Kristin Kusanovich

The Drama in School Leadership: An Arts-Based Approach to Understanding the Ethical Dimensions of Decision Making for Educational Leaders

This article considers the implications and effectiveness of a performing arts-based pedagogy in the professional development of school leaders. It reports on the findings from a study that exposed educational leaders to methods of dramatic analysis as a means of reflecting on the ethical dilemmas found in personnel management. Through the dynamic enactment of dramatized scripts representing highly charged situations in school leadership, participants came to recognize the limitations of merely discussing cases, the benefits of active learning to developing empathy amid the complexities of schools, and some of the ethical challenges inherent in their roles as school leaders.

Engaging Pre-Service Teachers in the Drama in Teacher Leadership

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative research study that examined the effects of a transdisciplinary ethnotheatre workshop designed to support the professional development of school leaders as they navigate the complexities of teacher leadership. The site of inquiry was a pre-service teacher leadership workshop held in a graduate school class where participants analyzed, witnessed, and enacted ethnodramas, problematizing tensions in teacher leadership. Using a constant comparative approach, the participant journals were read and re-read, coded, and then categorized thematically with particular focus on negative case analysis. The authors present excerpts from the ethnodrama scripts used in the workshop alongside the research findings, which suggest that, while some participants perceived the injustice of a given situation presented in the ethnodrama, and could articulate how the process of ethnotheatre created avenues for learning about the lived reality of teacher leaders, others indicated either a lack of awareness or a tacit acceptance of the bullying and discriminatory behaviors embedded within the scripts.

Chapter 6 Script Reading

Script Reading transitions readers into the process of dramatic script reading, looks at how stage directions give hints about the movement and motivation of any character at any given time, and suggests how educators entering into a workshop using the plays might begin to build a character.

Prologue: Stage Fright

Prologue: Stage Fright sets into motion the use of theatrical analogies, metaphors, and guideposts for thinking about educational leadership as a performative act and teacher leadership in particular as an under-supported performance. Authors Cranston and Kusanovich share challenges related to how teacher leaders’ initiatives are perceived, received, and ultimately played out.

Chapter 8 The Scripts

In The Scripts , the authors offer something like an opening night speech for the reader and a final checklist that recapitulates the phases covered in the previous chapters that will help launch a successful teacher leadership working group. Three diverse one-act scripts, each dealing with a common challenge to teacher leadership, are given in their entirety, complete with character lists, settings, stage directions, and post-performance discussion guides for group reflection and dialogue.

Chapter 3 The Lament

In The Lament, the micropolitical dynamics in schools and the potential socio-emotional costs of teacher leadership are explored. The authors consider how ethical decision-making and questions of justice and equity only intensify the challenges faced by emerging and practicing teacher leaders.

Chapter 2 The Allure

In The Allure, the authors’ researched methods of content delivery and exploration using ethnotheatre to creatively develop school leaders is introduced. This chapter also demonstrates how truly creative acts have to allow for some errors or missteps, to be genuine and to lead to real discovery. The philosophical allure of a graduate program that prepares teacher leaders is frequently used to attract graduate school applicants. The actual receptivity of a school site, when it comes to teacher leadership, is not a given, however.

Chapter 1 Setting the Stage

In Setting the Stage, authors Cranston and Kusanovich introduce a vignette that will carry the reader through the entire book, depicting the dynamics of professional development workshop facilitation. This chapter probes what real creativity is about, whether in a professional development session or in the day-to-day life of schools and suggests some reasons for a school’s limited receptivity to teacher-leader innovation.

Chapter 5 Creative Processes

In Creative Processes, the authors explore the notion of visibility and how, in all of its meanings, visibility provides a conceptual grounding for learning about teacher leadership. Through an explanation of observing that which is visible, to imitating promising practices of great teacher leaders, to forming various scenarios or outcomes within the vision of our imaginations, the creative process is discovered to be a more disciplined and specific set of behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge bases than the current discourse on art and creativity in education might suggest.

Chapter 9 As the Curtain Closes

In As the Curtain Closes the reader transitions from the emotionally charged world of the plays, and deep discussion topics they may have stirred, to the bigger question of how we are preparing teacher leaders to remain resilient in the face of these real obstacles.