Emily Nitz-Ritter
Portfolio
Leadership Philosophy Statement
March 2013
Mission Statement/Philosophy:
My primary mission is to contribute to a community that is distinctly different from myself, while remaining critical and aware of my own social location. I want to remain sensitive to my privileged background, while offering my strengths and skills to a group of people who would benefit from my contributions, and recognize that the group itself influences and benefits me. It is important to me to focus on the relationships that will grow from this interaction and to practice humility, compassion, integrity, and honesty and incorporate these attitudes into my actions. In particular, I would like to investigate educational inequities and pursue social justice issues through the lens of public education.
May 2014
I am a committed, critical leader. I am a hopeful realist. I am a reflective thinker who attempts to take thoughtful action. I know that my strengths lie in my capacity to locate abstract systems-level thinking in contexts, and in holding a profound belief in the honest process of self-revision. I know that I would like to work on holding tensions, and sitting productively in discomfort. I have learned that the world is messy and the problems we might seek to address will extend far beyond our individual capacities or lifetimes. But, the distance of our goals should not hinder us in our efforts to reach them.
This video marks one of my initial exposures to a theoretical account of leadership. While I find this video problematic, it does mark a particular paradigm shift in my thoughts on leadership as an academic and professional pursuit.
But, I have also learned that good leaders are good organizers, and that by drawing on the strengths of a collective group that is motivated by shared goals, things can happen. This change can occur at various nodes in a system, and I believe that I have isolated the location in the educational system where my strengths are aligned with the kind of change I want to see in the world.
Through experiences in the classroom, in front of the classroom, and outside of a classroom, I have focalized on a trajectory that leads into the administrative and policy sector of education. I myself am a product of public education and feel a deep personal and philosophical loyalty to the institution of education. Additionally, I fundamentally believe that a public school system that serves children and educators well is a non-negotiable aspect of a functional democracy. It has also become evident to me that educational systems are nested within complex and inequitable social systems. This places schools, communities, students, and educators in a difficult and potentially transformative position. While it is currently true that education as an institution is the place in society where many structures of disparate power patterns are manifested, it remains possible that education is a location where some of those inequalities can be addressed. Education is not the great equalizer. That truism does not reflect the violence of peoples' lived experiences in the education institution, but it is also the same institution that allows me to understand these structures.
By pursuing a commitment to macro-level administration and policy, I hope to utilize my theoretical and conceptual knowledges to advocate for teachers and students. While I do not pretend to aspire to radically altering systems or upset hierarchies within our current education system, I hope to interpret mandates or influence policy in a way that uses the bureaucratic structure for different ends. I aim to be thoughtful and tireless and hopeful. Above all, always hopeful.