Interview with Robert J. Starratt on Refocusing school leadership: Foregrounding human development throughout the work of the school, by Robert J. Starratt

Abstract

Refocusing School Leadership departs from the more traditional conceptualization of leadership, looking behind the daily routines of human resource leaders to highlight the assumptions and values and beliefs they bring to their work as well as the values and meanings embedded in the various contexts of school life. Starratt explores how educational leadership is grounded in one's own humanity as well as in a deep appreciation of the richness, complexity, and enormous potential of people, and he attempts to restore the centrality of human development in the work of educating the young--education is not simply about educating minds, but about developing whole persons. Starratt argues for a refocusing of educational leadership on affirming and enabling those talents, dispositions, interests, life experiences, and cultural proficiencies that comprise their humanity to enrich the work of learning.