This is Dennis Bartels again, from the Exploratorium. I think Jim raises
some very provocative points. One that resonants very much with my
experience is the excessively narrow definition or view of teacher
professional leadership, especially when we speak in terms of leading
"second generation" workshops for other colleagues. Many of our efforts
have been handicapped by by this singular focus.
A much broader definition of leadership development is taking advantage of
ways that teachers are already acting as leaders--everyday--in their
routine interactions with each other, their students and with other people
in the system. That is, professional leadership of teachers is not created
in a vacuum but already exists among the current set of teachers and is
demonstrated every day in many ways. In every instance when we've
reflected with teachers and others on how teachers influence, shape or
redirect the system, the list approaches three digits--teacher led
workshops being just one of dozens of examples that come to mind.
This observation leads me to question a common assumption that a lot of
teacher leadership development models make. I do not believe that teacher
leaders are "made." (I know that teachers who exemplify leadership don't
see it this way.) Most of the teachers that I am thinking about already
come with a calling to serve the profession beyond what they do for their
individual students and with a head full of ideas. A research colleague of
mine found that teachers who are thought of by others as leaders tend to
have an innate sense of strategic timing. They already have a good idea
for their department or school, but they lay in wait for the right moment
or set of circumstances before they let it fly--like a change in
principals, or change in district curriculum or policy, or a new program.
What if our strategy was to find these teachers and provide them with the
opportunities, tools, and support to execute their own ideas for change? I
think two of the biggest mistakes we make with regard to design of
leadership development models is 1. we train them to be "leaders" or 2. we
try to affix our own ideas of change onto them to implement. Another way
to think of it is when do teachers stop becoming the "implementors" of
reform and start becoming the "creators" of it?
What if we had a model that provided a structure and the culture in a safe
space and let the teachers bring in the curriculum and questions derived
from the actual circumstances of their own settings? (Wouldn't many of us
wish the same for the many conference and meetings that are held in the
name of our own professional development?) The empowerment that I am
thinking about comes from a sense of efficacy that I've seen when a teacher
gets to ask his or her most burning question about teaching and learning
and there is twenty other people around the room who can't wait to engage
it. Isn't that the same type of authenticity that we talk about for
students under a "constructivist" paradigm? I am constantly struck by how
everything we say is good or important about a student's learning and
development applies perfectly to a teacher's learning and development.
I don't think this is an ideal or just rhetoric, because I have seen it
done. I hate sounding like a one note band (especially because I am aware
of more than one model that accomplishes this), but this is the consistent
result that I see from the writing project model and its off spring. The
teachers who participate are under no obligation to go back and do
inservices for their colleagues, or serve as change agents for their
schools, or anything else for that matter. The teacher leadership that
emerges is much more organic, powerful and surprising when it isn't
predetermined by the development experience designers what the final
outcome or follow-up obligation of the participants is suppose to be.
That is not to minimize or neglect the importance of the larger system.
With a friendly and supportive system, in the way Jim describes, this type
of model has much swifter and greater impact than otherwise. But I've seen
it operate without it (I guess that's why they call it a loosely coupled
system!) And I think it poses perhaps a different notion of empowerment
than one solely dependent on the system for validation and support.
I hope others join this discussion.
Dennis
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