3 Brains Overflowing - NZEALs Conference with Mel and Bev

On April 18th to 20th I was fortunate to attend the New Zealand Educational Administration Leadership Society conference at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. This organization supports leadership and innovation in education sectors in New Zealand. They have strong networks across primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions and are known for sharing research as well as quality practice while supporting aspiring and existing leaders.

I attended the conference with the lovely and lively Mel Bland and Bev Aerenga from Te Uho O Te Nikau. We thought that the conference was well organized with a range of inspirational think leaders as presenters providing us with a smorgasbord of learning around reconceptualusing leadership in Aotearoa. It was clear to us that a lot of thought had been put into the design of the three-day conference as each day had a different Focus.  For example Wednesday was about leadership for cultural inclusivity Thursday focused on leadership for collaboration and Friday was all about leadership for sustainability. 

My thinking was challenged around how we engage Maori and Pacifika communities within our New Zealand education sector. We were provoked as educational leaders to consider how we could should and need to enact change in our schools to ensure equity while remembering that the context of each individual school and surrounding community is central to how we do this. Organizational change requires leadership, relationships and project management skills and in order to enact this change we need to be transformative servant leaders. 
See all of my notes here and my Synopsis below. 

Kicking things off we were immersed in the aspirations of Chris Hipkins, Minister of Education who reminded us that educational leadership, not governance, will make the biggest difference for our learners and that we have the responsibility to empower the teaching profession by unleashing the potential of the NZC without the constraints of National Standards. And closing the conference was Professor Martin Thrupp from U of W emphasising the importance of policy and being brave leaders through our individual and collective leadership voice. Tahu Kukutai (UoW) challenged us to consider if we are working towards diversity or divergence and proclaims that Maori have been removed from the conversation at the policy level for too long.  The professor asks how are we addressing racism and colonialism in our education system when more than 10% of people identify with multiple ethnicities and more than half of Maori identify with another ethnicity? If Te Tirit o Waitangi is essentially our first immigration policy, how are we honouring this? Do we as a nation view Maori as a problem to solve and migrants as a resource?  What is our vision for national belonging and how can we embrace an indigenous disposition? A lot of questions with little time for discussion on possible solutions. Fortunately, Professor Melinda Webber (UoA) reminded us of the aspirations within Ka Hikatea and the 8 characteristics (Ka Awatea) for realising Maori potential. Local leaders Deidre Alderson, Laurie Thew and Di Cavallo share how their schools embrace and respond to cultural diversity highlighting the need for cultivating a sense of belonging through visible values, strong educator-learner relationships, effective transitions to school and how doing what we do when we don’t know what to do (as leaders) sets the tone for our school community.  Additionally, Sue Dockett, ECE expert from University of Australia suggested that effective school transitions are seamless, invisible, peaceful and to achieve these we must examine the: opportunities, aspirations, expectations and entitlements of those involved.  How do we develop social respect, personal regard, competence and perceived integrity as we induct whanau into our schools? Damon Salesa charismatically provoked us with the fact that future Pasifka leaders are here in NZ, and we have segregated ourselves socioeconomically and ethnically, so how are we growing this leadership resource?  If we know disruptive innovation occurs in areas of disadvantage and every single Decile 10 ten school outperformed every single Decile 1 school what does the future hold? Noelen Wright shared her research on how educators and learners make sense of an ILE (Rotouna), the nature of collaboration and involving community in learning authentically, calling for leaders to think and act differently.  Her learning identified the difficulties and struggles of leading in ILEs which aligned with the message from Rachael McNae (UoW) who highlights the importance of relational leadership- why is change so unnatural in human organisations? Ross Notman, University of Otago, outlined his research on what effective principals do→  1.Leading T&L, Support for staff PL 3.Care for our OWN personal and PL 4. Collaborative Leadership Strategies  5. Intrapersonal leadership. Dr Bruce Barnett, University of Texas shares explores the differences between mentoring (expertise, longer)  coaching (skills based) and counseling (emotional) and how these feature in our development and induction of emerging leaders. Dr Howard Youngs proclaimed we are human beings not human doings and asks “what’s damaging the conditions of learning, teaching and research in your organisation?”  While Murray Fletcher reminded us that the hardest thing to shift is a person's beliefs. What do I/we stand for? How can we go about connecting head, heart and hand because modern leadership needs integrative thinkers and thinking!  What are the cognitive, psychological and social aspects of effective leadership?