Education Reflection Essay Examples

Although universities are not designed to make leaders per se, the knowledge and experience that a person gathers in higher education can result in perspectives that can generate conflict in the workplace. Not all degrees are equal, and/ or provide the same information to individuals, so well-intentioned and educated people rarely come to the same conclusion, which means their challenges often times orbit around the idea of generating consensus, respect and developing teamwork amongst disagreement and difference. One systemic method for ensuring that an organization remains effective is to provide job-specific templates that limit a person’s role through compartmentalization of responsibilities. The idea behind the compartmentalization is that when responsibilities do not overlap, then conflict and disagreement is minimalized.

Leadership vs. Management

Rules provide a great sense of security to many people. Rules spare a person from having to analyze, or think creatively to solve problems. Also, rules are a convenient scapegoat when desired outcomes are not achieved. The problem with rules is that they hinder the individual’s ability to affect change, and to lead in transient situations and groups of diverse people. One colloquial slogan of leadership that has many forms is: a follower asks if it is legal, a leader asks if it is right.
Larger production or corporate entities, which includes academia, cannot have unpredictable skews or tangents from the norm. There must be a consistent and reliable product. The reason is that the production entity, the ones who produce, represent a mechanism too large to manage, thus there needs to be an expectation of behavior demonstrated through adherence to rules. The reason is that if something does go wrong, it is very difficult to find, identify and solve the problem.
Rules are needed however. The opposite of an overly authoritarian structure is not formless anarchy. But what needs to be understood is that rules are to serve an agenda, and when said agenda is threatened by adherence to rules, then the rules are no longer applicable. What must happen in order for the workplace decision making to reflect the ability to make independent decisions regarding adherence to rules, and best steer the daily habits, is to encourage evaluations and refinement of procedures through creativity and experimentation.
The daily habits of a director at a tutorial service providers consists of: school visits on behalf of parents and enrolled student; scheduling of teachers; payroll; diagnostic testing evaluations; curriculum creation; marketing; parent conferences; student progress monitoring and continued corporate training. Hours of operation are often split between two or more full-time staff members of compartmentalized responsibilities of daily maintenance tasks and is often of a casual business atmosphere.
The difficult image to balance is one of professionalism and that of a person a young student can relate with. For instance, when school is challenging or there are behavioral issues, the appearance of yet another authority figure must be meted out with the good intention of the center’s staff. Parents want to see one thing, but if the student cannot open up in-center, there will be no progress when there is a belief that their in-center time is an extension of school. Some institutions require state certifications or teaching credentials, while others require advanced degrees and teaching experience.

Robot Leadership

Needless to say, said structure is overly authoritarian to the point that many of the events during the day can nearly be performed via a script. The same questions are asked and answered in every facet of the job. The leadership, which implies a specific, or unique knowledge base, is snuffed through pedantic routine and a lack of originality. Without the ability to utilize his, or her own knowledge and/ or expertise in the production of work, a person will atrophy and shrivel to the level of their peers, no longer effectively leading.
What the above means is that in order to serve certain roles in professional education, a person must succumb to the gambit of motivation. If a person truly wants to create positive growth, change, and become a problem solver, than he, or she must possess an inordinate amount of intrapersonal strength because there will be conflict with the institution. But, if a person sees involvement as a means-to-an-end, then going through the motions will not require any special resiliency.
The extrinsically motivated person will take the shortest, most obvious path to get the reward at the finish line. The intrinsically motivated person will explore various pathways and alternatives, taking his/her time and enjoying the process along the way. This exploration will lead to novel, alternative solutions, some of which will turn out to be more appropriate and successful than the original, obvious path. (Adams, 2005, p.10)
Some companies only require familiarity with a specific subject matter and often a center’s success has historically been determined by the teaching staff’s ability and competency, not certifications or prior experience. The future outlook of these professionals is bright. Over the last few decades, several companies have experienced tremendous growth and although some have had to scale back to fallacious economic myths, there is now a recent upswing as colleges and new SAT formatting has present a challenge to recent high school graduates.
Huntington has a tremendous reputation as being able to aid in the reparation of skill gaps in a student’s ability. Center by center though, there are inconsistencies of teacher and administrative quality. The room for professional growth within HLC is fantastic and merit based as the smaller corporate structure ensures a closer relationship with all levels of management resulting in real-time recognition of ability and performance. Because of the fact that HLC requires a four-year degree as a minimum qualification, there are many in management and leadership positions with advanced degrees and of whom have chosen Huntington as the organization that reflects their personal and public desires for betterment and ethics.
Ultimately, creativity and leadership are not qualities that are desired as primary motivators or character defining elements. Both creativity and leadership in the professional educator’s workplace are snippets of character that are sought, but only to the degree that the individual can minimize the spread of any problem, or reduce an issue’s distracting collateral damage, but no matter how great an idea, solution, or valid a suggestion, there are limits to the precedent an individual will be allowed to establish.
The idea itself is counter-intuitive, but schools are not meant to hone leadership or originality. Great leaders and thinkers must buck the natural boundaries that are created via a syllabus and learning outcomes that are meant for mass groups, and discover what the information they are absorbing means to them. As a result, ancillary fields of education, and professional educators themselves, must cope with an institutional structure that does not allow for great deviations from a norm (Preistley, 1963).

References

Adams, K. (2005). The sources of innovation and creativity. National Center on Education and the Economy.
Priestley, J. B. (1963). Adventures in English literature (Laureate ed.). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.