Abstract
ABSTRACT Busy leaders need time to reflect and renew. They need to consider the particularities of their school and the ways in which they can work with others in the school community to address pressing issues, as well as to make future plans. The metaphor of the studio offers some helpful avenues for thinking how this reflection might occur. Artists use their studios for respite, not knowing, generating new ideas, risk taking, integrating theory and practice, exercising criticality and developing socially just practices. Leaders might take a lead from artists; however, there are both space and time challenges to making the studio a practical possibility.
Highlights
After my first seven years I took a break to research at university, and I am allowing myself membership of one or two professional and Government committees, even though during meetings I find I am thinking about the school most of the time. (Winkley, 2002, p. 233)
I begin by indicating my approach to metaphor, the need for leaders to develop a reflective practice, and address the artist’s studio and studio practice
I point to studio practice relevant to busy school leaders - not knowing, generating new ideas, risk taking, integrating theory and practice, criticality and socially just practices
Summary
Metaphor is integral to everyday meaning-making (Ricoeur, 1975). As key metaphor researchers Lakoff and Johnson (1983) point out, metaphor - metaphorical concept - is not something confined to poets and orators, but is pervasive in human thinking and speech. Lumby and English (2010) note a current decline in positive metaphors about leadership: notions of stewardship and cultivation, for example, have fallen out of favour. English (2008) offers a positive take on leadership metaphor, identifying leadership as both science and art. He suggests that work with metaphors might inform the teaching of, for and about, educational leadership Leaders in contemporary standards and audit driven systems need, he suggests in concert with Lumby, to have a critical perspective on the wider context and forces at play that support or impede learning. Thinking about metaphors can be an important aspect of a reflective leaders’ practice. I offer an elaboration of the studio as a way of thinking how to sustain leadership practice and to withstand the pressures of current policy agendas
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