Teacher Leadership: Overcoming 'I Am Just a Teacher' Syndrome

Abstract

Eighteen Master of Education students sat a class titled Teacher pondering how they could possibly be leaders. One offered, But my principal is our leader. He leads. Another said, Teacher is just a theory, believe. It does not exist real life--at least not my school. A third said, I think have some qualities, but am just a I am just a teacher. This mantra is embraced by legions of teachers across the land. Principals lead; teachers follow. And so it goes. The guiding principles of date to antiquity and received renewed interest the twentieth century. Over 60 years ago, Bahn (1947) charged administrators with the task of exploring abilities, releasing creative powers, tapping experiences, and, consequently, developing the quality of leadership (p. 155). In addition, numerous reform efforts the 1980s and 1990s recommended teacher leadership as a mechanism for widespread reform. Wasley (1991), too, almost two decades ago, led a clarion call for the necessity of and shared decision-making school improvement. She rightly acknowledged, however, that the body of literature was absent supporting this concept. Twenty years later, a body of literature has been developed and continues to grow, yet it is poorly understood and only intermittently practiced where it counts--in schools. Despite the many calls for the literature over the years, the message has not reached teachers themselves any large measure. School improvement ultimately will depend on leadership--a factor largely untapped schools today. Principal and Sustained, effective school substantially strengthens student achievement (Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2004) as does a positive school climate (Heck, 2000). Having engaged numerous school reform efforts over the years, it is clear that traditional, top down falls short of effecting the systemic, meaningful reform necessary to meet the needs of students the new and challenging world they will face (Copland, 2003). The principal has position, power, authority, and the responsibility of accountability for the total school program. However, the prevailing, role-bound model schools depicting the principal as having the requisite set of skills and teachers being passive recipients of directives or prescribed professional development must be examined. Both principal and teachers have important and reciprocal roles the overall quotient of a school, but to do so, an open and equitable relationship must be place. Leadership at its best takes place the interactions between people the school and the situations they face; therefore for to be effective, it must be shared or distributed (Gronn, 2000; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006); this takes certain dispositions on both the part of the principal and the teachers. Using Occam's razor, can be succinctly defined as making happen what you believe in (Barth, 2001). Considering this, can no longer equate exclusively with the man or woman the principal's office and the tendency to focus on the managerial aspects of the job. Bolman and Deal (2003) assert: If an organization is overmanaged but underled, it eventually loses any sense of spirit or purpose .... The challenges of modern organizations require the objective perspective of managers as well as the flashes of vision provides. (p. xvi) So, this age of accountability where no one person can possibly be omniscient, a wise principal will honor and support a distributed form of leadership, a philosophy put action where others the building are trusted and expected to bear the burden and pleasure of leadership, which far surpasses a few brilliant flashes of vision. …