PMP427: The Fulcrum Position in Education with Olina Banerji

A quick note to listeners: 

Before this week’s interview, Jen Schwanke and Will Parker answered a listener question in a 5-minute response. 

The question is: How do leaders know when to protect staff from initiatives (buffer) and when to connect to initiatives that are handed down to them?

Listen in for our response and thank you for doing what matters!

Meet Olina Banerji

Olina Banerji is an award-winning journalist and writer. She spent ten years in international newsrooms and global non-profits and then shifted to five years leading editorial coverage on education for The Ken, an Indian business news website. For the past eighteen months, she has been a reporter for Education Week, where she has focused on the experiences and stories of principals.  Her experience spans two sectors—journalism and social change— both of which provide insight and perspective valuable to educators. 

From Jen Schwanke: 

It’s not often we have an education reporter on the podcast, but this one makes the wait well worth it! Olina is a reporter for Education Week, an online publication popular among teachers and leaders. I met her at the NASSP United Conference this summer and couldn’t wait to share her with our listeners. We found one another because she was researching a story about principals and conflict management— a topic on which I was presenting in response to my book, The Principal’s Guide to Conflict Management. 

Before the presentation, Olina and I had a short but intense conversation about common conflicts and how the fundamental issues of school leadership require skilled and disciplined responses to conflicts. 

Afterwards, taken by her intelligence and thoughtful response to the role of the principal, I asked if she might join us on the “Principal Matters Podcast.” Our conversation did not disappoint; in fact, it opened my mind to some of the fundamental similarities in a principal’s work and gave us a preview of some of the challenges principals will face in the coming years.

But let’s back up. Why— and how— does someone become an education reporter? Olina followed a path of journalism that led her to understanding the vast potential of young people. She was— and is— inspired by their ideas, their potential, and their innovative spirit. This inspiration led her to think about the education system and how it both challenges and inhibits the people involved in it. At Education Week, she says, “Principals are my beat, and they are my bread and butter.” 

She has spoken to hundreds of principals through her reporting and noted how school leadership is a uniquely “fulcrum” position— so much flows through them, yet so much of that flow is out of their control. Principals are, she says, some of the strongest people she knows, because they are always “bracing for impact.” They must stay on top of trends and training but also remain fundamentally grounded in their purpose. 

Three topics that are on the front of Olina’s mind for the future work of principals are technology, instructional leadership, and the navigation of political environments. 

“We have to think about the levers in the system,” she says, and notes the important role principals play in providing guidance for teachers, students, parents, and community. 

Principals are expected to implement and oversee many structures, but they also need support and training to help navigate some of the problems coming toward us— problems we might not even know about yet. 

This interview is intelligent, insightful, and provides a guiding perspective for all principals, and we’re so excited to bring Olina into your learning journey. 

Stay Connected:

• Email: obanerji@educationweek.org
• X: https://x.com/OBanerji
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olina-banerji-57865927/

Thank you for learning together, and for doing what matters!

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