Stories of Caring School Leadership. Mark A. Smylie

was William Ray Flesher Professor of Education. In the public schools, Murphy has served as an administrator at the school, district, and state levels, including an appointment as the executive assistant to the chief deputy superintendent of public instruction in California. He was the founding president of the Ohio Principals Leadership Academy. Murphy’s work is in the area of school improvement with special emphasis on leadership and policy.Karen Seashore Louisis Regents Professor and Robert H. Beck Chair of the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota. She has previously held positions at Tufts University; Abt Associates, Inc.; Harvard University; and the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has served in numerous administrative positions at the University of Minnesota, including director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement Department, chair of Educational Policy and Administration, and associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development. Louis’s research investigates school improvement and effectiveness, leadership in school settings, and knowledge use in education. She enjoys collaborating with school administrators as they consider how their problems of practice become important questions that can be addressed with data.Smylie, Murphy, and Louis are the authors of Caring School Leadership (2020; Corwin), the companion volume to this book.

      Care Is Key. Kai Short, Grade 12

      Introduction: Caring School Leadership¹

      ¹This introduction is adapted from sections of the book Caring School Leadership (Smylie, Murphy, & Louis, 2020). We do not refer here to the substantial literature that we used in that book to develop and support our arguments. For specific citations, readers are asked to consult that volume.

      We begin this book of stories by examining the concept of caring and why we should care about caring in schools. We examine key elements that make a person’s actions and interactions caring. We also explore how caring works—that is, how it leads to particular outcomes for the ones cared for and the ones caring. We apply these ideas to school leadership, presenting a model of caring school leadership and discussing important considerations for its practice.

      Why Care About Caring in Schools?

      There are four important reasons to care about caring in schools and to work to promote it (see Figure 0.1). First, caring is an intrinsic good, elemental of the human condition, and a worthy endeavor in its own right. According to education philosopher Nel Noddings,

      Natural caring [is] the condition that we … perceive as “good.” It is that condition toward which we long and strive, and it is our longing for caring—to be in that special relation—that provides the motivation for us to be moral.²

      ²Noddings (2013, p. 5).

      Figure 0.1 Why Care About Caring in Schools?

      Similarly, philosopher Milton Mayeroff argues this:

      Through the caring of others, by serving them through caring, a [person] lives the meaning of his own life.… [H]e is at home not through dominating, or explaining, or appreciating, but through caring and being cared for.³

      ³Mayeroff (2017, pp. 2–3).

      Such observations about caring can be found in literature and the arts, religion, and the human service professions. Author Langston Hughes writes through the character Jessie Simple in Simply Heavenly, “When peoples care for you and cry for you—and love you—they can straighten out your soul.”⁴ Nursing scholar Patricia Benner and medical researcher Judith Wrubel speak of caring as “the most basic human way of being in the world.”⁵

      ⁴Sanders (2004, p. 201).

      ⁵Benner and Wrubel (1989, p. 368).

      A second reason to care about caring is because it is crucial to the learning and development of children and youth and to their success in school. It is, as Noddings puts it, the “bedrock of all successful education.”⁶ Research repeatedly emphasizes the importance that students place on caring in schools to their engagement, conduct, and academic success. Studies have linked caring relationships with adults and peers to healthy brain development and cognitive and social-emotional functioning. Research has shown relationships between caring and a number of positive psychological states, including self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, safety, hope, and persistence. Caring is also associated with children’s capacities for resilience, sense of belonging, social-emotional development, and prosocial behaviors, such as cooperation, communication, empathy, and responsibility. These, in turn, enable academic learning and performance. In addition, caring can lead to more caring. Children and youth who experience caring from adults and peers are more likely to act in caring ways themselves.

      ⁶Noddings (2005, p. 27).

      A third reason to care about caring is that the alternatives are unacceptable. Lack of caring or harmful uncaring can impede positive learning and development. Research, such as that by child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, indicates that lack of caring and support can negatively affect cognitive development and impede caring social behavior.⁷ It can negatively affect children’s ability to manage stress and form attachments with others. For students, lack of caring can lead to feelings of isolation, lack of attention, antisocial behavior, negative attitudes toward school, and poor academic engagement—all contributing to low academic achievement.

      ⁷Perry (2002).

      A fourth reason to care about caring in schools is that we cannot assume that caring is a present and unproblematic quality of schooling. There is a paradoxical notion that caring is present and strong in schools because caring is what schools are supposed to do. Health and social care expert Ann Brechin calls this an assumption of “spontaneously occurring caring”⁸ that is not always borne out in student experience. Research shows that educators often see caring when students do not. Studies show that substantial portions of students do not see their schools as caring, encouraging environments. In fact, caring is highly variable in schools today, particularly for students of color, students of low socioeconomic backgrounds, low-performing students, and students placed at risk. Education researchers Maxine McKinney de Royston and her colleagues observe that positive teacher-student relationships are not the norm for African American male students.⁹

      ⁸Brechin (1998, p. 2).

      ⁹de Royston et al. (2017).

      Ironically, the way in which most schools are organized makes caring problematic. Bureaucratic structures and hierarchical relationships, lack of resources, inconsistencies among programs and policies, and the stresses and strains these conditions impose restrict opportunity and create obstacles to meaningful, caring relationships in schools. Moreover, the approaches we have taken recently to improve schools, notably regimes of curricular specification, testing, and accountability, have made developing supportive caring relationships among adults and students all the more difficult.

      What Do We Mean By Caring?

      We use the word caring to represent qualities of relationships and of actions and interactions that exhibit concern, provide support, nurture, meet students’ needs, and promote their success and well-being. We distinguish between care and caring. Care refers to an action provided on behalf of another. According to occupational sociologists Pamela Abbott and Liz Meerabeau, when associated with particular vocations, such acts are considered professional care or caregiving.¹⁰ Acts of care are very important to address students’ needs and concern.