The Use of Sandplay in a Graduate Educational Leadership Program

Clifford Mayes and Pamela Blackwell-Mayes

Abstract

Two researchers in an educational administration graduate program used sandplay to help the students reflect upon the deeper personal, political, and spiritual dynamics of their sense of calling as educational leaders. These graduate students were mostly mid-life teachers who had been chosen by their districts to participate in this nationally highlighted administrative program that would eventually result in the possibility of principalship. Their various sandtrays evidenced clear differences according to gender, family-of-origin issues, whether the person had been an elementary or secondary school teacher, and whether the person was just beginning or ending the program. Some limited support was also found for the notion that the four quadrants of the sandbox may in some cases correspond to Jung’s four-part personality typology.

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