104 PREPARATION OF SCHOOL LEADERS
ing are a constant symbol of the possibilities for a democratic way of life. Democratic experi-
ences guided by democratic knowledge, inquiry, practice, and culture give form to democratic
possibilities through students of leadership struggling, along side leadership educators, with
the conventions of an organized society. Leadership preparation designed around democratic
principles that warranted knowledge and actualized democratic life, with curricula based in
projects that integrate subject matter while addressing genuine problems, could achieve such
conditions necessary to creating and sustaining a democratic society.
Democratic possibilities exist in the experiences we as educators can make possible, the
imaginative moments through which we can enable our students to move beyond the realities
of a world as it is experienced in the present. To follow Dewey’s (1916a) philosophy as set
forth in Democracy and Education, in its inception, development, and fulfillment, a democ-
ratic way of education leadership preparation starts with learning experiences that are democ-
ratic in nature. By extension, leadership practice concerned with democratic possibilities starts
with learning to lead that is democratic, evolves with an absorbed engagement with the world,
and reaches realization in transformative moments that define society as democratic.
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