More Fully Human: Principals as Freirean Liberators

Abstract

Introduction This article calls for investigation into a new breed of urban school leadership consistent with Freirean notions of dialogue, praxis, and pedagogy (Freire, 1993) in work with youth. Critical theorists have called for educational practices that emphasize political role that teachers and students play in educational process. Their vision of education calls for students to locate themselves in historical process that has left them with little to count on and to struggle against social reproduction that gives life to inequality that is so pernicious in capitalist American society. The central question is: How can principals mold critical understandings about education into a coherent model of liberatory leadership? An examination of work of these critical theorists begins analysis. A Central Paradox Exploring implications for liberatory practice on role of school leaders is a journey that finds within itself a central paradox: liberatory principals, with responsibility of operating a state-sponsored school, must fend off influence of state and its attendant economic and social inequities. Critical theorists, almost by definition, are wary of traditional forms of power and tend to address teachers much more than principals in much of their work. This role of teacher (not principal) as a public intellectual (Giroux, 1992) is focus of much critical theory. The development of courageous, liberatory teachers who can navigate current political realities so that their students can read both the word and world (Freire, 1993) seems to be goal, not developing critical principals. To be sure, role of teacher in any liberatory project is essential, but scholars have also identified inherent problems when a school leader does not support programs in his/her school (Hannay, 2001; McLaughlin & Mitra, 2001). If a school is charged with successfully educating a population that is seen by some as little more than fodder for factories and prisons of a capitalist society (Willis, 1977), then collaboration among educators and educational leaders seems essential. Without it, courageous teachers swimming against current soon become exhausted (Vibert & Portelli, 2000), or, even worse, fatalistic and hopeless (Freire, 1997). As Marilyn Frakenstein notes, if dialogical classroom experience is isolated ... then only fragments of critical consciousness can (1987, p.201). There must be a role for principals in liberatory project. As Friere (1990) notes: The above does not mean that in dialogical task there is no role for revolutionary leadership. It means merely that leaders--in spite of their important, fundamental, indispensable role--do not own people and have no right to steer people blindly towards their salvation. Such a salvation would be a mere gift from leaders to people--and a breaking of dialogical bond between them, and a reducing of people from co-authors of liberating action into objects of this action. (p.168) Thus, it seems that both principals and teachers need to work in concert to develop critical consciousness in their students. If one or other does not commit fully to such a mission, results may suffer. So how then do critical theorists, often wary of traditional sources of power such as principal, propose that school leaders align themselves with a school-wide mission to foster a pedagogy that will allow students to view themselves as agents in history with ability to name and struggle against forces of oppression? Bring Me Your Downtrodden Peter McLaren, in a memorial to Jim Montgomerie, a principal McLaren encountered early in his teaching career, writes that Jim was an ethical rebel, educational outlaw (2003, p.179). Among characteristics McLaren cites as admirable in this school leader are his love and respect for students, his humanistic approach, his disdain for those bent on maintaining status quo, and his lasting desire to fight discrimination. …