Before
reading the Hilty text, I have never heard of the different types of teacher
leadership in schools. The three different types emphasize the importance of
collective verses individual leadership. As stated on page 272, “Ogawa and
Bossert argue that leadership occurs not though the actions of individuals but
through the INTERACTIONS AMONG individuals. Because it occurs through the
interaction, influence that is exerted through leadership cannot be assumed to
be unidirectional; it can flow up and down levels and between units of
organization...leadership is not confined to certain roles but is distributed
across roles, with different roles having access to different levels and types
of power and influence.” What I really liked about this paragraph was that it
informs the reader that leadership doesn’t always have to fall on certain,
established people at our schools.
I have
worked at the same school for the past 3 years as I have just started my 4th
year with Horizon. When reading about leadership roles and where responsibilities
fall, allowed me to realize that Horizon has not had a successful set up with
teacher leadership for a while. I found the statement “the social distribution
of leadership means more than the division or duplication of leadership task
among formal and informal leaders…leadership is “stretched over” the practice
of two or more leaders in their interactions with their followers…it indicates
that leaders not only influence followers but are also influenced by them and
that leaders are dependent upon those they lead” (274). This just really resonated
with me coming into a new year, with a new principal. Over the past 3 years, we
have had a schoolwide leadership team then it was dissolved. PLCs became a “choice”
among teachers and teams who wanted to participate, but had no set guidelines. Our
last principal had a very difficult time developing a following, or a group of
people that were willing to work underneath her leadership and go in the
direction she wanted to go. Which resulted in our school not having vertical
alignment amongst grade levels. There wasn’t much commonality throughout the
school. I feel the only way the 4th grade team was always on the
same page was due to our team continuing to work with the co-teaching model.
What I have already felt and
noticed within the first month under our new leadership is that there is finally
some initiative to hear from the staff of what our visons are for the school. What
do we need from him for support. He has really started to try and answer the
question from the article on Pg. 15, “What do we need from everyone to achieve this
vision?” Our school has now has established committees, to address certain
needs and actually come back to teams and talk whole staff about decisions and
concerns. There are set norms, expectations and guidelines for team PLCs now. What
I am experiencing right now is actual leadership. I am not just “following”
something I heard through the grapevine and hoping what I heard is correct. We have
communication. We now have examples, norms and expectations for tasks within
our teams in order for to establish goals for our kids to be successful. We have expectations and tasks to do during our PLCs-coming back to the main goal of them, using data from our classrooms to drive our decision making in order for our kids to be meet and achieve the goals we have for them. We are
only in a month in of school, but these new experiences feel good. As a school,
we finally feel supported by our formal leadership team, which is allowing for
more informal leaders to rise up.
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