Education: Challenges & Perspectives – Workshop 3A: Leadership Skills, Training, and Development

Janet Patti:

Hello everybody. It’s wonderful to have you with us.  I hear that the morning session was quite wonderful and I’m sorry that I missed it.  How many of you were in the morning session? Wonderful. So we will be picking your brain to see what happened this morning.  We are all delighted to be here to share some of our learning with you this afternoon.  I will be the presider.  My name is Janet Patti, I am a professor of education at Hunter College.  My particular area is the education administration.  So for anyone in the room who would like to become a school principal someday, call me.  We need you.  We look forward to you.

I am very fortunate to be with our distinguished guest to share with our topic of: how do we begin to conceive and think about developing leadership skills and training for, in particular the focus of this conference, our Asian American Youth.  Each of the presenters brings to the table a wide range of experience in specific areas that deal with leadership development.

So how are we going to move through the panel today?  What I will do is introduce each of our panelists.  I will share with you a very brief background of the work that they are doing.  Then I will have each of the panelists speak to you for approximately seven minutes.  I will beg them quiet when their time is up.  So we will go through each panelist for approximately seven minutes.  We’ll move right along.  At the end, we will take questions.  Does that sound okay for all of you?  Excellent.

I want to start, however, with a thought before we actually introduce our speakers.  And the thought is this: as we think about developing leadership skills for young people in our Asian American community.  And we think about what it takes to be successful in life, because that’s what we’re all about.  As each of the panelists is speaking, I’d like you to focus on a two-part question.  I would like you to think about two lenses here.

There first is this: what is the “it”? What do we need to have young Asian American people be successful in life?  When we look at this lens, what do you hear the panelists sharing with you.  That on the prerequisite, for the development of leadership skills so that Asian American young people can leader our city, our sate, our nation, in ways where they can be the role models for the future.  So how do we do that?

The second part of the question is this: if we’re looking at what we need to develop young people, then what do the adults have to do to make that happen?  Because you see, you’re not going to have young people be successful in life unless we the adults take the responsibility and model and care and develop the kinds of environments that our young people need to grow in.  So it’s a two part lens I would like you to think about before we go forward.

On that note, we will begin with our first panelist.  Erwin, welcome.  We are so glad to have you.  Erwin is also one of our panelists. We will have you grab a chair and join us.  Glad that you could make it.  We are going to start with Nicholas Michelli who is to the right of Erwin Wong, who just walked into the room.  Nicholas Michelli is the University Dean for Teacher Education for CUNY, and a professor of the University’s PhD program in urban education. Nicholas Michelli is responsible for overseeing teacher education at this nation’s largest public urban university.  In programs located in ten senior colleges and six community colleges of the University.  Dr. Michelli is also responsible for the coordination between the University and the New York City public schools, as well as with all the cultural institutions of New York City.  Dean Michelli, prior to his appointment to this role, worked in the College of Education and Human Services at Montclare State University for 20 years where he worked and served as a professor and Dean Emeritus.  Dean Michelli is a member of the New York State Professional Standards of Practices Board for Teaching and one of TECSCU’s representatives on and chair of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Committee on Governmental relations.  He’s a member of the steering committee of the Council of Great City Colleges of Education and chairs the Government Council of the National Network for Educational Renewal, which is the coalition of more than 40 school university partnerships in 18 states committed to renewing education.  In 1996, he was the recipient of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Edward C. Pomeroy Award for his contributions to teacher education.  On a personal note, I need to say to you he had been an outstanding leader for all of us in the CUNY system, we depend very much on his leadership.  We are very honored to have Mr. Michelli.  Dr. Michelli will speak to you about vision and what that means in relation to why we’re here today.

Nicholas Michelli:

One of the things that I do with the standards for education that Patti mentioned, is to think about how we are going to prepare the next generation of school leaders. Some of the elements of that in terms of where it is going.  There are a lot of regulations and some regulations came out this week.  In particular, what I want to emphasize, and this grows out of my own experience of having been the dean for 20 years in a particular school settings.  For those of you who were here this morning, that was the first cemetery I mentioned.  Remember what I said about the cemetery?  There are lots of people underneath but nobody is listening.

Any way, I believe that this is one real-life occasion of Peter Sengai’s works on educational institutions and to all organizations.  That is, the abilities leaders must have to create what Sengai has called the shared vision and what has become a part of the common language with respect to leadership.  I remember the day when somebody said they had a vision and they were taken away and locked up somewhere.  No more, now you need a vision to be successful.

The important thing about a shared vision is that it means that the leader and the group that he or she is leading have, in fact, a common vision of what the organization is about.  Sengai makes a point that there is nothing more powerful in life than a shared vision.  Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but I am not sure that it is.  When you have a shared vision, you not only have a common purpose, you have a common language, you have a common set of expectations, you have a common way of making judgments about whether of not you are successful.

The important thing for me is that a shared vision cannot be imposed.  The word “shared” suggests that.  A shared vision means that it is your vision and it is also the vision that the leader has.  One of the mistakes that the state makes, their definition is that leaders have a vision for schools that they constantly share and promote.  I don’t see it that way.  I don’t think you can share your vision… you can share your vision, but that doesn’t make it a shared vision.

Organizations that are trying to develop shared vision have to be willing and ready to invest an extraordinary amount of time in conversation in talking about differences in understanding and development a language that is understood and that has the same meaning.  Too often we develop things that are called mission statements.  We do it in very short order; we paste them up on walls and make the assumption that those statements mean the same thing for everyone.

My comments here earlier this morning about the important purposes of public education are good examples.  It is very easy to say that the purposes of schools are to prepare young people for their economic roles, to prepare them to be active and critical participants in a democratic society and to have rich and rewarding personal lives.  Unless we get to the point of what each of those things means, and they begin to mean the same thing, then we haven’t accomplished anything.

I just want to emphasize as the starting point: the critical role that I have come to believe that the idea of working with an organization to create a vision maybe for me is the most important and critical aspect of effective leadership.

Janet Patti:

That’s excellent, Dr. Michelli, thank you so much.  I know that we will have questions and we will fill them as we go through the panel discussion.  Our panelist to the right of Dean Michelli is Frank Shih of the CUNY law school.  I would like to give a little background on what Dr. Shih brings to the table.  Dr. Shih is the Assistant Dean of Students at the CUNY law school.  He has received both his MA and PhD in anthropology from the New School for Social Research, with research focus on Trans-nationalism and globalization and a particular impact on international education.  He is responsible for the offices of career planning and student affairs.  His wide experience in higher education includes academic advising, admissions, student organization, program developments and enrollment and retention management.  Before coming to CUNY, he served as the Director of the Center for Academic Advising and coordinated new student orientation and peer advisor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he received the 1992 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for excellent and professional service.  A former social worker and community advocate in New York City, Dr. Shih has interests in the multiculturalism and pluralism and has written about the experiences of Asian and Asian American students.  He is currently the vice president of the Board of Directors for Literacy Volunteers of America, Suffolk County.  He’s also a member of the Advisory Council for Nassau Suffolk Law Services of Long Island and Project Blueprint, which he will be speaking, of Long Island United Way.  He is going to speak with you today about specific program implementations and work that has been done through the United Way, which has been extremely successful in the development of leadership of young Asian Americans and other young people of color.

Frank Shih:

Thank you, Janet.  What I want to do is to tell you about this Project Blueprint, which is an initiative of the United Way of Long Island that recruits, trains, and places people of color on the boards of United Way Agencies, non-profit agencies, and what we call social and human services agencies.  Like Dean Michelli said, vision is something that we always associate with leadership, but there is also something else that we associate with leadership.  That is passion.  I want to tell you that passion can actually lead to good leadership.  Once they are trained, there are opportunities out there for Asian Americans to be involved in something that they are passionate about.

This United Way initiative is a program that chooses 20 students for seven session of training.  I chair the steering committee and what we do is once we select the students, we develop a curriculum.  We listed a few of the things that we thought were very essential for leadership for non-profits.  I will go through this very quickly.  I want to tell you that as we listed curriculums, we listed 22 sessions, but because they are all volunteers we have to limit ourselves to what we though was important.

This is how we designed a curriculum.  First, we thought that leaders must always be aware of the big picture, the macro picture.  If you’re involved with one community service, you still need to know everything.  The first thing we did was to give a macro perspective.  The first session included an introduction to health and human services organizations of Long Island and demographics.  What are the populations?  What groups do these agencies serve?

The second thing we did was we all agree that leaders must find a support group of people with whom they can work with.  Some of these support group people have shoulders that they stand on, some have shoulders that they can lean on.  Leaders need a supportive group of people.  What we did was, we brought a group of people who have graduated from this program and who are now serving as board directors.  We asked them to come in and share.  We made it very specific: What was your first day like at a board meeting.

It was very interesting because the United Way agencies serve a very diverse group that are mostly people of color, but their boards of directors are mostly white if not all white.  That’s why these agencies really love our programs because they really want to diversify their board.  We have four people come in, and one person, for example, said that he was involved with a health agency and they were looking for male.  It was women’s health services.  They were looking for a male because all of their board are white females.  He was the first person of color that was a male.

These are the things that you don’t think about.  But what was it like to walk into a room? What are the tips to be prepared for your first board meeting?  Some boards are very anal about giving you minutes or the meeting agenda.  Some boards you walk in and you don’t even know who is taking minutes.  Leaders need to find the support of people who have gone through this system, and they can find to help them.

Leaders must know their responsibilities.  They must also know what is the expectation of their roles.  All of us know of people who have a job and think that they decide what they should be doing, and it’s not the organization to decide what is needed.  For that session, we had consultants form Deloitte and Touche, a major consulting firm, to talk about governance and boardsmanship.  What is the responsibility.

They fourth thing was that leaders must know about process, leaders must know about process and about expressing views and how decisions are made.  We collapse it down to running a meeting.  How is a meeting run?  What is a good meeting?  The first hours of polymetric procedure, the nitty gritty.  The second hour was how no one used polymetric procedure.  A good meeting entails your audience.  Boards have their own character.  You must know, if you’re the only person of color, you’re the only female or male, you’re the only gay or lesbian person, what are the interactions that occur in that setting.

So that is also part of the discussion which leads us to the next things.  Leaders must understand diversity.  Leaders must be able to resolve cultural styles and differences in cultural styles.  So we had a session of cross-cultural dynamics.  We brought in someone who was an expert in this field and we talked about the current stage of cultural dynamics.  Most of it was how does the process and decisions-making work in a mixed group with a bunch of different people from different backgrounds, different experiences, with different perceptions, with difference values systems, how does that work?

How to deflect, again this is a quote “people of color” who are going to go into a place where they are the minority?  How to deflect things like stereotyping of your role?  How doe you deflect the cultural difference when you are the only one that is different.   How do you handle that.

Then last three things.  Leaders must know fiscal responsibility.  This is where not everything you do with your passion is going to be fun.  We have this thing that we call “surviving in audit”.  We have people come and talk about auditing, financial audit.  Then leaders must know how to design a road map, that is for strategic planning.  This is where the vision comes in.  We had a whole section on designing and strategic planning, how do you have ambition? How do you set objectives? How do you set goals?  How do you create a long term vision for the group? How do you basically create a road map?  What are the outcomes you want?

Finally, leaders must put their passion into action and serve as role models for others.  Not for profit agencies spend a lot of their time raising money.  Board members spend 80% of their responsibilities to make sure that they are fiscally sound.  It is fundraising and marketing and strategies that we talk about.  In this session we actually made it a practice.  The graduation dinner was made to a fundraising dinner that funds this group.  I see that my time is up.  Let me just throw one thing in.  There are opportunities out there for you guys to get in and make a difference.

Janet Patti:

Thank you very much.  We are really appreciative.  I am sure you will get a chance to give us a little more of those guidelines.  I was thinking that this is a lot like what we do in education administration for students.  Leadership strategy is very critical for our students.

Our next panelist is Louise Weiyi Zhu.  We are very excited to have Louise with us.  A little background on Louise.  Louise grew up and received her BS degree in engineering in China.  She came to the U.S.A. for her graduate study in journalism at Northeastern University in Boston.  With a strong bilingual and multicultural background, she worked for a Chinese-English newspaper as an editor as well as was involved in the Asian community and mainstream social activities in the greater Boston Area for a number of years.  Louise started working with the Girls Scouts as a volunteer of the Asian Taskforce.  Then she joined the staff of the local Girls Scouts Council in Boston and now she is the Membership Outreach consultant of Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. headquarters in New York City.  Louise is going to share her story along with some of the work you are doing in leadership development for young women.

Louise Zhu:

My topic is “Building your leadership profile through volunteering”.  In my opinion, leadership and volunteering are two different things.  Leadership is more for building your own skills, for your lifetime benefit. A volunteer is more contributing your time or skills to a group of people or society.  However, these two things have relationship, they can also motivate each other.  That is from my own experience.  If you have better leadership skills, you can be a high quality volunteer, contribute more to whoever or whatever you work for.  If you volunteer for different organizations or activities, you can practice and develop you leadership skills.

In my own experience, I came to this country in my thirties.  I spoke bad English and had no knowledge about this county.  Then, I worked as a reporter for a community newspaper.  I was very active in the Asian community in Boston area for years.  I was very interested in involving in mainstream activities.  I thought we cannot isolate ourselves inside a little circle.  I taught Chinese language at Chinese schools and was a principal of a Chinese school for a term.  However, I never got real leadership training until I get into Girl Scouts.

I worked for the Girls Scouts because I was a reporter and I covered some news for the local Girls Scouts council.  They wanted me to join in for planning some kinds of Asian family activities.  That’s a very interesting organization.  Also, I have a daughter, but I never knew Girls Scouts before so my daughter missed many years to be a Girl Scout.  It did not only benefit my daughter, but also myself.  Volunteering for Girls Scouts is not just to contribute some time or energy.  I also learned a lot because this organizations is just like the United Way.  We provide very professional training to volunteers.

I attended a lot of training sessions.  I found that was so useful.  The first time I learned about EQ, emotional intelligence, through Girls Scouts, also a lot of other social skills.  Then I became staff of a local council and now I am in the headquarters here.  As part of my job here, as a headquarter consultant, we train staff from local councils all over the country.  That proceeded to develop their leadership skills.  Also, all local councils provide the similar courses and training for volunteers.  I talk to some girls and parents during lunch time today, I suggest that they involve in volunteering.  However, not just  for earning some hours or credit because many high schools and colleges require students to earn volunteer or community service hours or credit, like “this quarter I earned 10 hours and I need five hours more”.

Also, when you volunteer, not just work as a follower or a helper, better be a leader or organizer.  Be a leader doesn’t mean that you must be the head of something, an officer doesn’t mean like that.  You have to think about how to plan, how to organize, how to do a lot of things, not just to carry some tables around.  When you choose what kind of activities or organizations you should contribute your volunteer time, better choose some organizations that can provide you with training.  Many big long history non-profit organizations like the United Way, Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, we provide all kinds of training.  So through those training sessions, you learn a lot, improving your own leadership skills.

Some parents said “oh, I can help; however if you say I want to be a volunteer, I must attend some courses, I don’t have time to do that.”  However, that’s very useful for your own.  Also, don’t isolate yourself in your own community.  Many Asian students and the parents prefer working inside their communities, but should not be that way, go to large communities.  That is very valuable for your own life, also for whole society.  I send out little questionnaire, so hope you can fill it out and send it back to me. For Girl Scouts information, you can check our website, right over here, www.girlscouts.org.

Janet Patti:

Thank you so much, and I hope that you’re taking a little bit of a moment here to reflect just a tad on the earlier question as to what are the skills and strategies in leadership we are hearing, that the panelists share with you, that we hope other people will inquire to be successful in life.  And then what the adult must do in order to make that happen. I remind you today to focus on that from time to time, of the things that will be shared here this morning.

I’m going to move on to the panelist right here, close to me. I am going to introduce Erwin Wong, who is the Associate Dean of Instructions and Curriculum at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.  Among his responsibilities are program development, articulation, the oversight of academic advisement and transfer, instructional testing, and the registrar office.

He has done presentations on academic advisement, registration, staff development, and disaster recovery. He’s published articles on composition, film, and popular culture. He received a PhD and MA in English from SUNY Stony Brook. His three major areas of specialization are the 16th century, 17th century, and modern drama. In addition, we should remember that he did get his early training, his BA in English from Brooklyn College. What are you going to address today?

Erwin Wong:
 
Basically I’d like to speak to the group about my own personal encounter with what it takes to be a leader, and experiences that I went through. First, in my mind, I have two very simple categories of leaders. The first one is a born leader, it’s a person who is a natural leader from the very start, and if I told all of you that you were born leaders, it’s great, you believe in it, and we’re done. But I think the majority of the people fall into the second category: people that become leaders and are made leaders.

From my own personal experience, frankly, I never grew up thinking I was going to be a leader. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a cowboy. Now I’m showing my age in my time because the cowboys that I admired were Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, and Lash Larue. It reflects partially my background, where I come from. My parents came from China and I’m the first generation. In the beginning of the years of our lives, we lived in a sixth floor, cold water walk up flat on Mulberry Street, and the building still stands. I have very vivid memories of it, a shotgun apartment, cement tub, and in the hallway there was a common bathroom that everybody shared, with the pull chain on the toilet.  I am not sure if you’ve seen those kinds of things.

But what was very important for me when I was growing up was what my parents imparted to my brothers, two older brothers and a younger one, and me. They worked very hard. My father held about two or three jobs. My mother worked in a factory while we were growing up.  My father first became a graphic designer; he designed things like the Lipton Tea Man, Three Musketeers, and things of that sort. My mother became a registered nurse. She worked everyday for about 30 years.

Two important value lessons they gave to us. The first was that education was of primary importance. If you wanted to succeed and get anywhere, you needed an education. That was crucial. The second lesson which was equally important, it’s very simple, very basic, but it’s very valuable. You always do your best, no matter what the job, no matter how menial. If you’re a runner on Wall Street, or a stock boy in a supermarket, or being a student, you always do your best. You never settle. I tell my son that. He tells me “I got a 95”. I say “Fine, did you do your best? No, you could have done better. Do better.” If he got a 75 and you asked “Did you do your best?” and he said “Yes I did”, “That’s okay, as long as you know you did your best.”

I hope my brothers took the advice seriously too. Personally, I tried my best, and as a result, and I’m not saying this to brag but simply to illustrate the example, in elementary school, I became the valedictorian. In junior high school, I was the valedictorian. High school, I went to Stuyvesant. I graduated in the top 10%. I went to Brooklyn College and I graduated summa cum laude, and then I went to graduate school and had a teaching assistantship. I worked hard and I did well.

Those are important lessons to have, values to have, but to become a leader, it’s also important as you’re going through the process to have role models.  People that you can look up to, to model, to become leaders, and also people who can be your mentors and help guide you.  When I was in junior high school, I was very lucky. I had a Social Studies teacher for the 7th grade, 8th grade and 9th grade. Some people here may know her. Her name is Margaret Harrington. Currently, she’s the Chief Operating Officer of the Victory Schools in New York. She was a wonderful teacher. Really inspired people and one of the important lessons that she imprinted on me was that if you want to effect change, if you want to make change, you would have to do it within the system. In other words, be part of the process; don’t be outside it because if you want to get change it’s more important to be in it to make it happen.

Through that kind of mentoring, then I saw myself becoming a teacher. I wanted to help students; I wanted to educate. Another role model, which you may be amused to hear or not, Janet mentioned one of my areas is popular culture, actually I’ve written about popular culture.  But in the 16th and 17th century, there’s a type of drama called Heroic drama. In contemporary times, there’s a TV show that I like but the films I write about, the Star Trek films, I don’t know how many of you know of the Star Trek films. One of my role models is James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. The reason for that, he follows this archetypal pattern called the Herculean Hero.

James T. Kirk represents qualities that are very important. He’s basically a good person; hopefully we are all basically good. What he does and wants to do is effect change that affects the universe. What you want to do whether it’s small or big, is do something that’s going to have an impact. Another important quality is that James T. Kirk has a particular code of behavior. I don’t know how many of you people are familiar with the film Wrath of Khan, Star Trek II, but in that film there’s this ploy called the Kobiyashu Maru.  That system every cadet in Starfleet Academy must go through. It’s basically testing your critical thinking skills and how you behave under certain circumstances.

In that system, it’s designed that you never win. No matter what you do, you’re always going to fail. It’s more important that they’re trying to assess how you’re going to behave in the system. Well it turns out in the film that James T. Kirk is the only one that ever defeated a Kobiyashu Maru. The way he did it, they discovered, is that he cheated. That night, he went in and changed the computer system so he can win and he basically says during the course of the film, I don’t believe in those situations or no win situations.

It’s important that as a leader or an aspiring leader that you have to have a certain code of behavior that you’re going to follow that’s going to be consistent for you. That  what you’re going to follow makes sense so that when you make your decisions, you’re following a particular process that you know is going to be consistent and right for you. Not that every time you create a situation and trying to figure out what the heck should I do, and when I do this, he tells me to do that. But have something that people will call integrity. Something that will allow you to look in the mirror and say “I’m following my beliefs and my faith and this is what’s going to happen.”

You have role models.  In addition to that, there are other skills that are required to be a leader. You should be a good listener, you should observe, you should pay attention. If you’re going into higher education or the corporate world, make sure you get every document, every policy, read it, and understand how it functions so that you can effect change. If it makes sense to you, good. If it doesn’t make sense to you, perhaps you can do something about it.

An example that I give is that one of the worse jobs I have is when students come to me with problems. I hear about all their problems. But when you listen to them, sometimes these problems make sense. In other words, why does this happen? You look at the policy and sometimes it doesn’t make sense. You have to make sure you listen, so that you can effect change.

Finally, it’s very important to work with people. If you’re a leader, you can’t make autocratic decisions. You can’t decide things on yourself; you have to be able to work with people. To illustrate:  there was an individual who was looking at the differences between Heaven and Hell. First he came to an area that was considered Hell. He saw this banquet table with all this food and all this drink and it looked really great. He saw these people around there and they were all crying. He tried to find out why they were crying. The reason that they were crying was because all of their arms were locked in place. They couldn’t bend their arms, so therefore, all this food and all this drink was around, but they couldn’t eat or drink because they couldn’t bend their arms.

Then he went to another place, and he saw the banquet table, all the food, and all the drink. He saw people there just like before; their arms were locked in place, they couldn’t bend it, but they were all laughing and smiling. The reason they were laughing and smiling was because when the person picked up the water with the arm bent and went like this, right. In other words, they shared and collaborated and that made Heaven. That’s a very important idea to remember too; no matter how high up you go, you need to work with people. I talk about disaster recovery with the same sort of idea, we must collaborate. Thank you.

Janet Patti:

Thank you.  We’re going to move now to Dr. Marcia Knoll. Dr. Knoll is a career educator who has held all the educational seats. She began her career as a teacher and then as an administrator in the New York City public schools, she was an assistant principal and principal at P.S. 220 and the Director of Curriculum and Instruction in District 28 at Queens. She became Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services in the Valley Stream Central High School district on Long Island. She is currently my colleague and Associate Professor of the Educational Administration and Supervision at Hunter College.

Dr. Knoll has had many opportunities in her career to serve, guide, and influence the educational community in New York State, the nation, and the world. In a number of seats, she presently continues to serve at the Professional Standards Board for the National Council for Accreditation in Teacher Education. She’s been an invited speaker for groups such as the United States Department of Education and as a consultant in professional development for Regional Labs, State Education Departments, and school districts across the country.

One of her outstanding awards has been that she has been noted in the congressional record of the 99th Congress of the United States of America for her work. She has helped many leadership capacities; one very outstanding is that she’s been the president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which is a wonderful organization for those of you in education. She has also served as the chapter leader of the Phi Delta Kappa. She recently published a new book called The Administrator’s Guide to Student Achievement and Higher Test Scores and has numerous publications that I will not go into.

Dr. Knoll is here today because her love and passion is in instructional supervision and coaching, and how do we help teachers to acquire the skills to create the kind of learning community that all of our panelists are speaking about today. Dr. Knoll…

Dr. Marcia Knoll:

Thank you, Dr. Patti. I appreciate the introduction. I wanted to shed the conversation a little bit as Dr. Patti has indicated. It talks about leadership in the point of view of the school, inside the doors of the school. If one of the important attributes of a leader is good education, how does leadership of the school help students to acquire a good education? What are the implications of that leadership ability for the teachers of the school? I’d like to talk to you about three different approaches that I believe are effective ways to be sure that every student is successful; the work between the principal and the staff.

The first approach is understanding people’s needs; not treating everyone the same. Very often in a very busy school world, it’s hard to find the time to find out what Mrs. Jones needs to make her a better instructor of children and what Mr. Lee needs to help him to do a better job, but that’s essential. Being able to address each person from strength and helping them to build skills is a way to improve what every child receives in the classroom. When you look at people and assist them in helping others to learn, one must look at it in terms of need and then tailor a plan that matches that need and makes it appropriate.

A second way to affect leadership to improve instruction is to look at schools as professional learning communities. Every professional needs to learn with and from each other, our last speaker has a very interesting and very poignant story about the significance of collaboration. Collaboration is a very structured and a very powerful way of helping people to learn and to lead. We call these learning communities by many names and you may have read about them. They could be called study teams, they could be called critical friends, they could be called a community of learning. Many authors have written about this. Good leadership in the school provides for ways for the professionals to meet, speak, work together for many purposes, to learn new ideas, to be current with the research, and to help each other to solve problems. There are many ways to do this and involving the professionals of the school in leadership in designing their own is certainly a way to make sure they will be successful.

A third part of leadership, so that everyone succeeds in schools, could be looked at from the point of the view of what we call Professional Development. It’s very interesting to take a look at the budget that is generally set on professional development and then try to assess its effectiveness. There is really a good correlation between financial and human effort expended and the result of those efforts in terms of improvement in instruction or in a particular area for which that professional development was intended.

There are several reason for this. One primary reason is no one consulted the people who are receiving the professional development. It’s kind of done to you or for you rather then about whom you are. Taking a look at what is done in professional development, how it is designed, not only its content but its structure, so that we look at the point of view of respect for the individual and the kind of lives those people live.

Professional development also is very commonly considered what I call a One Shot. In other words, you go there, you receive this wonderful information, and then you’re expected to go back the next day and try it out with your students. Then we wonder why over 85 to 90 percent of professional development efforts don’t work. Here’s a very valuable research study by [Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers] who surveyed over 2,000 professional development efforts, and took and looked at what point the work and the effort really created a change in the way people conducted classes and worked with students. It was not until that professional development became embedded in the work of the school itself, and that the professional development effort had to do with the children of the school, the staff of the school, and some time was provided.

There are some little guidelines that are clearly critical to making professional development work. First of all, a safe environment.  In other words supervisors have to suspend judgment. No adult likes to make themselves look foolish. Think about the last time you tried to do something you don’t really do well whether or not you wanted an audience watching you do it. Most adults don’t. It’s embarrassing. To be able to try something out that you’re not sure it will succeed, you need to be sure you won’t be criticized. On the other hand, you also need to be sure you will be commended for taking the risk to try something new. It’s very hard.

Number two, giving teachers the chance to watch each. You know classrooms have doors on them. The little glass, you see the little glass here, now normally that glass is covered up with… construction paper. Teaching being a secret act, well it’s not a secret act; it’s a very public act and teachers need to watch from and learn from each other. Third, having time to talk about what they’re learning, how it’s working, and how it’s impacting them. Leadership in schools provides leadership for teachers to help students to learn to be educated so that they can become leaders too.

Janet Patti:

Thank you Dr. Knoll, thank you very much. We’re moving along in a wonderful progression. The kinds of leadership skills that either our panelists have experienced themselves in growing from the outer community to the inner community, from the school to the home. We noticed that there’s this alignment that we really can’t separate. They’re all one and the same and needs to be fluidity as what I’m hearing of the kind of the leadership development that we offer to young people, which will take us to our final panelist for this afternoon, who is Mae Fong; principal of Louis Pasteur Middle School 67Q in District 28 in Queens.

When I was asked to be a presider of this panel, the first person that came to my mind was Mae Fong. I said “What am I going…” Obviously, that’s not what my area of specialization in leadership is. What I thought about someone from the Asian American community who exemplifies what we’re talking about here in schools, Mae Fong came to my mind first and foremost. I had to say that because Mae is the principal of 67Q in Little Neck, New York. She has been engaged in all aspects of leadership in the supervision and administration of a New York City middle school consisting of approximately 1,200 students in grades six through nine, and a staff of nearly 100 adults with a focus on ensuring that the school mission of promoting academic achievement is such that it creates a environment for teaching and environment. Mae recognizes the unique social, emotional, and intellectual needs of young adolescents. That is her guiding light as she goes forward to lead young people in today’s time in a school with lots of pressures on it in an area which is known for its excellence in education and in a community with many Asian American students, if I am correct.

Mae Q. Fong:

Thank you very much. As a building principal I can’t sit when I talk.  Since I’m getting a little more senior I have to put my glasses on so I’m going to go by the podium so I can see this. I hope that, as I speak, you would use the perspective of all the distinguished panelists before me to see whether or not what they’re saying is reflected in a product of what they’re trying to build. Being in the middle school by choice gives us either a very warped sense of humor as we go through those years or we either came in there and we were born with a warped sense of humor. As I’m looking at this panel I said “It’s just like a middle school dance. The boys are on one side and….”

I go through some of my prepared remarks and add in salt and pepper, and maybe a little soy sauce… based on this morning and what everyone else has said this morning too. I was thinking when Janet had asked if I would just come along to a conference with her, being an observer and now being a presenter. What perspective I can possibly add to a panel with titles like Doctor, Dean, President, I’m merely a building principal. Principal of a middle school, 1,200 children, I am always suffering between 12 and 15 year olds dilemmas.  I have gone through more Bar Mitzvahs, Bo Mitzvahs than anybody I could imagine in the Asian community.

So, I said “Well, I could do it on the student’s point of view, parent’s point of view, teacher’s point of view, assistant principal, principal…” and I thought I would do it as Erwin did so eloquently, through my own lens of growing up Asian American, and now being a leader in a predominantly white community. Going back first generation, Asian American, “Mei Guo Ren.”  Not only Asian American, ABC, those of us who are familiar with the alphabet soup of the Chinese community, American Born Chinese, “Zo Xing” . My parents were immigrants from Hong Kong; at least it’s what their fake papers said.

I used to wonder why my mother would say “Just be quiet, if you see anybody you should be quiet” because her papers said she was from Kentucky.  There were three daughters aside from myself… How could she be born in Kentucky? Shut up, shut up. Go away, just quiet. In those days, I was really quite obedient. I was very quiet, so when anyone came along with a suit and said “Hello”, we would be quiet. That was a different time. My parents, my father came here when he was 17 years old, never went to school, and worked with my grandfather in Chinese hand laundry. One room, he had a bed underneath his ironing board; one piece of wood. He was allowed in those days to go back to China to find a bride, and in fact, the arranged marriage with my mom.

He came back to the United States and now, I guess, my story begins. It was in fact a Sunday, 1949, my mother had just gotten here on Saturday. I just made it, my citizenship ensured; born in Brooklyn in those days and in a family, very secretive, very quiet. My parents came here in search of, as Dr. Betty Lee Sung says, the Mountain of Gold. My parents soon learned that the U.S. of A. was not a mountain of gold. They came looking for a life of comfort and of joy, something they would never find. In an environment of fear, of loneliness, and of futility, they decided that it’s not for them; it would certainly be for their children.

They worked day and night as many of us had in laundry, so that their four girls could find that mountain of gold. They worked, we went to school, and we studied day and night. What your parents said, you did, you asked no questions, you didn’t laugh, you didn’t smile, unless it was on cue, and especially if you were a worthless daughter. We know that being Asian American girls, very different times in the 1950s and the 1960s. It started out for us in school, English language learner. No such terminology in the 1950s, you were just stupid.

We had in that time, it was the melting pot generation. You didn’t want to be Chinese. When you looked in the mirror, I didn’t see a cowboy or a cowgirl, I looked at a little princess. I wanted to be a blonde princess, but I certainly was not. It was the melting pot generation and even then, as now if you wanted to succeed, you had to go to school and you had to do well in school. School was not easy because of the veil of secrecy. You would go to school, then you would come and you would iron shirts, you would do your homework, you would do laundry, you would take care of your siblings. This went on and on and in those days, you really did not complain. This was your life, we had a happy life.

Four girls at dinner, one fish, and we all shared. That’s probably why I was skinny until recently. The harder school years of my life would be elementary school. When you’re asked to think back in your life at school, think of the memories that you had. These are my memories of elementary school. I remember in grade 5, I thought I was getting to be a little pretty. I was seated in the back of the first row, seat 5 by the closet. I was honored with the job of being the closet monitor. I could close the doors and open the doors.

The teacher, Mrs. Kaufman, during a Social Studies lesson said to me “Mae, stand up.” I stood up, “What color are you?” What color am I? I’m thinking of my Crayola crayon box and saying “What color am I?” “Flesh.” “Sit down, no you are yellow.” If the Earth could have opened and I could have fallen to the center of the Earth, I could not have been more happy if that would have happened to me, because yellow, we were studying, was the color of cowardice, the color of the chicken.

So, that day just was a blur. I went home, I looked in the mirror, I got that yellow crayon out, and I went like this and for the life of me, I did not see that I was yellow. Social Studies to this day is my least favorite subject; maybe if I had Virginia as my teacher it would have been different. That is my memory of elementary school. But then again, I was lucky, because another teacher felt sorry for the Ling sisters; all three of us coming in dressed exactly the same, we would just recycle the clothing. We were one year apart, we would tell what day it was, she’s wearing black skirt, blue skirt, green skirt and we would change.

She would take us in for early morning tutoring, coaching, just to reinforce how stupid we were. The only thing we had to do, so that she would do it for free for my parents, was to warm up her baby food at the end of the day. Again, I was privileged because for five years, I warmed up Mrs. Schneider’s apple sauce at the end of the day. What she taught me was how to speak, how to read, and that someone cared enough about me to spend time to teach me how to read and speak. Those were my elementary school memories.

Elementary was hard, middle school, I had no idea what happened. Then it was in the Chemistry classroom at Samuel J. Tildon, Dr. Suttenberg, the mysterious Dr. Suttenberg, with a huge briefcase. He must be so smart, he has that huge briefcase. He used to carry his lunch in the briefcase when I was his monitor and learned that. And any event, in the back of the room, one day, he asked the question about the Latin name of the chemical symbol Cu. I was the only one who had studied and knew the answer. I knew my goal in life was to be a Science teacher.

If you look in my yearbook, you’ll notice it doesn’t say anything, because I would never dishonor my family by saying I wanted to do something and then fail. I went from Chemistry teacher at Stuyvesant, to Science teacher in District 20 Ditmas Junior High School, the Science Coordinator in District 20 to Assistant Principal George J. Ryan, and then finally, I am now, after 12 years, the empress of Louis Pasteur Middle School 67Q.

But my hope was not really about… I’ve gotten off on a tangent only because I’m listening to my colleagues. Talking about leadership, creating a vision, having a mission in life, and I have two of the parents of the children at my school so I really can’t lie. We know that in fact in the middle school, these are the toughest years. Not only for the children, but the adults who teach these children. We know that the most important things a leader does is to care, to listen, to promote equity, to make sure everyone’s voices are heard. When we say we want parents and people to be involved, we want to listen to what they have to say.

I would say that for me and my entire speech is thrown out the window, learning to me is important. Modeling learning is important. I love to study, and when I study, I study things that have relevance to how I do my job. So in going to Harvard two summers ago and going to Hunter last year, I have learned from [Roland Bard] that in fact it is matters of the heart that matter more than matters of the mind.  That great leaders, building principals included, is have the courage to dream, the personal and professional integrity to convince others to share that dream and the consummate ability to make those dreams come true. I am only an ABC and I think that if I can do it, then certainly all of you and your children can do it as well. Thank you.

Janet Patti:

Well, we have a very boring panel and we do have, fortunately, a good 20 minutes left for you to ask questions. Before we do that, you need at least a minute to debrief, so I want you to turn to the partner next to you and I want you to share what’s on your mind, what’s in your heart, what’s on the tip of your tongue; anything at the moment, and I will raise my hand when it’s time for you to be quiet…

[Discussions ensue.]

We do have a wonderful time to ask questions for the panelists. I did ask you to think about what are the skills or strategies that young people needed to learn that you would hear and what did adults have to do. You may address those, you may ask your own questions; whatever you have on your mind. Does someone have a question? And if you would identify yourself, who you are, and what perspective you bring to the question would be helpful.

Audience Member:

My name is Amy Zhu. I’m postgraduate with a Masters Degree.  My life is on track as far as what I wanted to do with myself. I’ve held a strong leadership positions while in academia; starting up clubs, about three different clubs and organizations. A lot of what you said brings me back into, to reiterate, what you need to be a good leader. One of my questions would be how do I transform my leadership skills that I’ve done in school into the Chinese community? Because I have tried, but the Chinese community seems to say you don’t have the correct credentials to do it while I’ve done it as a student.  That’s my first question, my second question is…

Janet Patti:

Let’s hold the second question.  Just repeat the question one more time.

Audience Member (Amy Zhu):

How do I take the strong leadership skills that I have developed as a student, and transform them into non-academic settings, or even academic settings?

Erwin Wong:

My first question though is, what is it that you want to do in the community?

Audience Member (Amy [Zhu]):

I want to be a teacher.

Erwin Wong:

All right, so then the first question is how do you find a teaching position in the community? It goes back to the rule that I had stated, to effect change you have work within the system, assimilate to the system. If you want to effect pedagogical change, then you find the school district that you want to be in, and see if you can get in there and start there.

Mae Q. Fong:

Since teaching… I guess you would start at New York City or Long Island? New York City. Anywhere near New York City. If you’d like to be a classroom teacher, remember there are different levels. Be it K-6, middle school, high school, and you have to find out what credentials you need to be licensed in that area. When you say you have many leadership skills and you would like to share it with the Asian American community, a big effort and then you want to narrow that funnel. Because when you teach, you teach all children. It’s very hard to find a classroom where it’s 100% of any ethnic group and then as we learned downstairs, there are so many different Asian cultures.

I think what happened though when you become a leader is that whether you know it or not, people who have your face begin to relate to you. What they will do is leaders in different Asian associations will make outreach to you. They will find you as you hone your skills in the field you select. So go get it. I am a principal in Little Neck and come visit me one day.

Frank Shih:

I think you may want to consider what is your vision for the community you want to affect change in.

Audience Member (Amy [Zhu]):

Probably career counseling for young Asian American females and this goes all back to the cultural thing.

Frank Shih:

Again, pushing my role as a United Way person is find some organization and possibly do some homework and volunteer as a start.

Louise Zhu:

I bring some magazines, publications Girl Scouts Leaders magazine, so you can take some. Right now we have definitely welcome young leaders because we did a survey to our girls and ask them what kind of mentors, advisors, or leaders that you want. Our traditional leaders are moms. Right now they have told us they want young adults aged 18 to 29 or middle 30s or something like that. We welcome male and female to be our leaders.

Audience Member:

My name is [Julie Lima] and I’m from CUNY School of Law. I know Frank. This is a question I’m just asking with a different perspective. Most of you are in leadership positions right now and you’re people of color. What I want to find out, have you encountered reactions to people, since you’re a leader in the majority of your constituents are not people of color. Have there been incidents and how do you handle that? As we are trained to go to leadership position, we have to face that because in the morning there was a certain percentage of Asian Americans, not that many in this country, but these are things we have to face. Base on your experience, what advice would you give to us?

Erwin Wong:

I work within CUNY. I’m at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and within higher education and education in general, you find that the system is very tolerant, at least through my experience it has been this way. The administration at BMCC is very diverse. Our president is Latino, my senior Vice President of Academic Affairs is African American, I’m Asian, and the VP of Human Resources is Latino. It goes across the board. It goes back to what I talked about the melting pot.

The notion is usually, not always, but usually that in higher education, it should welcome diversity and multicultural awareness. For the most part, I have experienced or seen that. My other notion too is, again, if you do a good job, if you’re confident and more than competent, then people recognize that. They cannot fault you for that, and therefore, there is no reason to attack it.

Mae Fong:

I think in lower education—I hate to say that word—it’s very different. I remember when I started out as a teacher, 1972 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, primary Jewish community. Children are much smarter than we are. In three minutes they have you sized up. If you go into a profession that you do well, they respect you for what you do for them. Teaching, because there is the license and because pretty much in those days, you were appointed blindside to a school. You had at least an opportunity to get the position and establish yourself through what you are. Then you go through the system and then you interview for jobs like Assistant Principal. Then you interview through a committee and the committee reflects parents, administrators.

I remember my mentor, [Irwin Altman], Superintendent of District 26. I did not know anyone in the district and after my 11th interview for this job, I said to him “I hope they’re not going to give me this job because I’m Asian American.” He says to me “You know Mae, you are always going to be Asian American. Sometimes you’re going to get the job because you are and sometimes you are not because you are.” As you go through whatever position you pick, you will always face different biases. No matter what those biases are distilled by your qualities in doing the job you’re being hired for.

Frank Shih:

I’d like to add to that, which was wonderful Mae. I think we all carry a burden of being different on the perceived public culture and that burden is sometimes forced on us from the institution of society and sometimes it’s among ourselves.  We have to always be aware that it’s going to be there and it’s not necessarily something that we can ever overcome by merit. It’s something that we must admit to having to struggle and be aware of and deal with as it happens.

As a student affairs professional, even though I’m in a very diverse institution that I find very comfortable in, in terms of who I am. When I walk into a room of all student affairs professions, I am a minority. You have to be aware and walk into it and it’s not necessarily that everyone’s mean to you because that’s the way you see other people when everyone were to wear the same color clothes and someone walks in with different color clothes, you’re going to stare at that person. I think its’ something that we need to deal with, to be really upfront and honest with, and to not necessarily confront, but just try to educate each other about.

I know all of us can raise our hands if I say has anyone ever felt a little, like stereotype somebody else who walked into the room. It’s part of who we are and we need to realize that diversity is not perfect, it’s always a moving target. You just have to manage it; you can’t say, “Ah huh, we’ve reached this point and everything’s fine.” I don’t think that’s ever happen, that we’re going to reach the point where we say we’re all happy together.

Janet Patti:

Thank you. These are some really wonderful questions and deep issues that will take a whole day, but I’ll take one last question.

Audience Member:

My name is Ken Chan. I’m a Dean of Students of a junior high school in District 1, a public school. I have a question for Principal Mae. Imagine the situation, you have one Assistant Principal retired and now you’re going to hire a new one. The District Superintendent will not say any interim or acting. We have five applicants over there. What qualifications do you think you can find and modify?

Mae Fong:

Help me understand what you mean by qualification.  Whom? The applicants of the job?

Audience Member (Ken Chan):

What qualification among these five candidates you believe they could find to be the Assistant Principal.  Just image for you, from your perspective.

Mae Fong:

How strange that you should ask, because I was posted on the next circulars [inaudible]. The selection now with the new C30 regulation is unlike the past. There’s no C30 committee. The representatives of the school leadership team are now the people who now help the principal select.  It’s very different in that this chancellor believes that principal should select their assistant principles. The principal gets to read the resumes and select, say three, to give to the committee. The committee can make recommendations and the principal either support or ignore the recommendations.

What I do when I look for an assistant principal I have three assistant principals and one special education supervisor, is I make sure I know what my building needs and each one of us complements and supports each other’s strengths. For example, now, I have a dynamite math-science person, computer person, and I have a fabulous foreign language person. My need is in literacy, balanced literacy.

That’s the academic piece. But now you take a look at the people piece, because the magic is in the relationships with people. I have to find the right mix in terms of woman and man. It really does matter. I have to find someone who will, if I have one person who’s a great office administrative person, I have to find someone who everybody will say “I’m comfortable talking to you.” It’s making a whole out of pieces and each year changes. That’s what I would look for.

Janet Patti:

I’d like to thank the panel very much for everything.

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