Exploring narratives of "failure": The lived experiences of educational administrators

This study explores the lived experiences of failure among Oklahoma K12 administrators through the lens of Curriculum as Lived Experience theory. The purpose of this research is to examine how administrators experience and make meaning of failure within complex, discursive, educational landscapes. Using narrative inquiry, four administrators engaged in storytelling through a written prompt, one-on-one conversations, and a chosen artifact. Layering narrative, emotional, and poetic analyses enables this study to illuminate the situated realities of administrators. Findings reveal multiple, often conflicting and hidden, failure discourses that shape administrators’ experiences. These discourses, frequently institutional, systemic, and hidden, can act as forms of slow violence, harming those who differ. However, narrators demonstrated agency, reinterpreting and resisting failure discourses through their own meaning-making practices. Ultimately, this research advocates for shared failure conversations to humanize and contextualize administrative life. By engaging with diverse failure stories, this study challenges deficit framing and invites more humanizing, authentic understandings of and conversations with educational leadership.