Episode 26: The Characteristics of a Good Leader

MaryAnn Joseph joins me on this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast.. MaryAnn is a National Board Certified teacher, and is a teacher-leader as a current college professor and a former special education consultant with the New Jersey Department of Education. During our conversation, we discuss some important characteristics of what makes someone a leader, and the three essential leadership components of inclusive education

Transcript

Arthur: This is the inclusion think tank podcast Brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education NJCIE. Where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen.

On today’s episode, I welcome my guest, MaryAnn Joseph. MaryAnn is a National Board, Certified teacher, who has spent more than 40 years in the classroom throughout the nation, in both special education and general education settings. She is a teacher-leader as a current college professor and a former special education consultant with the New Jersey Department of Education.

During our conversation, we discuss some important characteristics of what makes someone a leader, and the three essential leadership components of inclusive education.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I am your host, Arthur Aston, and I am very happy to welcome my guest on the show today, MaryAnn Joseph.

MaryAnn, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm glad to speak with you again and to have you on as a guest today.

MaryAnn: My pleasure. Arthur, it's good to talk with you.

Arthur: Yes. So I start off every episode by asking a form of this question which is to ask my guest to introduce themselves. So can you share a little bit about your story and how you became interested in the world of inclusive education?

MaryAnn: So my story goes way back, Arthur. There are over 40 years of experience that I have clocked in this area of education, leaving high school in the seventies to pursue a degree in special education at Southern Connecticut State at that time, College, now a university. I was always interested in teaching, but I wondered what it would be like to teach kids with disabilities and what would that job look like.

And so I spent time in education preparing to teach. And as I did that, I realized that I was getting to know a lot about disabilities. In the seventies, we were all about labeling kids. Kids were kids with cognitive disabilities. Kids were kids with physical disabilities. We just labeled lots of things in regard to what kids might need or what kids had gaps in.

And I started doing that, being able to see different kinds of kids and worked with a lot of different kinds of kids at the quality Center in New Haven, in schools in New Haven. But I started wondering what I was going to do with them once I figured out what was wrong with them or what was right with them.

So I went over to the Department of Elementary Education and I said, Hey, I'm a student in the Special Education Department, and I take some classes in elementary ed, and believe it or not, that was not a common thing to happen in the seventies. They said, Oh, no, you get your classes in special ed. That's another building down on the other side of campus.

MaryAnn: After a lot of conversation and adding additional classes to my five-class load, to figure out not just what disabilities meant or what kids needed in terms of their gaps, but what they might learn.

That would be the education with everybody else who was learning mostly areas of reading and math, but I did that so that I could know as a teacher what to plan for, what to teach those kids in rooms that weren't in the same room as kids without disabilities.

That's where we were in the seventies, but that's where my first questions began.

Arthur: Wow. That's really great to hear that you were, interested right away when you were, taking college courses and just really interested in seeing how you can help those students with disabilities just to learn like everybody else and to even though they were in separate classrooms back then, and, you saw the need to, make that happen and to help them out.

I like what you said to find out what was right and what they could do and just really focus on that and make it happen. I love hearing the beginnings of people's journey into the world of inclusive education and to just seeing how they got to where they are.

And as you said, that's over 40 years ago, it’s just really, really cool.

MaryAnn: Well, thanks. Thanks. It was just a good, honest quest. Yes. To try and make classrooms the best they could for kids with disabilities.

Arthur: Yeah. So my next question is, how would you define inclusive education? What does inclusive education mean to you?

MaryAnn: Well, I think the first word that comes to mind is difficult. I think inclusive education is difficult. My role right now as a consultant and I work with school districts to try to include kids with disabilities, to try to build inclusive programming. I have to tell you it's not easy. It takes boldness, it takes patience, it takes lots of different pieces. And so I think it's hard to do or have inclusive education. That's the first word that comes to mind.

The second word that comes to mind is belonging. We want everybody to belong. We talk about these communities that we have as schools. We talk about schools as families, in fact, there is a school that in South Jersey has a big banner that you walk in that says, we are a family.

That's what schools are building these days, But we want it in an authentic way, not in a mascot way, not in an oh, it's so nice to take care of this person who looks different way, but a real true, authenticity. So words that are key to me when I think about inclusion is that it's difficult, is that it's about belonging, and is that it's about authenticity. Those three things are important.

Arthur: I love the authenticity part. That is, so true. It's not just we’re doing it because it's the thing that that's in right now. The cool thing to do, to really be authentic about it and to really, you know, just be true to what it is and really bring a sense, like you said, a sense of family, a sense of belonging and just true inclusion. That’s really great. I love that you mentioned the banner that hangs at the school.

MaryAnn: Yeah, it's great that I just love that banner. It's a great banner.

Arthur: Yeah, that really helps set the tone for, when you go in there and you see it, I'm sure it really helps set the tone for what that community means.

And that's I think the other thing about this community and, like I said, to go along with the belonging, it builds a sense of community and togetherness for everybody.

MaryAnn: Well,you make me wonder, you know, people will be listening to this podcast and thinking, what's my next step? What can I do?

Again, I work with a lot of schools like call School that a lot of people. And one of the things that has started to impress me is the way that people answer their phones, not the part that says we have currently changed our extensions, please listen carefully to the following absence. That part always cracks me up because it seems like everybody is changing their options.

But the thing that really gets me is we'll open up to a school district that will say ‘where all children read,’ ‘where all children can learn.’ Committed to quality and improving learning for all students. These kinds of statements may sound cliche, but they really set a tone. So we get introduced to a district in that first phone message or the first way that we are welcomed into their family or into their community.

So it is true, there are a lot of signs you can buy and Etsy is making a lot of money on things that tell us what inclusion might look like. But the truth is, in order to live it, we have to get it into our practice. So even the way that we answer our phones, the way that we sign our emails becomes a way that we can spread this mission. The importance of being inclusive.

Arthur: That is so very true. And I love what you said about the last part of signing your emails, the little quotes that people have and at the end of their signatures, like those are really, you know, you might think people don't pay attention to it, but a lot of people do.

And as you said, when you make a phone call someplace, how they start that conversation off with the voicemail. That is really, really true. And I think for me, I would say it's, you know, kind of just because it happens, I guess so often, as you said, it might sound cliche, some of them, because you hear those phrases often and all the time, but it really does.

it really does make a difference in how you are set, sets the tone for, you know, for of that experience with that school or that area, wherever you may be calling.

MaryAnn everything has to be complicated. We can make small steps in our personal patterns that can really influence in a big way.

Arthur: So this season of our podcast, we are focusing on school leadership and the role that those in leadership positions can play in creating an inclusive environment in the school. How can you share with us some important characteristics of what makes someone a leader?

MaryAnn: There's a great book out that I want to reference and I realize everybody's auditory as they listen to this, but this book is an easy title to remember. It's called Reimagining Special Education. I'll say it again, Reimagining Special Education, and it's written by two women; Jenna Rufo and Julie Causton. So Rufo and Causation have generated a great conversation around reimagining special education, and as I read through this book and I've read through it a few times, my puppy's a little dog-eared at this point.

It reminded me of the importance of the role of a leader. We are faced here in New Jersey with a mandatory responsibility. It's not something that we can choose to do or not do these days. Jersey's ranking as a state in the national rankings regarding inclusion was a sobering last in terms of 50, not 50, but 52 territories and states in the United States.

MaryAnn: Leaders in schools today face this data face this stark reality in a way that calls us to action. We have to do something about this. So we talk about leaders and inclusion here. We don't have a choice. And what we need to reimagine special education in terms of 21st century learning, in terms of the civil rights that students have to be in classrooms that are inclusive, where they are genuinely included as a part of that family and belong in that family.

So leaders, we just need to be aware of this huge responsibility laid before us that things need to change and change in New Jersey toward inclusion.

MaryAnn: So what makes a leader with that kind of stark reality facing us? Leaders have to have clear expectations, really define and understand what they are looking for in their schools so that they can build environments that are indeed inclusive.

Leaders have to be able to provide feedback that dedicates all to the mission, not just one or person, but really reads within an authority that says We are on this journey together, and that feedback that they provide in the hallway is part of a teacher observation at a board meeting has to be clearly closer to this important task of being inclusive in New Jersey, schools.

Leaders also have to believe that change can happen. Believe that they are part of that change. And finally, change-makers to make that work so that they can see and celebrate the change. Being a leader means knowing that there is work to be done and rolling your sleeves up and getting to the work so that we can make a difference.

Students are that important and students deserve the education that we offer to everyone as a civil right.

Arthur: That is that's great. I love the believe. Like they have to believe and feedback to. I think that is a really, really great thing to mention.

MaryAnn: The message there Arthur is not to be passive. You can't put a statement forward and say this is what we believe and then not live it every day. And again, the living it every day from the small things we do and the things we do. It's in the way we hire, it's in the way we organize our schools, it's in the way we're staff, it's in the way we build classrooms. It's a material we buy in all of those little pieces, but it's also in the way we say hello and good job in the hallway.

So leaders feedback is what keeps the wheels rolling toward the vision of that leader has. Otherwise, everybody just passively puts a checkmark next to something that they theoretically believe, but don’t see in action.

Arthur: It starts at the top, so for the leaders of the school districts to really believe in what they are, you know what they're putting out there, I think it's you know, it's really important to making everyone else come along and join that journey of making an inclusive environment in the school. I wanted to make sure that we touched on that and, you know, and to really share that information.

Arthur: My last question for you is again, for following along with the previous question about leadership, what would you say are three essential leadership components of inclusive education?

MaryAnn: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. I've had the pleasure of working with some districts in areas of reform and change. I give them credit for being ready for change, but in each of these areas, the first characteristic that just jumps off a page is that leaders are bold. Leaders are bold.

So we talk about leaders like in Haddonfield, New Jersey, Carmen Henderson, who boldly drew a plan to change the organizational style of programming in the district. This did not come without questions, without maybe some critical eye, but then boldness cut through because she was clearly dedicated to her mission.

Looking at districts like Cherry Hill, huge, twelfth largest in the entire state again, the bold of the director to be able to really know that they saw what could be better, and move toward that goal, never losing sight, never losing sight and keeping the target clear on what change could look like.

This is a characteristic I see. I see often with boldness, and I don't see often. I'm sorry, I don't see often. Oftentimes it's easy to shrink away from a bold step forward. It's hard sometimes to stand out there on your own and wait until everybody catches up.

MaryAnn: But leaders are bold. Leaders are bold enough to say what we're doing is good, but it can be better or what we're doing really needs a change. Those kinds of things, when we see them in leaders, they stand out.

We see them on a national level. We see leaders who rise to the forefront. We say to ourselves, How do they have the guts to do that? Why are they so committed? Now we see some of these leaders rise to the fore in the the turmoil and they captured our imagination and they capture our awe and wonder.

They make us rethink ourselves and what we are here for. That's the kind of boldness I see in some of the places that I’ve been. to really make the next step forward. So the first thing I would say is leaders are bold. I list, or name two people, but there are more.

And this is in my small world. So I don't mean to be exclusive to anyone, but I do mean to say that they are really out there. So I share the leaders that I talk about in order to say I'm not saying this in a vacuum, I'm saying it because we've seen and can find people that have made these bold steps.

And for those of you who are in education, maybe some of you are those both leaders, for those of us who've been around education for a while, that too, we found those leaders. But those kinds of leaders, they are the bold ones who step forward because they know where they're going. They want people to catch up with them.

MaryAnn: The second thing I would say and I say this from my passion, a place of passion as a former employee in the New Jersey Department of Education, we have made real knowledge that fake knowledge, not somebody else's knowledge, not book knowledge, but they need real knowledge of the New Jersey law and code. I might go so far as to say not just the New Jersey line, but the federal law and code, the statutes, that we live under.

Though code has always been sort of a beginning of where we can go, and what we can do for kids. It isn't meant to be exclusive, like the only thing we can do. It’s meant to give us direction. Leaders who don't want well grounded in those foundational pieces often get themselves mixed up. Maybe don't take steps forward that are cemented, maybe build a structure that has fractures and cracks.

Before you can be bold, you have to be knowledgeable. You have to know enough so that when you're making changes, you're making them strong footing and foundation. The other thing is, it’s hard to argue when the work comes from a good and clear direction as our IDEA code and our NJ administrative code. So I would say the second thing that we really need is knowledge of the law and code.

There's a lot of ways to get that. You can certainly study it. There are classes at Rutgers. I teach one of them. I'm sure a lot of our universities have law and code classes, but we find that in community as well. There's some really neat things happening in our counties where people come together and they ask themselves questions about law and code. It’s community that kind of brings life to the statutes that we can read that sometimes don't make much sense or don't give us real fruitful ways to embody the code.

MaryAnn: So it's the knowledge of law and code, but the application comes alive in talking about talking through it. What I love doing this in places that want to change. There's some leaders out there that give me a call from time to time. Tiffany in Mount Holly is one, I’m thinking of Katie. Those people want to make a change, but they want to be sure that they're walking in the right way, and so, this knowledge of law and code is something they check in on.

Again, that's building community. It's built with people who've been around world invested or been around since the inception of IDEA in the 70’s, right. But we need this real knowledge of law and code. We need to flesh it out, think about it, so that how we move forward is grounded in the true that national IDEA and statewide NJAC gives us the ability to do.

So going back, leaders and bold, leaders need real knowledge, so that they can make strong foundational change, and then leaders need to find success in small moments.

They need to realize that change needs at least three years sometimes to come to fruition. It doesn’t happen overnight. And if it doesn't happen overnight, good for you, and if you have been the recipient of that, you're lucky, because it's hard work, this thing called change. Leading, and leading to strength means that we have to take the part in small successes.

I work with leaders who sometimes are frustrated that everybody doesn't come in at the same time that there's questions that we find a gap, that we find something we didn't plan for. We get overwhelmed with that and say, forget it, we're not going to move forward. It's just too hard. Or, we can take time each day to find a success in the small moments.

MaryAnn: I want to think about kids that are sometimes a challenge. They are hard to handle. They are hard to include. We have to be honest and say that. This isn't easy work. Kids come with lots of need.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming to figure out how we can actually provide inclusion for them. that if we can take small successes, if we don't have to do all of it. Take as they say, small bites of the elephant, instead of trying to swallow the whole thing, maybe what we can do is be a success with the small successes.

I’m thinking of a school with a student who was challenged by some behavior regulation, this little boy would often just have meltdowns, sometimes it involved throwing things, sometimes breaking the glass window of the door that separated the classroom from the hallway. And you know those have thin laid wire in them. So breaking that glasses pretty hard to do.

This leader didn’t give up. This leader did not say, okay, this students needs to be somewhere else. Even though the safety of the students were his priority. He certainly emptied the classroom while helping the student regulate. We have lots of dedicated staff. He shared with parents that his desire was to include this student, using supports to make this work. We can imagine not everybody being on the same page, but in a supportive community where a mission has been established that we all belong, that we are family.

The boy went on to be included in that classroom, and the general ed classroom the next school year, with the dedication of staff, students and teachers who are able to put the pieces together. This what I mean by finally success in the small moments.

MaryAnn: Did he still have a plan that sometimes gave him time out of the classroom. Sure. Did he still have people that came into the classroom and a special signal to have that be an immediate call to action. Sure.

But instead of the easier result of putting him somewhere else, this success, even though it was hard to do, continued to build and breed a success, that was monumental. Certainly for this young man, but perhaps for all the students and teachers and the staff at this school.

So leaders are bold. They know where they're going, as they know where they're going, they settle soundly on the law and code that gives them direction to do that. but they also find the success.

I was class optimist in high school. For those people that know me, those who recognize my voice on this podcast. They'll probably recognize that as one of the ways that I see life. But I will say this as well. Sometimes I think voting being voted class optimist in high school is the one thing that brings me back to this work every single day with a way of looking at what works, not a way of looking at what didn’t work.

I pend time with lots and lots of districts that tell me what doesn't work. Here's the truth. We don't have a choice. We just have to be something we are all wrapped around as leaders is mandatory and I told you about the battle in New Jersey. So you can't keep finding a reason it doesn’t work.

We have to build those moments when we really can make a change happen in the state of New Jersey, make a change in schools.

Arthur: I love finding success and the little things. And I think that is true for the work of inclusion and just in life in general. I think that's a great advice. And as you said, being the optimist,

MaryAnn: There’s rough days Arthur. I got to go with it. It’s good that we remember the good days, so that we wake up the next morning.

Arthur: That's right. Yeah. That is such just great life advice in general to celebrate and find success in the little things. And like you said, it doesn't happen overnight, this inclusion, that it's not a big overnight success kind of thing that you'll see.

But in the small things, you can see that, this school year, you're not where you were last school year and not even last month. And just to keep moving forward and, just keep looking toward that end goal and knowing that you're headed in the right direction and like you said, to focus on what's going right and what works instead the things that don't work.

And yeah, you tried it. It didn't work, but you have to keep moving forward and, try other things and it's all going to work out. Although it may be slow and it may seem slow, the process and the journey, but it's all it's all worth it in the end to make sure that everybody is included and, a part of the whole community and the family that is the school and all of that.

So, yeah, that's really great.

Arthur: So, Marianne, thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed this conversation. I enjoyed speaking with you a few weeks ago to plan this this conversation. And a lot of the schools that you mentioned are in the area that I grew up in. So I'm very familiar with the work that they're doing and, the work that they have done.

I was actually in a school in Cherry Hill yesterday. Cherry Hill High School East. So. Yeah, Yeah. So I'm very familiar with these. What the districts in this Camden County area of New Jersey. So it's great to see and take care of the work that they that those districts and so many other districts are doing to, you know, make inclusion a a true and authentic experience in their districts for their students and the families.

I love what you said about the being authentic to it. That is so true and so important with, again, not just in the work of inclusion, but in life in general. It's just a great life Advice.

MaryAnn: We’ll just call this life lessons. It was a leasure talking with you. I hope you hear my passion. I think that we’re all put here for a purpose in this life. the conversation around inclusion is is really purposeful. It wakes me up in the morning. It keeps me up at night sometimes, but it certainly gives me energy. It's a passion that I like to share with those who are ready to do the hard work. We have a call to action in New Jersey. I really want to stress that this isn't just a nice conversation.

It's so important for leaders to really start thinking about what the future can be. Small changes, little steps forward. This is what we need to do in New Jersey. We can't stand on the sidelines anymore and wait for something to happen. Make it happen. So those kinds of conversations, we should be at the ready for, to advantage of and move forward with real conviction so that we can be more to those with disabilities in New Jersey, so that we can we lead to be at a place that's not at the bottom of the pack.

MaryAnn: and say that New Jersey can make a difference.

Arthur: Yes, I agree. It's been great talking with you. And thank you again for your time

MaryAnn: You take care.

Arthur: Yes, you too. And I'll be in touch soon.

MaryAnn: All right. Goodbye.

Arthur: Great. Bye bye. Bye.