ABSTRACT
In this final section, I offer a set of 10 theses or propositional statements arising out of this study. These synoptic statements represent the distillation of what has been learned and what I have come to understand as a result of doing this study. They are statements that gather together the precipitated insight gleaned from the conduct of this inquiry. In many respects, the collected theses offered here replace and replenish the more traditional "research findings" typically associated with empirical inquiry. We need to remember that these theses are not the type with which we can actually "do" anything or upon which a set of policy recommendations can actually be founded. They are not practical in that sense. But they are practical in a deeper, more important sense. They are practical in that they orient our thinking, set us on a new path, give us something to ponder. This is equally if not more practical, indeed the most valuable form of practicality. Taken seriously, these theses deepen our insight and thus our resourcefulness. The link between the theses offered here and practical worldly action may be less obvious and less directly observable than the prescriptions contained in conventional research "findings," but like the river that for a spell winds its way secretly, silently underground emerging finally at a far different place and time, the link is certainly there.
When principals tell "stories" about their daily work as principals, then these anecdotal texts may be considered as narrative definitions of the "practical" meaning of being a principal or school administrator.
The task of research in the human sciences calls for maximum engagement and a form of disciplined subjectivity.
An engaged attitude is not simply a methodological device but rather a fundamental principle of knowledge in the human sciences.
The capacity to grasp meaning is what is decisive for practice; this is a phenomenological-hermeneutic activity from the ground up.
The normative basis of educational administration is located in the pedagogic ground of its vocation.
The intent of theory and research in educational administration lies in overcoming objectivity and in replacing all "objective" relations with the existential relations of pedagogy.
Reconstituting educational administration as a pedagogic practice does not yield a new or unknown practice; rather, it cedes to the practice what was already there as its ground and first moment.
Strong practices are more obedient than masterful; this is as true in educational administration as elsewhere.
Strengthening a practice is a problem not of memorization but of memory.
Remembering what belongs to a practice is a caring act; it is the act of making whole.
