Spiritual Leadership: Meeting the Challenge

Spiritual leaders understand that best teaching practices are still waiting to be discovered. They know this is especially true when it comes to teaching our diverse learners.

Stephen Covey says in his book, The 8th Habit, that nothing fails like success. When there is a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge that is success. BUT when there is a new challenge, the old once-successful response no longer works. If it is the response implemented, it will result in failure.

Education is experiencing a new challenge---many of our schools are no longer predominantly white. This challenge of changing demographics requires different and new ideas beyond what was (and what is!) successful for a predominantly white student population

Spiritual leaders understand that to address this issue they will need to "build a ship that has never been built before." This will mean being a maverick and challenging the status quo by asking questions such as, "Why?' and "What if....?" ....and then being prepared to endure scorn and ridicule, even by "experts" in the field. Experts are often the least receptive to any new idea.

Yet, the very word research means to explore and find new ways. If we already had all the answers, there would be no need for research.