2012 UCEA Convention

Examining the Implications of Poetics as Pedagogy for Understanding Ethical Frames and Moral Literacy in Leadership. Patrick M. Jenlink, Stephen F. Austin State University
The author examines, using educational poetics as form of aesthetic inquiry, pedagogical practices that incorporate a poetics of leadership activity. Poetics involves a deepening understanding and sensitivity to ethical reasoning and moral imagination, and mirrors how events, actions, and the conduct of others can all express intellectual, aesthetic, and moral meaning. Poetics as an aesthetic mirror is examined in developing moral literacy and ethical frames of leadership. Four years of research data are reported.

Leadership Matters: Changing the Future of Educational Leadership in Urban Spaces through a Pneumatic/Pragmatic Collaboration. Michael Dantley, Miami University
This paper attempts to add the presence of a spiritual or pneumatic element to what have been outlined as the necessary components of administrative theory and will explore the essential synthesis or coalition of both the pneumatic and pragmatic aspects of school leadership/

Mobilizing for Battle: War Discourses in School Organizations. Patricia A.L. Ehrensal, The George Washington University; Helen A. Nixon, The George Washington University
War language isn’t a new phenomenon in school organizations. However, these metaphors are now used to describe schools, pedagogy, personnel, and procedures. We will present a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of war-speak phrases commonly used in a school district. Of particular concern is how this discourse shapes the process in these organizations as well as the relationships of both the organizational actors and the organization with the community it serves.

Unleashing learning through moral purpose: the Leaders Transforming Learning and Learners Project. Michael Bezzina, Australian Catholic University
This session explores the various ways in which an explicit focus on the moral purpose of learning influenced the behaviours and learning of both teachers and students in an ongoing Australian research project. Influences were noted by teachers in their own attitudes, classroom practice and leadership practice. Students were seen as demonstrating better achievement, greater engagement and higher levels of reasoning.