Curriculum Leadership - by Wesley Null (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book provides those who lead curriculum discussions with a humanistic foundation that embraces the moral aspect of curriculum decision making. In doing so it provides much needed guidance for today's curriculum leaders.

Book Synopsis

Curriculum Leadership provides much-needed guidance and inspiration for today's curriculum leaders. Building on his Curriculum: From Theory to Practice, now in its 3rd edition, Null provides readers with a companion text that makes the quality of the people who do curriculum work the heart of all good curriculum making.

Often working within extremely challenging if not toxic environments, modern-day curriculum decision makers too often receive shallow "trainings" or pre-packaged "solutions" that promise to "fix" schools once and for all. Ready-made solutions to the complex social, political, and moral challenges that face today's schools, however, do not exist. What leaders need is a robust philosophical and practical text that, instead of seeking to tell leaders how they must act, respects them as the professionals they are. Curriculum Leadership does that while at the same time providing those who lead curriculum discussions with a solid humanistic foundation that empowers them to lead with integrity, imagine a bright future for their schools, and make decisions that strengthen the institutions they serve.

To achieve these ends, Curriculum Leadership connects the field of curriculum to recent developments within moral philosophy. For too long, the field has distanced itself from the moral problems that are the essence of all curriculum decision-making. Instead of running from this reality, Curriculum Leadership embraces the ethical aspect of curriculum and argues for an integration of curriculum deliberation with virtue theory, an approach to moral philosophy that has grown considerably during the last fifty years. The time has come for curriculum to catch up.

After discussing how curriculum can benefit from the work of virtue theorists, Null focuses on ten virtues that he contends are essential for good curriculum making. They are humility, courage, compassion, justice, wisdom, practical wisdom, perseverance, faith, hope, and love. The selection of these ten virtues grows out of Null's thirty years in education, including fifteen years as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Baylor University.

Null dedicates one chapter to each of these virtues. Each chapter begins with a philosophical, psychological, and, in some cases, theological discussion of that virtue before turning to two role models who serve as moral exemplars for that virtue in their personal lives. Some of the exemplars highlighted include, for example, Mother Teresa for humility, Martin Luther King, Jr., for justice, Abraham Lincoln for perseverance, Eleanor Roosevelt for practical wisdom, and Malala Yousafzai for hope. In each chapter, Null then connects that virtue to curriculum leadership and decision making.

Whether they are classroom teachers, district superintendents, or university administrators, readers of Curriculum Leadership will develop a better understanding of the unique nature of curriculum problems. They also will gain a richer understanding of how the formation of these ten virtues not only improves our lives personally but also results in stronger institutions that, of course, exist to serve the public good. Only through the formation of people who possess these ten virtues can our institutions of curriculum weather the storm that has already arrived.

Review Quotes

"Wesley Null shows us the central importance of virtue ethics to designing curriculum and implementing it. He also shows us, at least implicitly, how essential it is for virtue ethics to be part of the content of a curriculum. He makes his case with powerful arguments and compelling life histories of significant figures from our cultural history who exemplify various virtues. Null has a lesson for us all, and we ignore it at our, and our students' peril." --Barry Schwartz, coauthor of "Practical Wisdom" and "Choose Wisely"

"Wesley Null invites readers into a bold reconsideration of curriculum as a moral practice rather than a technical exercise. Guided by virtue ethics, he argues that meaningful curriculum leadership depends on people who reflect, who listen, and who deliberate with care. The book does not offer easy solutions. Instead, it offers a framework for thinking about curriculum as an expression of character and responsibility. Null writes with clarity and conviction, drawing on years of scholarship that, among other books, include Curriculum: From Theory to Practice and American Educational Thought. His message is simple yet urgent: education depends on the kind of leaders we become. This book challenges, reassures, and opens space for possibility. It invites readers to think differently and, perhaps, lead differently. Educators, policy leaders, and scholars who sense that something essential has been missing from conversations about curriculum will find a path forward here. It is a book worth sharing with anyone who wants education to be wiser, steadier, and more principled." --Bruce Uhrmache, Professor Emeritus, University of Denver, leader in curriculum studies with extensive publications in curriculum and aesthetic education

"Higher education finds itself in a state of deep crisis, with its legitimacy called into question for financial, civic, and ideological reasons. Drawing upon decades of experience in administration, instruction, and scholarship, Wesley Null argues that higher education needs revolutionary change, that it must overcome its obsession with purely technical approaches to curriculum and reorient itself in the direction of moral philosophy, particularly the burgeoning field of virtue ethics. This is the sort of book, at once accessible and challenging, theoretical and practical, that only someone with Null's extensive background in higher education could write. We ignore his critique of the status quo and his recommendations for reform to our peril." --Thomas Hibbs, J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy, Dean Emeritus, Baylor University

About the Author

Wesley Null, Ph.D., is Professor of Curriculum and Foundations of Education in the School of Education and the Honors College at Baylor University. He also serves as Baylor's Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. In that role he has overseen hundreds of curriculum change proposals during the last fifteen years, including Baylor's first revision of its core curriculum since World War II.