Dancing in the Rain: Leading with Compassion, Vitality, and Mindfulness in Education
264
Dancing in the Rain: Leading with Compassion, Vitality, and Mindfulness in Education
264eBook
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Overview
In this concise volume, Murphy draws on a combination of Eastern contemplative traditions and Western psychology, as well as his own experience and research in the field of education leadership. He presents a series of exercises and activities to help educators take discomfort more in stride, savor the joys and satisfactions of leadership work, and thrive as effective leaders guided by heartfelt values.
Every day, education leaders find themselves swamped in a maelstrom of pressures that add to the complex challenges of educating all students to a high level. With humor and compassion, Dancing in the Rain shows educators how to lead lives of consequence and purpose in the face of life’s inescapable downpours.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781612509648 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Harvard Education Press |
| Publication date: | 01/02/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 264 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Teachers College and coming from a family of proud teachers, Murphy started his career with two rewarding years as a public school math teacher. He then unexpectedly got a job working for the federal government as part of the War on Poverty. He was part of a team that helped develop the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and he later spent an unforgettable year as the Associate Director of the White House Fellows Program and the Associate Staff Director of the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. During these heady days in Washington, his eyes were opened to the nuances of leadership as he observed up close how political leaders and dedicated civil servants actually engage in principled politics in the pursuit of noble ends.
Shortly after Richard Nixon was elected president, Murphy moved on to become a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has been there ever since, but for a delightful two years as a Visiting Professor at the Penn Graduate School of Education.
Drawing on his seven years in public schooling and government service, Murphy turned his attention to studying and writing about the everyday reality of how things actually work in education. He became a specialist in the politics of education, with a focus on government policy, program implementation and evaluation, organizational leadership, and qualitative methodology.
Murphy conducted some of the earliest studies of the implementation of the Great Society education programs and the role of the states in educational policy and governance; he contributed to novel data-collection techniques in educational evaluation. Along the way, he has written books and articles about these topics as well as about schools of education, about the lives of education leaders, and about the changing roles of school superintendents and chief state school officers. Murphy has also examined educational policy and practices in Australia, China, Colombia, England, Japan, and South Africa and has given presentations at research meetings in Denmark, Israel, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Thailand.
For almost twenty years, Murphy was a full-time administrator at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, first as Associate Dean from 1982 to 1991 and then as Dean from 1992 to 2001. As Dean, Murphy led the development of new initiatives in learning technologies, arts education, neuroscience, and school leadership. He also led a capital campaign, which almost doubled the hoped-for goal, and was honored at Harvard with an endowed chair named after him.
Throughout his career, Murphy has aspired to live up to a definition he once heard describing a professor—namely, someone who “thinks otherwise” and challenges prevailing views about what’s important and what deserves attention. In his teaching, he urged students to think otherwise by being troublemakers, stirring things up and fighting for their values—just like Nelson Mandela, whose given name in his native language is “troublemaker.” In his research, Murphy thought otherwise by writing about policy implementation when research focused mainly on policy development; about state government when researchers were preoccupied with the federal government; about qualitative methods as a complement to quantitative methods; about the unheroic side of leadership, when bigger-than-life leaders were lionized; and, most recently, about the inner lives of education leaders when their training programs and supporting research studies often overlook the inside-the-skin challenges of leadership.
Table of Contents
Foreword Christopher Germer xix
Introduction 1
What This Book Is About 4
Whom This Book Is For 7
Filling a Gap 8
Part I Drowning in the Rain
Chapter 1 The Difficulties of Leadership 15
My Experiences as Dean 15
Common Emotional Tangles 18
Chapter 2 Making a Hard Job Harder 23
The Fixation on Fixing 24
Fixing Discomfort 25
Self-Defeating Habit 1: Resistance 26
Self-Defeating Habit 2: Rumination 27
Self-Defeating Habit 3: Self-Rebuke 30
Too Much of a Good Thing 31
The High Cost of the Three Rs 31
Making Things Worse 32
Sidetracking Work 33
Part II Introducing My Dance
Chapter 3 The My Dance Framework 39
The Seven Steps 40
The Origins of MY DANCE 43
Teaching Courses on Leadership 43
Moving Toward Mindfulness 45
Other Approaches 49
A Workshop Is Born 49
Reality at Home 51
Chapter 4 Getting Ready to Dance 53
The Exercises Ahead 53
Preparing for Practice 55
Savoring Campbell's Soup 57
Part III My Dance, Step by Step
Chapter 5 Mind Your Values 61
Apples and Trees 62
Leading with Your Values 63
Clarifying Your Values 65
Putting Values into Action 72
Chapter 6 Yield to Now 81
There, but Mostly Not There 82
What Lies Ahead 84
Learning to Be Here and Now 86
Formal Practices to Develop Mindfulness 88
Informal Practices to Develop Mindfulness 94
Detecting and Disrupting Rumination 94
Benefits of Being Mindful 98
Chapter 7 Disentangle from Upsets 101
In His Hat! 102
Looking Back-and Forward 103
Chattering Mind 105
Handling Upsetting Thoughts 107
Experiencing Your Light 113
Accessing Your Light 117
Benefits of Disentangling 119
Chapter 8 Allow Unease 123
First Encounters 124
Looking Back-and Forward 125
Accepting Acceptance 130
Taking Stock 139
Chapter 9 Nourish Yourself 145
Santa Claus 146
Looking Back-and Forward 147
Making Room for R & R 150
Savoring Everyday Activities 152
Doing Pleasurable Things 152
Doing Satisfying Things 155
Restoring Perspective 156
Sacred Spaces 157
Stillness 159
Being Grateful 160
Taking in the Good 162
A Few Final Tips 165
Chapter 10 Cherish Self-Compassion 169
Giving Myself a Germer 170
Looking Back-and Forward 175
What It's All About 178
A Hard Sell-and Beyond 180
Developing Self-Compassion 184
Bag of Stones 191
Chapter 11 Express Feelings Wisely 193
Faith and Begorra! 194
Taking Stock 195
Dropping Your Mask 196
Naming Your Feelings 199
Expressing Feelings Indirectly 202
Displaying Warmth 203
Handling the Unexpected 205
Remember to Be a Giraffe 211
Part IV Putting It All Together
Chapter 12 Pick Up Your Feet and Dance 215
Why My Dance? 216
Developing a Plan 217
Needs and Priorities 219
Action Steps 220
Remembering Lists 221
Wake-Up Menu 221
Onward and Upward 222
Appendix: Guide to My Dance Exercises 227
Further Reading and Other Resources 229
Postlude 233
Notes 235
Acknowledgments 249
About the Author 253
Index 257