A Tale of Two Palestines
p>Gaza--Two nights in Ramallah, the principal West Bank city, followed by two nights in Gaza, principal city inside the Gaza Strip, unmasks the incredible gap between the two parts of Arab Palestine. Between Israel's "unilateral separation" from Gaza, plus its naval blockade, the Strip is a de facto prison camp of refugees from various Arab-Israeli conflicts since 1948. Somewhat looser restrictions by Israel and a massive black market in smuggled goods coming through the tunnels keeps scarcity at bay, but living conditions here are much farther apart from Ramallah than the 75 km or so would suggest.
A friend asked what cultural nuances or assumptions affect school leadership in this context. We are noticing very different Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) profiles between both the West Bank and Gaza as compared to North America and Europe, reflecting substantially different priorities for leadership. The imperative here is simply to do school. Vision counts for little in a war zone/prison camp. Further, many private schools are proprietary, and most heads of school are not educators by profession.
It is hard to disentangle culture from the sequelae of so much war and dysfunctional government. There is a preference for management over leadership, but that may have more to do with the logistics of school amid so much chaos (the American school in Gaza itself was destroyed by Israeli bombing three years ago and now meets in a downtown office building). 21st Century skills are interesting, but pale in importance next to meeting the rather rote standards of the Tawjihi system. Recruiting, retaining and developing teachers changes when the professional is essentially day labor--teachers quit mid-week to work at an UNWRA school where they can make more money or as a driver for a NGO.
Maybe in this context, exceptional leadership is about simply keeping school open.