I was a little confused by the journal assignments this
week, as they appear to be simply a place to take notes as we are reading. Since I read all of my material
electronically (either using PDFNotes [an app on the iPad] or Kindle), all of
my notes and questions are housed within the applications and it seemed
unnecessarily cumbersome to continuously switch back and forth between those
apps and a Word document to keep track of my thinking. However, in the spirit of the assignment,
after having finished all of the reading, I decided to go back through my notes
in the applications and reflect on the big ideas that noticed. So, here we go…
Definition
Teacher Leadership is when a teacher is willing and able to
take on roles outside of the classroom.
Because these roles are so varied and specific to the individual school,
it is impossible to characterize them all.
However, they tend to take on one of two forms: positional (i.e. the
teacher has a position that denotes leadership), or personal (the teacher
possesses attributes that others value that give them influence). Additionally, these roles may either happen
in conjunction with a full-time classroom position (team leader, committee
chair, etc.) or the teacher may have a position that incorporates time during
the day for the leadership opportunities (TOSA, reading coach, etc.).
Why Teacher
Leadership?
The idea that the teachers within the school should take on
more leadership roles is not new, however there has been a growing trend toward
more and more teacher leadership in the past twenty years. One reason is that the amount of jobs schools
are asked to do in the 21st century is too vast for one or two
people to keep track of and monitor. The
bottom line is, principals need help in ensuring that their schools are healthy
and functioning. Many leadership
opportunities arise from these needs.
However, it is essential that principals view this leadership as
something that all teachers can achieve and that everyone should
participate. While in some ways these
seems to negate “leadership” (is anyone a leader if we are all leaders?), in
other very real ways, limited leadership opportunities can create a situation
where those who are chosen are seen as the “favorites”. Such situations can breed animosity and
resentment and propel the school away from the collegiality and group-ownership
that is advocated by all the authors we have read thus far in the course.
Another reason for teacher leadership is to create a sense
of professionalism. Teachers are the
ones who are actually on the front lines of education. They are interacting with our kids for 6-7
hours a day. And yet the way most school
systems and State DOEs are organized, we treat teachers as if they are merely
cogs in a machine being run by people who are not only smarter than them, but
know more about how to teach than they do.
“Teacher proof” curriculums tell teachers that they aren’t capable of
making the most basic decisions that affect their students – despite having at
least a Bachelor’s degree and often a Master’s degree or higher. As Sarason (1990) noted, “teachers cannot
create a sustain the conditions for the productive development of children if
those conditions do not exist for teachers,” (p. xiv).
Questions I have…
·
How do you really create teacher leadership
within a school?
o
What about those teachers who really don’t want
to be leaders or interact with other teachers?
o
How do you help develop those with true
leadership potential without creating the sense of favoritism?
o
If everyone is a leader, are we really changing?
o
How do you get people to own the students
outside their own immediate control? For that matter, how do you get teachers
to own their own students’ work rather than leaving the locus of control with
the students only?
o
How do you get people past just giving most of
this lip-service with no real back-up in their practice?
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