Overview

Learner-centered leadership grounded in courage, integrity, and love for every child The pressures of today’s political and cultural climate have created unprecedented roadblocks for school leaders striving to ensure success for all students. With mounting challenges from communities, conservative legislation, and misconceptions about student-centered instruction and inclusion efforts, leaders often feel isolated and threatened in their efforts to prioritize what learners need most. Drawing on interviews with 67 education leaders around the world, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership is a practical handbook, offering strategies to drive equity-focused and student-centered transformation, even in the face of opposition. Additional features include Approaches to foster trust and build relationships across the campus and community to overcome resistance Strategies to leverage data; include learner, teacher, and parent voices; and use intentional communication for effective decision-making Tools for preparing teachers, adapting systems, and protecting staff as they implement equity-centered initiatives Protocols, reflective questions, and worksheets to help schools determine readiness and create actionable plans Rooted in real-world stories, this book offers solidarity and actionable strategies to education leaders committed to centering the needs of all learners in increasingly polarized societies.

Full Product Details

9781071967560

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Jennifer D. Klein’s Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership is a bold and timely guide for school leaders navigating the complexities of equity, innovation, and resistance. Grounded in real stories and deep empathy, this book offers both practical strategies and moral clarity for those striving to do right by learners in polarized times. It is an essential companion for anyone committed to leading with courage, compassion, and vision."" -- Yong Zhao ""In a time when public education is being weaponized by authoritarian forces, Jennifer D. Klein offers a bold, humane roadmap for principled survival and resistance. Taming the Turbulence is not just a toolkit for surviving political backlash - it’s a call to lead with courage, integrity, and deep love for our children. This is essential reading for every educator committed to democracy, the vision of thriving public schools, and the rightful inclusion of every child."" -- Jason Glass ""Jennifer D. Klein has gifted the field of education a masterwork—one that reads like a loving letter to every leader who dares to do right by learners in a world increasingly resistant to progress. Taming the Turbulence is both balm and blueprint: it names the storms, honors the fragility of our roles, and charts a path through resistance with clarity, compassion, and courage. Klein speaks directly and unabashedly to the realities of leadership today, centering students with intention and love while honoring the complexity of navigating political, cultural, and institutional pushback.What enchants most is how the book wraps practical, immediately usable strategies inside a heart-filled conversation—anchored in dignity, rightful presence, and the global movement for meaningful, humanizing education. Klein introduces a common vocabulary, powerful metaphors, and viscerally real stories that create space for nuanced understanding and courageous action. Whether you′re a school leader, coach, or advocate, this book offers not just tools, but solidarity. You’ll leave feeling seen, resourced, and called to lead with both humility and hope."" -- Charity Marcella Moran, Ed.S. ""In Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership, Klein shows us a path out of the binary thinking that leads educational leaders down a dangerous path in which false dichotomies dominate our conversations about how to serve all students well. Instead, she offers a new vision for vigorous learning that demonstrates how fun, inclusion, and growth can be deeply connected, not mutually exclusive."" -- Zaretta Hammond

Author Information

Jennifer D. Klein is a product of experiential project-based education herself, and she lives and breathes the student-centered pedagogies used to educate her. She became a teacher during graduate school in 1990, quickly finding the intersection between her love of writing and her fascination with educational transformation and its potential impact on social change. She spent nineteen years in the classroom, including several years in Costa Rica and eleven in all-girls education, before leaving the classroom to support educators’ professional learning in public, private, and international schools. Motivated by her belief that all children deserve a meaningful, relevant education like the one she experienced herself, and that giving them such an education will catalyze positive change in their communities and beyond, Jennifer strives to inspire educators to shift their practices in schools worldwide. Jennifer is committed to intersecting globally-connected student-centered learning with identity-responsive and anti-racist teaching practices, and her experience includes deep work with schools seeking to address equity, take on brave conversations, build healthier communities, and improve identity politics on campus. She has a broad background in global education and global partnership development, student-centered curricular strategies, diversity and inclusivity work, student-led evaluation, outdoor education, and experiential, inquiry-driven learning. She has facilitated workshops in English and Spanish on four continents, providing the strategies for high-quality, globally connected project-based learning in all cultural and socioeconomic contexts, with an emphasis on amplifying student voice and shifting school culture to support such practices. Jennifer has worked with organizations such as the Buck Institute for Education, the Center for Global Education at the Asia Society, The Institute for International Education, Fulbright Japan, What School Could Be, the Centre for Global Education, TakingITGlobal, and the World Leadership School, to name a few. Most recently, she served as Head of School at Gimnasio Los Caobos (Bogotá, Colombia) for three years, where she was able to put her educational thinking into practice with profound impact on the quality of student learning and their growth as agents of change.   Jennifer’s first book, The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K–12 Classrooms Worldwide Through Equitable Partnerships, was published in 2017, and her second book, The Landscape Model of Learning: Designing Student-Centered Experiences for Cognitive and Cultural Inclusion, coauthored with Kapono Ciotti, was published in 2022. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and a Master of Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder, both in literature and creative writing. Additionally, Jennifer completed her principal licensing studies at the University of Denver. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado. Learn more about bringing Jennifer to your school or conference at www.principledlearning.org.

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