Journeys in Education Leadership

School Administrator, Jan, 1999 by Bernard Mitchell

Treat yourself to Journeys in Education Leadership as soon as possible! Alice Huff Hart's compilation of thoughts from 18 North Carolinian principals of the year will remind you of the joys and trials of working as a site administrator.

Few books on leadership go beyond the esoteric catch-phrases in our field, but this book offers specific suggestions and ideas that beginning administrators can use to provide inspiration and an outline for success.

The principals' joys of having spent their lives serving children rings out from page after page, as do their thoughts on positive mentors in their lives. When you read Barbara Ledford's account of how Jay Robinson, then-superintendent in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., schools, enlisted her support, you would feel compelled to line up right beside her.

These principals share both successes and failures and what they learned from each. When Hart reflects on her own rookie mistake and her recovery from it, you'll shake your head and say to yourself, "Yes, I've been there and done that and, oh yeah, that was the same lesson I learned." In story after story, you will step back in time to lessons of experience--the lessons that make principals great. This is definitely one for the nightstand--quickly read and in small enough segments that you can enjoy one story per night.

(Journeys in Education Leadership: Lessons From 18 Principals of the Year, edited by Alice Huff Hart, Character Development Group, P.O. Box 9211, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27515, 1998, 183 pp., $12 softcover)