Last week, Nancy Flanagan of the “Teacher in a Strange Land” blog for Education Week reflected on her recent experiences reviewing books on teacher leadership. She became disturbed as she realized the implicit assumption of many books focused on teacher leadership is that it is school leaders who nurture teacher leadership. But what about the reverse idea—that “teachers are already experienced leaders who could engender and nurture more effective leadership in their administrators?”
Flanagan writes that she has seen this “reverse idea” at work many times throughout her career. Usually, it is a group of veteran teachers who guide administrators to make good decisions, with or without that administrator realizing he or she is being “led.” How does this work? Flanagan offers her advice for building a collaborative influence for improving leadership:
- Don’t go to your school administrator with complaints only. Come with proposed solutions, or at least your own detailed analysis of the issue.
- Seek your own professional learning and keep abreast of current education issues. Talk about these issues publicly with colleagues, and invite your administrator to be part of the professional discussion. This can help make it clear that it is not the principal’s responsibility to “develop” you as a professional.
- Give credit where it is due—acknowledge school leaders’ accomplishments and skills.
- Give leaders some cover and support when they make unpopular but necessary decisions. There is always controversy, but don’t throw your administrator under the bus when he or she has stuck their neck out for what is right.
- Be willing to ask touchy questions in front of your colleagues and administrators: “Our building policy on homework doesn’t make sense for the kids we have now–can we find a better answer?” or “Why do we start the high school day at 7:15 when research and the kids’ zoned-out behavior tell us they’re not ready to learn then?”
- Bring all players into solution-finding, even “chronic grumps.” It can be messier, but it builds trust.
- Approach every issue with the mindset that teachers and administrators are equals working together to solve problems. Don’t mentally position teachers and school leaders on opposite, adversarial sides when difficult change is needed.
In a postscript, Flanagan admits that in some schools these ideas will be viewed as “naïve and silly,” or even a “Pollyanna response” to sometimes clueless or even malevolent school leadership.
However, “if school leaders and teachers can’t get past hierarchies, roles and adversarial thinking to work together, they won’t be able to re-shape our national approach to public education.”
To read the full article, please visit http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/07/seven_suggestions_for_teachers_to_make_their_school_leaders_more_effective.html
