Class Writings

Myography: Love and Leadership

Part I: Little Leader Bispo to Big Leader Bispo

            As humbly as I can say it, I have always felt like a leader, but it has been quite a process of development.  I am grateful to all of my teachers from my formative years for constantly putting me in positions to develop this ability.  They instilled a sense of confidence in me, and an odd sense of knowing that I would be successful in life.  Along with my parents, they all taught me the importance of values set in love and maintaining internal strength, two qualities I still live by everyday.

            During graduate school, I began an exciting journey with a group of peers as we went en masse together to open a new high school – the first new public high school in Los Angeles in 30 years (the future Santee Education Complex).  The twelve of us were halfway through our Master’s of a social-justice minded education program.  We were ready to take on the world, to open up a new school we were going to turn into the central-point of the community.  What an experience!  I learned more in the first two years than, I believe, most people do in a career.

            I dove in head first, unafraid of the sharks that might be lurking.  On my first day on campus, I chased down a couple students who had stolen the letters off of a wall that spelled out our school address. Without seeming like a total threat, I got the students to bring in all of the letters the next day, without consequence. My name was immediately carved in stone.  I had somehow manage to develop that type of relationship with the students, where I could get them to fess up so easily.  It was a good start for me.  Building relationships was important, and by the time I left the school six years later, that was of the top two qualities I was known for.

The second was the fighter in me.  This was a positive attribute and related to my hard work ethic. I quickly established myself as someone who would fight for what I believed in, even if it meant going against my bosses.  Sadly, our staff became quickly aware of the struggles we would face in this South Central school: the race war was immediate and mean.  Our students were often fighting, making a mess of our beautiful, new campus.  Within the first two months we were on the news in the newspaper. 

In the fall we had back-to-back days of riots. On the first day, LAPD riot squad marched onto our campus to take control after a student went for a school officer’s gun. After a fair amount of time, staff had been able to clear the majority of campus and get students back into campus.  I became one of the few faculty left in the quad area with a group of students and the police.  At one point, a few motorcycle officers blared their sirens and almost ran into students, cordoning them off into a corner of a gate, yelling at them to get to class.  With my back to the students in a protective manner, I yelled at the police to stop blaring their sirens, “Stop!  You’re aggravating them!!  They have nowhere else to go!  They’re trying to get to class!”  The image was this: my arms spread protecting my students shouting at motorcycle officers, with LAPD riot squad facing us in a powerful line.  From them on, everyone knew that I would always fight for my students and protect them.  It was a powerful moment for me, as it was completely unplanned and natural; I surprised myself, facing so many police and administrators.  I did what I felt was right, though, and for many staff and the students present, I showed them what type of leader I was: a risk-taker who is firm in what she believes in, a fighter until the end.

Some people did not like me after that, perhaps because I was so bold, perhaps because they would not stand up for students the way I would, but because I do not seek to have any enemies, I reflected and realized that all actions have consequences and if I was to be an effective leader, I would always need to remember that.  Still, I would not make a different choice, and when I realized that, I realized that I was okay with people not liking me if it was because they were so against beliefs I had.  Sometimes, people just will not see eye-to-eye, and that is okay.

Still, I created a good name for myself.  I was a hard worker and wholly dedicated to my students.  You name it, I volunteered for it.  At this point in my career, I had not yet learned how to say “no,” only to shout an emphatic, “Yes!”  [I have since learned that there is power in saying, “No,” especially when it means remaining committed to what it is important and doing an effective job at it.] I felt internally strong and wanted to prove myself as a competent female professional.  In the first year, I became Student Council co-advisor, J.V. girls’ basketball coach, offered to teach three different Science courses, and with my activist crew, put on multiple cultural-related assemblies throughout the year.  As a show of our commitment to the community, we started a Unity Alliance by calling upon Human Resources and various community organizations to help us liberate our campus of hate and help us teach our students unity and love.  We some positive results, and, again, connections were made: we were serious about taking care of this community.

After the first year, half of our team left, frustrated with the struggles we were enduring as a school.  I did not think twice about staying.  This was my school, my community, and I was wholly dedicated to our original mission. Over the next six years, I cultivated my strengths as a leader.  I played critical roles developing our AP and environmental programs; I handled Student Council on my own; I continued coaching basketball; and co-led our Science department.  After a couple years of struggle and not enough practice, I helped lead our school in reconfiguring the way we ran certain programs, from bell schedules to advisory programs.  Focusing on student-teacher and student-student relationship, I had seen much success with my own students over a four-year period and was still following them as they maneuvered through college, so I took the lead as Advisory Curriculum Developer and helped run the Advisory period for each grade level.  This was an important role for me because I was leading the entire school in a curriculum that I had to create for four different grade levels.  More importantly, to me, it showed the importance of relationships and love for students and what a profound reciprocal relationship can be developed.

I held many leadership roles at Santee, and by the time I left (to continue my own education), I felt like I owned it.  The school had seen three complex principals in the first three years, and a change in assistant principals and programs every single year.  I endured the Hitler of all principals who did his best to intimidate me and try to get me kicked out (impossible when a community supports you), and another who cared about the title, who did not honestly love the students, both of whom taught me so much without knowing it.  (There is learning in lack of leadership.)  In six years, I had developed an enduring relationship with the whole system: my colleagues, my students, and the systems put into place.  It was a challenging period that taught me a lot about how to lead and not lead a staff; how to properly open a new school; how to lead without being overpowering or intimidating (oops, I have a strong personality); and the importance of standing your ground.  I see it in my former students who are now preparing to graduate from college, who continue reaching out to me for guidance, and are still teaching me; I hear it from former colleagues and friends who still call to collaborate; and I feel it in my heart.  I entered as a teacher and left as a teacher, but more importantly, I stood as leader.

Part II: Grad school, again

            So, here I am in graduate school again, working on my doctorate.  What a beautiful journey my education has been. I am constantly updating my students with the work I am doing, trying to demonstrate what a “lifelong learner” truly is and where hard work will take a person. I love sharing what I am learning in class and what I am working on for homework.  I hope I am teaching them important skills that I did not learn until later in life, or even now.  I have students who are at various universities who I often collaborate with.  One is a full blown environmental policy major; another is getting an environmental science degree who has already started teaching and wants to return to his community to continue the change we started when he was a Freshman in high school; another is at UCSD and we have met up for lunch, an amazingly beautiful and profound moment for me – I am attending the same university as a former student.  As I continue development as an education leader, I constantly remind myself that our ultimate goals are always for the students, and to be wholly effective, I must remain a leader to those students. 

            Still, I firmly believe that what we accomplish in education is due to teamwork.  Our JDP in Educational Leadership has already taught me so much in this first quarter, most importantly about teamwork and trust.  I am so impressed with the caliber of students in this program and know I learn from them every time we meet.  What I have most come to appreciate and take away are our discussions, especially when we disagree.  We do not argue, but rather, simply discuss an issue from different perspectives.  The calmness and silent passion with which everyone speaks is inspiring and from class discussions and readings, both in and out of class, specifically within our Leadership course, I have learned to take the time to consider other’s perspectives and fully discuss them.  As an education leader, I want my colleagues and staff to know that I appreciate them as intelligent contributors to our work. I want them to feel valued and needed, and I believe you show that through listening and consideration, which is how I feel most of us treat other in this cohort.

            The weekend I felt was most valuable was when we read about and discussed strengths (week two).  While I learned about my personal strengths, my main takeaway was strategies to for building upon others strengths.  As I continue my growth and movement into leadership positions, I plan on focusing my efforts on helping others develop their strengths and work towards who they want to become.  I believe that a focus on this will strengthen our positive attributes, making us a more effective organization and thus more likely to accomplish our varied goals.

            I feel renewed as a leader, stronger and more positive, as if I have a clearer understanding of what it means to be an effective leader.  Another strong takeaway for me is what I have learned about sustainable leadership.  As an environmentalist, I sustainability is always at the forefront of my mind, but I have never thought of applying the base concept to any other genre besides the environment.  Sustainable leadership absolutely makes sense, though.  After all the years of complaining about the U.S. public education, especially in urban communities, it never really dawned on me that what I was frustrated with was a complete lack of sustainable leadership; at least, I did not know that is what it was called.  I am whole-heartedly committed to developing systems of sustainable leadership, especially within urban communities where struggles are multi-layered and success is imperative for their livelihood.  This is my new theme in my work for social justice and equity – make effective systems last. 

            As I continue teaching and raising our youth and mentoring teachers, I will keep in mind the most valuable lessons I have learned this quarter: build upon your strengths and pass on the good, meaning continue our successes by developing our effective systems and infecting our organizations with these strategies.  My research is humbling, as I continue to learn more about sustainability and its potential impacts for urban communities.  The more I read and learn, the more I think about how important my work needs to be for education.  As I research and write, as I think through what words to place down, I am constantly questioning, “What am I doing that will benefit this system, and more importantly, how do we make that sustainable for future generations, that our urban youth will live happy, healthy, successful lives?”  These are my guiding questions, what I use as constant motivation for my work.  As I stare at these questions, absorbing what they really mean, I cannot help but smile because I have just been reminded of what is deeply embedded in this focus, the driving force for what I do, the essence of what sustains me:  Love.