poor education. Social justice and leadership in education start with individuals deciding to be the change that often sought. Once an individual decision influences others to see the need to have proper leadership, it then becomes a collective responsibility.
The main assumption underlying the author’s thinking is that even though there has been intensification of efforts and scholarships aimed at supporting multiplicity and multicultural awareness, these attempts and programs have largely focused the United States, with the perspectives suiting the American view. If we take this line of reasoning seriously, a deeper understanding and appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism perspectives relating to the modern interconnecting world will be developed. This step will bring us close to addressing the challenges that affect the education system not only in U.S., but also around the whole world (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).
However, if we fail to take this line of reasoning seriously, our ability to look at challenges that face education critically in other parts of the world will be limited as they vary from region to region. The fact that a person who leaves his or her country to take the teaching profession in the US is likely to be stripped off his or her talent because the USA education systems believe in its culture of operation is detrimental. Allowing diversity, learning it and appreciating it is one way of not only reducing cultural collision but also enhancing cooperation (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012).
The main point of view in this book is that students, teachers, leaders, scholars, and all players in today’s interconnected world need to understand cultural diversity, promote effective leadership, advocate for social justice, be agents of change and not only focus on their home nation, but also traverse across nations of the world both physically and virtually as a way of appreciating assortment (Orr, 1992). `Taking the authors’ underlying premise is beneficial in the sense that education in the rapidly interconnected world will be embraced keeping in mind cultural diversity, that will come as a result of respect and affection towards one another. More people will access education, acquire necessary expertise and not only drive economic growth but also help create wealth (Orr, 1992). However, having a well-interconnected globe where people interact freely, intermingle and learn different cultures can easily lead to cultural erosion especially in the developing world.
References
Becher, T., & Kogan, M. (1992). Process and structure in higher education (Vol. 10). New York: Routledge.
Gerstl-Pepin, C. I., & Aiken, J. A. (Eds.). (2012). Social justice leadership for a global world. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Pub..
Leithwood, K. A., & Riehl, C. (2003). What we know about successful school leadership. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.
Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: Suny Press.
Sears, J. T. (Ed.). (2003). Gay, lesbian, and transgender issues in education: Programs, policies, and practices. London: Routledge.
