Should a ’21st century leadership’ book ignore technology?
In September 2007 I profiled a book that I had purchased called The 21st Century Principal. In that post, I noted the extreme paucity of content related to digital technologies, particularly given its purpose of examining
the future of public schooling in the United States – and what it will mean to be a leader in public schools – by focusing on the issues that are most likely to have an impact on American society within the next 20 years.
Today I received notice of a new book, The Challenges for New Principals in the 21st Century. Here are the chapter titles:
- Translational Leadership: New Principals and the Theory and Practice of School Leadership in the Twenty-First Century
- New Headteachers in Schools in England and Their Approaches to Leadership
- So You Want to be a Headteacher?: “Liabilities of Newness,” Challenges, and Strategies of New Headteachers in Uganda
- Problems Reported by Novice High School Principals
- Accelerating New Principal Development Through Leadership Coaching
- From Mentoring to Coaching: Finding the Path to Support for Beginning Principals
I know many of the editors and authors for this book, and I’m sure it’s going to have some good, research-based information for new principals. But I confess I’m highly skeptical of the book title…
I understand that the role of school principals encompasses many things besides digital technologies. That said, should school leadership books be allowed to include phrases like ‘challenges’ and ‘21st century’ in their titles if they substantially ignore the leadership and learning issues related to digital technologies? I’m not sure they should…
