Education Week - October 30, 2019 - 14

Principals' Skills Are Challenged in Outdoor Experience
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Testing Leadership Styles
They rock-climb, rappel, paddle canoes, and undertake an hours-long,
goal-oriented form of hiking, called
orienteering. Principals must observe
each other and write those observations in a journal, which every principal receives at the end of camp. Each
one also has to do personal reflection.
Activities such as rock-climbing and
rappelling address personal perseverance and force principals to confront
doubts they may have about their
abilities.
"The idea is to give it a shot, and if
you fall short, OK, there will be other
opportunities for success," Masters
said.
But other activities clearly stress
teamwork-including gathering feedback and building consensus-and
how leaders need to adapt as circumstances change. Take for example the
orienteering hike, the activity that
most school leaders interviewed by

School leaders paddle across a
Missouri lake as part of an outdoor
leadership experience that had them
navigating the deep woods and put
their collaboration, decisionmaking,
and other skills to the test.

Photos by Whitney Curtis for Education Week

who participated in the state's "outdoor leadership experience" for
school leaders.
Each fall, school leaders from across
the state spend three days in the
woods, away from the pressures and
routines of their buildings to engage
in a series of challenges that organizers say push them to strengthen their
leadership skills and test their mettle,
both professionally and personally.
The experience immerses principals
in activities in the outdoors-this
year's camp was in Potosi, Mo.-that
take them outside their comfort zone,
organizers say.
They must work in teams, with people they recently met, to accomplish
their goals. That requires them to
sharpen their communication skills,
build trust, and collaborate with others who, in many cases, do not share
their leadership styles-all things principals must master to effectively run
their school buildings.
They also have to find the balance
in knowing when to take charge, and
when to fall back.
"None of [these initiatives] can be
accomplished individually, and so,
in that respect, it's similar to what
we are trying to accomplish in a
school building," said Jim Masters,
a former superintendent who is the
coordinator of educator evaluation
and training in the state education
department.
To be clear, Masters stressed, "It's
not just 'go out and play in the woods
for three and half days and hope
something sticks.' "
"It's a very intentional process,
and we work hard to make sure that
the connection to practice is self-evident," he said.
Throughout the tasks, school leaders reflect on how what they are doing
is applicable to their day-to-day work,
how they could use those skills in
their buildings, and how what they are
learning will help them become better
leaders once they return to school.

You could apply
our experience
[in the camp] to
leading change in
school, moving
an initiative
forward when
you have some
resistance."
KIRSTEEN JAMES
principal, Weldon Springs, Mo.

14 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 30, 2019 | www.edweek.org

Education Week cited as the most
grueling.
Divided into groups of 12 to 15
people, the leaders had to collect
up to 15 flags, which were planted at
various intervals along a course that
took them up steep inclines, down
into "hollers," and paddling a canoe
across a lake.
They started around noon, got a
crash course in using a compass and
a topographical map and were sent
on their way. They were expected to
cook a spaghetti dinner over a campfire along the route.
Their tools were what they had
packed in their backpacks. One principal had garden shears, which came in
handy when they needed to clear the
trail. One brought rope. Another, after
checking with colleagues who had do
this before, packed a laser pointer.
Some school leaders were experienced hikers; others had put on
hiking boots for the first time. Some
were meticulous planners-or "factfinders," who prefer a detailed plan on
how to get from A to Z. Other school
leaders were "quick starts," who once
they got the task, were rearing to go.
(The principals had taken an assessment in the summer that categorizes
their leadership style.)
Kirsteen James, the interim principal at Francis Howell Middle School

in Weldon Springs, got back to the
camp's base at 3 a.m., more than 12
hours after her group departed the
previous day.
James' group got off to a rough start,
taking five hours to find the first three
flags and spending hours looking for
just one flag, she said.
"It took a while to collaborate and
come up with a system that would
work for us," said James, "not typically an outdoorsy" person.
Part of the problem was that there
were too many cooks in the kitchen,
or, as she said with a laugh, "too many
principals on the trail."
"We were all guilty," said James,
who described the exercise as a great
opportunity to see how other leaders
who shared her "quick start" style took
charge and when they decided to step
back.
Tired, frustrated, and after a number of false starts, they made it back to
camp with 11 of the 15 flags, she said.
In a way, the orienteering was very
much like a school, where principals
just have to persevere when things get
difficult, James said.
"You could apply our experience
to leading change in school, moving
an initiative forward when you have
some resistance," she said.
But the exercise could also be an
allegory about resources, which are

often in short supply in schools and
school districts, Masters said.
When the sun is high in the sky,
the school leaders have tools at their
disposal that they take for granted,
including the availability of light and
the ability to figure out a route by just
looking around.
But as it gets dark, those things disappear, the landscape changes, and so
do the group dynamics, Masters said.
"When it gets dark, you kind of
reach that point of chaos ... ," said Jenni
Hayes, the principal of Grandview Elementary School in Higginsville, who
attended the outdoor leadership experience in her second year as a principal
and has since returned as a facilitator.
"I haven't had anybody really yell
at [another] ... But you definitely get
these moments of chaos as they're
trying to figure things out, and you're
letting them fail."

Learning From Mistakes
Mark Burlison, the principal of Blue
Ridge Elementary School in Columbia, Mo., and his group made it back
to camp at around 1:30 a.m., with 13
flags.
Along the way, the group got lost
about six times because they made
decisions too quickly and changed
course a couple of times only to end

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Education Week - October 30, 2019

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