The literature in educational leadership is replete with
calls for change from our entrenched, stagnate and ineffective hierarchical
educational systems, which are ruled primarily by autocratic style leaders. Given
the state of our educational institutions globally in 2016, it is assuredly
going to be a slow uphill battle against the powerful forces of inertia and the
power dynamics in education. The control structures within educational
institutions are rooted in resource and value extractive capitalist experiment
that dates back to the beginning of the industrial revolution and is inherently
antidemocratic (Rushkoff , 2016). Educational leaders need ongoing pre- and
post-graduate training as well as educational and experiential growth in crisis
management in order to become leaders in this every increasing vital role. Media
has made crisis global in breadth and its impact, both seen and obscured, in
our streets and in our schools. Teen angst, perpetual war against nebulous
decentralized threats, and economic anxiety all contribute to an ongoing
unfocused crisis situation within educational settings with no clearly defined
event horizon. Thus it is more imperative in schools to have crisis management
and mitigation education for all those who assume leadership roles in education.
If nothing else, this ongoing education initiative of communication through
collaboration, could instill enough humility in autocratic leaders for them to
devolve authority to those who are natural leaders in crisis in order to
mitigate trauma and expedite healing after an event. Long term it would devolve
power and expertise to caring and counselling individuals to help every day in
a multiplicity of educational ways and promote true democratic principles. The
key, as the old aphorism suggests, is in education.
Rushkoff, D. (2016). Throwing
rocks at the google bus. How growth became the enemy of prosperity. New
York: Penguin.
Making Logical
Connections TO Instructional Leadership
When reading the material
from the Rigby study, I was aghast with the lack of leadership in general, and
Instructional Leadership in particular, that I have experienced based on these
classifications of effective Instructional Leadership (IL). Since no
administrators have exhibited the characteristics of Entrepreneurial or Social
Justice Logic, I will confine myself to my reflections to those I have served
under who mostly exhibit traits within the Prevailing Logic (PL) category.
PL Dimensions 1 & 2 .Goals
of Instructional Leaders/Focus of Attention.
The leaders I have known are indeed concerned with student achievement are
required to report out each year on school-based initiatives and student
achievement. Teacher satisfaction rates very low on their priority list however.
The relationship between teachers and the principal, rates from poor to is
non-existent. While one could point to the heavy administrative load referred
to in the Hoerr article, it would also be prudent to suggest that the institutional
leaders need to also be desirous of the f2f, email and wider group discussions
that inculcate relationships. If they are not, the end result is autocratic and
sycophantic leadership. Sadly it has not
just been my experience, but that of other colleagues as well.
Examples of low teacher
appreciation range from arbitrarily arranged PLC groupings by signage, not by predilection,
ability or purpose; mandated staff meetings without purpose for which ‘experts’
were enlisted to save the instructional leader from interaction or preparatory
work; and perfunctory assessment during unscheduled times to fulfill divisional
mandates.
PL Dimension 3. Theory of
Change. Principals often are
placed in a school, usually for expediency, and inherit school initiatives,
partially started or wholly implemented. They are either unable or unwilling to
remove unsuccessful or inadequate processes and procedures for selfish or
divisionally mandated reasons. This insures intuitional inertia and ossification,
and when combined with senior staff entitlement issues, leads to ineffective
change management.
The final dimension of
Prevailing Logic, the teacher’s role in facilitating achievement and success in
students, is diminished if not completely stymied, by the preceding
deficiencies in Instructional Leadership.
From the Entrepreneurial and Social Justice dimensions of IL , and
conspicuous by their very absence, are the following: Data Conferences and
consistent classroom observations, Monitoring of curricula, multiple responses
to individual learning styles and differentiated assessments, collective
construction of equity-based beliefs; leadership accountability
References
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