Everyday Teacher Leadership E-Book

Michelle Collay

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: JB Leadership Library in Education
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 295

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The essential guidelines for leading effective change in your school From an education expert comes a much-needed resource that gives teacher leaders the strategies and tools they need to improve their practice and assume new leadership roles in their schools. The author outlines the everyday acts of teacher leadership and shows how to lead effectively through collaboration. The book also contains suggestions for leading change beyond the classroom. * Discusses what works when taking on the role of teacher leader in a school * Contains proven strategies and tools for implementing school change * Includes activities in each chapter that are teacher-tested and can be used by individuals, teams, or larger groups This important resource offers school leaders a much-needed guide for learning how to lead and implement school change.

Leseprobe

Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Teaching Is Leading

My Own Journey

The Purpose of This Book

How This Book Is Organized

How to Use This Book

Using Systematic Inquiry

Everyday Teacher Leadership

Chapter 1 : A Very Brief History of School Leadership

Leading Learning Past and Present

The Evolution of Leading and Managing in Schools

Challenging the Dichotomy Between Site Leaders and Teachers

Teaching as Leading

Professional Identity Development

Inquiry One: Leadership Activities

Chapter 2 : The Personal Dimensions of Leadership

Teaching as a Vocation

Teaching “in Loco Parentis” (in Place of Parents)

Teaching as a Profession

Inquiry Two: Life Experiences Influence Your Practice

Chapter 3 : Teaching Is Leading

Reframing Teaching as Leadership

Choosing Classroom Leadership over School Site Management

Leading Learning in the Classroom and Beyond

Reimagining Instructional Leadership

Inquiry Three: Student and Curriculum Case Studies

Chapter 4 : Collaboration Is Leading

Assumptions About Collaboration

Collaborative Structures

Sharing Professional Responsibility for Learning

Inquiry Four: Collaborations Small and Large

Chapter 5 : Inquiry Is Leading

Using Inquiry Where You Are

Using Inquiry to Cross Boundaries

Inquiry Five: Framework for Developing an Equity Plan

Chapter 6 : Partnership Is Leading

District Partnerships

Agency Partnerships

Community Partnerships

An Afterword About Partnerships and Schools

Inquiry Six: Transforming School Leadership Through Partnerships with Agencies

Index

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Collay, Michelle.

Everyday Teacher Leadership : Taking Action Where You Are / Michelle Collay.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-64829-2 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-02307-5 (ebk);

ISBN 978-1-118-02309-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-02308-2 (ebk)

1. Educational leadership. 2. Teacher participation in administration. 3. Teachers— In-service training. I. Title.

LB2806.C527 2011

371.1′06—dc22

2010049620

About the Author

Michelle Collay is professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at CSU East Bay, Hayward, California. A former public school music teacher, she is a scholar-practitioner who integrates teaching and scholarship in higher education and PK–12 settings. Her research interests include teacher professional socialization with attention to how life experience shapes teachers’ professional identities. Collay coaches school leaders engaged in professional learning communities, constructivist teaching and leading, and equity-focused inquiry. Her previous books include Constructivist Learning Design with George Gagnon and Learning Circles: Creating Conditions for Teacher Professional Development with Diane Dunlap, Walter Enloe, and George Gagnon. Collay has also authored many articles on the topics of leadership, equity, and urban education. She stays grounded as a parent leader in her children’s schools.

Acknowledgments

The voices in this text represent urban teacher leaders who have dedicated their lives to teaching and leading others. Their reflections are profound, honest, and heartfelt. They have tilled the soil, planted the seeds, and enabled the growth of students, peers, and all educational leaders who share their journey. I extend my deepest appreciation to these colleagues who have been my teachers.

I thank my mentors for encouraging me to follow this path when the way wasn’t always clear. Linda Lambert, Rob Proudfoot, Diane Dunlap, Joanne Cooper, Liz Wing, Sandy Gehrig, Barbara Storms, and others are teachers and leaders who guide my footsteps as I continue to ask, “How did you learn to lead?”

I have been supported in my writing by my colleague and friend Peg Winkelman and my thinking partner and husband, George Gagnon. George is also a colleague in this work and helps me focus on what matters. Kate Gagnon at Jossey-Bass helped craft an authentic framework so the leadership of my teacher colleagues could inform the field in powerful ways.

Finally, I acknowledge my two school-age children, Von and Nina, for providing so much material for my thinking about teaching. Ultimately, parents and teachers share the work of educating young people, leading them outward to become leaders in their own right.

Introduction

Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.

—Parker Palmer

Parker Palmer’s words open this section and this book because his emphasis on the identity and integrity of teachers resonates deeply with me. I embrace the term “good teaching” rather than “good teacher,” because the former represents work we strive to do every day. The latter implies judgment of individuals rather than the work itself, perhaps by each teacher of herself or one teacher of another. Teachers are judged as good or bad by each other, students, parents, administrators, policymakers, and media. Much of the research on the characteristics of a “good” teacher or an “excellent” teacher is divisive, lending credence to the idea than some have what it takes and others don’t. We’re all good teachers some of the time, but we strive to do good teaching all of the time. I acknowledge that there are some teachers who should not be in classrooms, but for the purpose of this work, I take the stance that most teachers strive to teach with integrity every day.

Teaching with integrity requires leadership. Teaching is leading; teachers are leaders. This book focuses on how teachers already lead and how they can learn to lead more purposefully. Some teachers have a more developed professional identity and are more effective instructors, colleagues, and leaders. Mature teachers may lead with greater skill, but they don’t become leaders at some point in the future. They already lead. As my professor remarked after he heard me say I was learning to play the bassoon, “No, you’re playing the bassoon. Someday you’ll play it better!”

Teachers construct a professional identity long before they enter their own classrooms and develop that identity further as they establish, refine, and extend their practice. Teaching practice is inherently an act of leadership. Most experienced teachers manifest a fully formed teaching identity, whereas early years’ teachers exhibit less confidence. I can tell when I’m fully inhabiting my role as teacher and when I’m not. Most teachers can tell you whether their colleagues are professionals—that is, fully embracing the work of teaching with integrity. When I observed student teachers day in and day out, I used the phrase “your teacher self” to characterize that sensibility. We know it when we see it and when we don’t, but it’s very hard to describe. Good teaching mediates the process of identifying, disrupting, and creating or reestablishing more equitable outcomes for students. Great teachers do this all the time; good teachers strive to do it and succeed most of the time. Disrupting inequity from within the system is hard work, and few of us feel successful all the time or even most of the time.