By Mike Pardee, founding faculty member gcLi, Master Educator, Revolution School (PA)
As we approach what would have been the 16th incarnation of the gcLi Leadership Lab at the Fountain Valley School this June, it seems appropriate to reflect back on how it has evolved over its decade-and-a-half of serving hundreds of participants and thousands of their students. Its core founding mission, of course, has never wavered: Educating Teachers to Teach Leadership to Students. But our Pedagogy of Leadership® and the curriculum of the Lab have intentionally, strategically evolved since to keep it on the cutting edge of state-of-the-art leadership development approaches.
2020’s evolution is a little more pronounced, of course. In response to the pandemic, the 2020 Leadership Lab will function more virtually — in the remote learning mode to which we’ve all grown so familiar in recent months. This summer’s online mentoring program launched successfully and features video webinars and teaching modules via Zoom, with smaller groups convening for case studies and follow-up discussions facilitated by gcLi faculty, in Zoom breakout rooms.
Among the three other most significant changes over these first fifteen years have been: the preparation and expectations of the participants who come to the Leadership Lab; how we design the learning experiences to convey gcLi’s core principles; and the ways in which the Lab has grown from a week-long experience to one that lasts a full year — or more.
Few participants at the first few Leadership Labs after 2005 had worked extensively yet–either explicitly or implicitly–on developing the leadership potential of their students. Few schools had formal leadership development programs or courses back then, so it was rarely a specific part of faculty job descriptions. By contrast, many more participants now arrive at the Lab both more knowledgeable about and experienced in providing leadership education in their schools. At first, we served more educators playing primarily conventional roles (like subject-matter teachers in specific disciplines, coaches, advisors, etc.). Lately, many more are heading or founding the kinds of explicit leadership-development programs that are much more common in schools today.
Second, our Pedagogy of Leadership® and leadership development curriculum during the Lab has become much more dynamic and interactive. Harvard professor Ron Heifetz would call our approach to teaching about teaching leadership increasingly adaptive. We have markedly decreased “sage on the stage” time for faculty with carefully crafted, curated PowerPoint presentations. Faculty function now more as adaptive mentors (or “guides on the side”), and we have much less seat time for participants as we deliver background information on approaches to teaching leadership or learning and the brain. Increasingly, we leverage active learning in the Lab groups in lieu of whole group didactic instruction all together in the big room.
Third, the ongoing Extension Groups have made the Leadership Lab more of a year-long experience than just the original week-long one. We often use Zoom or Skype to stay in touch with our Lab groups — usually monthly — over the course of the ensuing year. More active use of social media by gcLi grads also enables alums to keep in closer touch with each other for months — even years — thereafter. Our gcLi blog performs a similar function. Scores of participants and faculty have written blog posts or newsletter articles by now. And many have begun implementing impressive leadership development programs within their own schools. Similarly, the Leadership Scholars program brings two or three gcLi alumni back to campus each June to serve as mentors for participants and share their particular areas of expertise with their faculty colleagues. Several of these Scholars have ended up becoming gcLi faculty members themselves.
One ongoing challenge for the Leadership Lab remains how best to incorporate important new learning about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion as they relate to the Pedagogy of Leadership®. The Lab has made some progress thus far in better addressing D, E, & I issues; but our attention to how gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, and other salient demographic factors influence the practice and inform the Pedagogy of LeadershipⓇ remains one of the gcLi’s growing edges. Clearly, this area has become an increasingly important aspect of the gcLi’s mandate and mission over the years.
Needless to say, the recent murderous incidents targeting Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd — and even the outrage to which Christian Cooper was subjected while birdwatching in Central Park — have put this DEI imperative in even starker relief. Accordingly, a dedicated DEI presentation by two gcLi faculty features prominently in this summer’s online mentoring program. And the time and attention devoted to these central issues will only grow in future Leadership Labs and the work of gcLi as a whole.
Naturally, the gcLi’s evolution hasn’t always been steady. Or linear. And there have been some noteworthy anomalies from one year to the next, including: our evacuation from campus as wildfires approached in 2014; the June of 2010 when searing heat pushed sweltering participants and the HVAC capacities of the FVS dorms to their limits; or the 2009 (5th) year after the 2008 crash when professional development budgets shrunk significantly — as did attendance at the Lab. This year’s pivot to a remote learning format fits well within this adaptive pattern.
The gcLi’s annual Leadership Lab is aptly named. The “Lab” in its title obviously stands for “laboratory.” That’s because the learning environment of the Lab is designed and intended to function as a crucible, of sorts: to generate learning for participants via experiential immersion in elements of heat and/or light to help illuminate the essence of leadership. This crucible learning experience prevails for the gcLi faculty (and scholars) — indeed the gcLi itself as a whole, as well. We continue to solicit detailed feedback from participants throughout and via the extensive survey assessment at the end of the Lab. This information remains invaluable, of course, and helps to keep us on track.
Almost all of the faculty for the 2020 online mentoring version of the Leadership Lab will be new to the gcLi (save for founding faculty member Mike Pardee and for Jeremy Lacasse reprising his role as founding Executive Director after several years in the gcLi Dean of Faculty role). Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair has ably succeeded the inimitable Dr. JoAnn Deak as our Institute Scholar, and Dr. Ted Fish has retired from his gcLi duties after 10 years as Executive Director. Fortunately, Mr. Carney and the Carney family, Founders of the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute, remain as committed as ever to the enterprise. So we all look forward enthusiastically to many more rewarding, transformative outcomes for our collective learning and leadership development in 2020 and well beyond.
Mike Pardee is a Master Educator in the humanities at the innovative, place-based, civically engaged Revolution School in Philadelphia. He previously served as Associate Director, Dean of Faculty, and Academic Program Director at Lab Atlanta, a similar semester-school program for 10th graders. Pardee also served as the Associate Director of Community Engagement for the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice University, dedicated to nurturing tolerance among people of all and no faiths, especially youth, and to studying the conditions in which tolerance and intolerance flourish. Pardee has served as Director of Character Education at the Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas, and as Executive Director of the Leadership Initiative at Suffield Academy in Connecticut. He also has several years’ experience teaching and coaching at various independent schools, including Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico and Concord Academy in Massachusetts. He did his undergraduate work at Princeton University, earned his M.A. in American Studies from Boston University, and a second M.A. in private school leadership from Columbia Teachers College. His years of research and first-hand experience inform his ongoing exploration of both the theoretical and practical applications of leadership training and character development at the gcLi Leadership Lab.