INQUIRY TO PRACTICE: EXPANDING THE IDEAS AND STRENGTHS OF QUAKER EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Erika Kitzmiller

Context

I felt like a fish out of water when I began this leadership program. A lifelong educator who has taken many paths that led me from middle school to higher education, I sat in our Quaker circle feeling somewhat envious that my colleagues were inside the chaos and joy of schooling each day and a bit confused about my role as someone who spent her days in the quiet and isolation that university life often promotes. I have spent more than a decade teaching action research and wanted to do something that mattered, but I need time and space to reflect on what that might be. What could someone like me, who feels so removed from schooling, contribute?

I had many ideas, but none felt quite right. And as I always tell my students, when they are doing their action research projects, write about a topic you care deeply about, a topic you can’t stop thinking about, a topic that you, as a human being, are uniquely qualified to do. None of my original ideas met this bar. I could do them, but these ideas felt like a task list rather than an exciting research question that kept me up at night. So, one by one, I rejected these ideas even though I didn’t know what I actually wanted to do.

Fortunately, one afternoon in the spring 2023 retreat, we had a panel, where Daryl Ford described this leadership program, as a gift, a gift to have time to be away from our daily commitments and obligations, a gift to be in a community with dedicated and wonderful colleagues, a gift to think deeply who were all are and how we wanted to develop. That sparked a thought about how I might be able to leverage this time to both receive and, dare I say, create what I hoped could be a gift to this community. A community that has taught me so much about myself and the critical role that Quaker educators play in our highly inequitable and fractured society today. Over time, I began to see myself less as a fsh out of water and more like a unicorn, a someone once told me. As an educator who has always traveled a less linear but, at least from my perspective, an intentional path that had led me to this point. I was different, but over time, I slowly began to feel like, maybe, just maybe, I belonged in that Quaker circle among those wonderful people. That shift happened because of the gift of this space and the remarkable humans—the incredible Quaker facilitators and educators—that I spent so many hours with at Pendle Hill and my mentor, Bryan Garman, who taught me more about educational collaborative and refective educational leadership than I can put into words.

Process

When I reflected on the gift that I had received—this gift of two years of concentrated thinking and learning—and the gift that I wanted to generate—the product of my action research, I finally decided to do something that is, in many ways, my gift. I wanted to interview educators about their insights and knowledge about educational practice and leadership and weave that knowledge into stories so that others might learn from and reflect on the collective wisdom that educators possess but rarely have the opportunity to share beyond their classroom and school walls.

I started this action research where I start every research project. I started with books and conversations. I spoke with our wonderful retreat facilitators, Drew, Irene, Shu Shu, and my wonderful cohort, who pushed me to think more about Quaker education and leadership. I spoke with Bryan Garman about my ideas when we met at Sidwell. During my visit, I naively asked Bryan if he had any book recommendations, not knowing how much Bryan loves books, and then suddenly found myself stuffing my suitcase with nearly a dozen books that he thought I “might want to read.” Some of the books that Bryan gave me were Quaker texts about education and other books were about social change, equity, and justice. During our fall 2023 retreat, I spent about an hour at the Pendle Hill bookstore, painstakingly looking for books and pamphlets that might help me understand Quaker teaching, specifically how it relates to children’s development and schooling. I walked away with another dozen books that helped me understand the unique aspects of Quaker thought and education. These conversations and books were gifts, time for me to learn and reflect, grow and develop, think and dream.

Next Steps

My action research project is a series of interviews with Quaker educational leaders about their leadership practice and commitment to Quaker ideas and values. The work is inspired, at least in part, by the Context thought-provoking inquiries that Drew Smith posed to our panelists who graciously came to our retreats and by a Pendle Hill pamphlet, “Advices & Queries for Friends School Community Life,” written by Sean Compagnucci, who wrote this work as part of his action research project. This fall and spring, I have refined and finalized the inquiries that I plan to use in these interviews and, over the next several months, hope to complete and draft a narrative of what I have learned from these books and conversations. In the spirit of Quaker teaching, I have decided to expand the concept of leadership beyond the head of school. This move, I hope, will help us learn from the myriad ways that individuals in our schools contribute to and advance Quaker teaching and learning throughout these communities and help us address and ultimately dismantle the hierarchical power structures that the word leadership typically promotes. If anyone is interested in being interviewed and sharing their wisdom about Quaker educational practice and leadership, please reach out. I’d love to learn from and with you!

ERIKA KITZMILLER

Term Assistant Professor, Education Barnard CollegeNew York, NY

Erika Kitzmiller is a term assistant professor of educational studies at Barnard College, Columbia University and a research affliate at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her teaching and scholarship examine the historical processes and current efforts that have contributed to and mitigated educational inequality today. Erika uses original quantitative and qualitative data and methods to understand the intersection of educational policy and practice and its impact on educators, families, and youth. Erika’s teaching and research are rooted in inquiry-driven, practice-based methods to advance educational equity and social justice. A lifelong educator, Erika has worked as an administrator, consultant, and teacher in public and independent schools in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and is the author of The Roots of Educational Inequality: Philadelphia’s Germantown High School, 1907 – 2014. She is finishing her second book, Unchartered: Reimagining the American High School.