Successful People V Unsuccessful people.

The New Work of Educational Leaders - Book Review

INTRODUCTION/PREFACE

Book Title:                  The New Work of Educational Leaders – Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform

Author:                        Peter Gronn, Faculty Member of Education Department at Monash University, Australia.

Author’s Profile:         A researcher, a professor and a writer. Published books extensively on aspects of school, educational and organizational leadership. His research interests include all aspects of leadership, in particular, learning leadership and the development of leaders, distributed leadership etc.

Publisher:                    Sage Publications, London in 2003.

CONTENTS/THEME

Book Structure

Book is articulated in two parts: the 'architecture' and the 'ecology' of leadership. In Part I, three chapters outline a new building of leadership by developing the themes of design, distribution and disengagement, while in Part II author discusses in five chapters about What do Leaders do?, Leaders’ Committees and Meetings, Leadership Teams, the Emotions of Leaders and lastly Leadership as Greedy Work.

Part I

Designer-leadership means producing leaders according to design specifications. In our context we can relate it to the policy that unless one doesn't get the M.Ed or MA (Education) degree he/she is assumed incompetent to become leader or principal, specifically in government institutions. According to author standards are very important to ensure quality in schools, but along with the standards, work context is also essential as it varies place to place.

Distributed-leadership means interdependency and coordinated work. This theme is presented as an alternative to focused leadership. According to Gronn (2003) researches show that it is the new trend increased after 1980. Distributed leadership is certainly a step up from one person leadership as we can see the work of head teacher is increasing and the responsibilities of managing the school needs to be shared.  This is also articulated by Arrowsimith (2007) that “Distributed leadership (DL) is an emerging form of power distribution in school which extends authority and influence to groups or individuals in a way which is at least partly contrary to hierarchical arrangements” (p.22). In the context of Pakistan, we can partially relate this leadership theme to private educational institutions or self-managed organizations.

Disengagement means inability of school systems to attract principals from among the teaching ranks because teachers are becoming unwilling to take on leadership positions is explored (Gronn, 2003). Teachers use to be in their own comfort zones and because of challenging tasks and responsibilities they hesitate to take initiative.

Part II

Five chapters explain ‘ecology’ of leadership in this part. Author asks, 'What do leaders do?' and then proceeds to offer a detailed synthesis and critical review of research findings since the 1950s across a number of different countries (Gronn, 2003). Then, author focuses on committees/meetings and teams, respectively to strengthen distributed leadership. Finally Gronn draws on earlier concept of 'greedy institutions' to propose that leadership is being reconstructed as 'greedy work', which demands one to be constantly and fully there. Although there are many aspects of this image that are immediately identifiable but there is probably some misunderstanding between 'greedy work', 'greedy practices', 'greedy occupations', 'greedy policies' and 'greedy rulers and policy makers'. There is not clarity about what or who is being greedy, the institutions or the individuals.

REFLECTION/success & challenges

Distributed leadership is the theme which the writer wishes to favour and strengthen. Overall the book draws on a wide range of international literature by referring 471 books/articles. It seems highly a theoretical work. I must say that the themes discussed could be presented in a simple language but I surely agree with Hart (n.d.) who articulates this manner as “some authors seem to neglect the needs of their potential readers and manage to make  relatively simple ideas confusing” (p.10).

REFERENCES

Arrowsmith, T. (2007). Distributed leadership in secondary schools in England: the impact on the role of the head teacher and other issue. Management in Education. 21(2), 21-27.

Gronn, P (2003). The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London. Sage Publications.

Hart, C. (n.d). The literature review in research. Doing a Literature Review. London: Sage Publications.

TRANSITIONAL VOYAGE TO EMERGE INTO LEARNING COMMUNITIES FOR SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN

Darvesh Karim, AKU-PDCN Gilgit.

Learning community is a group of people who share common values and beliefs and actively engage in learning together from each other. This is based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design. The people who facilitate learning communities may contribute from several distinct fields of study.  To create a learning community we have to focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively and have to hold ourselves accountable for results and better outcomes.

Through literature review we can identify the guide lines for creating a learning community as Lovely, S. & Buffum, A.G. (2007) states that, “A major goal in the design of a learning community is facilitating a culture of collaboration within a setting that is complicated by the cross age diversity of most teams” (p.28). To facilitate this culture of collaboration we have to offer the opportunity for reforms.  The major requirements to create learning communities are according to Retallick, J. Cocklin, B. & Coombe, K. (Eds.). (1999)  are respect, caring, inclusiveness, trust, empowerment and commitment. These are the guide lines through which we can create learning community in schools.

For an effective learning community in educational institutions, there are many indicators to identify the existence of learning community; however, following two factors are more dominant towards fostering learning community in a school.

1.      Supportive and Shared Practices

2.      Distributed Leadership

Supportive and Shared Practices

Several kinds of factors determine when, where, and how the staff can regularly come together as a unit to do the learning, decision making, problem solving, and creative work that characterize a professional learning community. If we will not take care of these factors many consequences can occur in the institution. Stewart, D. & Prebble, T. (1993) describes this situation as, “Relationships among staff groups are a consequence of the communication patterns and networks that exist in the organization” (p.94).

Review of a teacher's behavior by colleagues is the norm in the learning community.  This practice is not evaluative but is part of the "peers helping peers" process for own understanding or to help each other. Such review is conducted regularly by teachers, who visit each other's classrooms to observe, and discuss their observations with the visited peer. Stewart, D. & Prebble, T. (1993). “Reflecting on our professional practice tends to be more profitable when a colleague is able to help us reflect on that practice and suggest alternatives” (p.45). This process use to be based on the desire for individual and community improvement and is enabled by the mutual respect and trustworthiness of staff members.

Teachers can proudly claim the existence of learning community in their schools, if they we have the sense of non-evaluative assessments and positive feedback to each other and for the enhancement of this sense, the teaching-learning atmosphere and leadership influence on teachers is very much revolutionary, which create such an atmosphere of respect and trustworthiness among the all the teachers. It is very well said that development never ends, so exercising the supportive and shared practices may lead teachers to strengthen and reinforce further this important aspect of learning community.

Distributed Leadership

Distributed-leadership means interdependency and coordinated work. This theme is presented as an alternative to focused leadership. According to Gronn (2003) it is the new trend increased after 1980, which is certainly a step up from one person leadership as we can see the work of head teacher is increasing and the responsibilities of managing the school needs to be shared.  This is also articulated by Arrowsimith (2007) that “Distributed leadership (DL) is an emerging form of power distribution in school which extends authority and influence to groups or individuals in a way which is at least partly contrary to hierarchical arrangements” (p.22). In the context of Pakistan, we can partially relate this leadership theme to some of the educational institutions.

Distributed leadership starts from willingness to share authority, the capacity to facilitate the work of staff, and the ability to participate without dominating. Stewart, D. & Prebble, T. (1993) states that, “If principals wish to change what teachers do, they must first change the way teachers think about what they do” (p.189).

Members of the Learning Community work together, share expertise, and exercise leadership to ensure that student achievement is the intended result of all decisions.  They retain primary responsibility, appropriate autonomy, and are accountable for making decisions affecting the important aspects of the learning community.

It seems clear that transforming a school organization into a learning community can be done only with the sanction of the leaders and the active cultivation of the entire staff's development as a community. Thus, a look at the principal of a school whose staff is a learning community seems a good starting point for describing what these learning communities look like and how the principal accepts a collegial relationship with teachers to share leadership, power, and decision making. Stewart, D. & Prebble, T. (1993) describes this notion of leadership as, “Leaders make a difference, but their work should be seen as an integral part of the activities of the whole group” (p.199). Through this practice, all grow professionally and learn to view themselves to use an athletic metaphor as "all playing on the same team and working toward the same goal: a better school".  This idea has very accurately articulated by Sergiovanni, T.J. (1996);

Communities are collections of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and who are together bond to a set of shared ideas and ideals. This bonding and binding is tight enough to transform them from a collection of “I’s” into a collective “we” (p.48).

REFERENCES

Arrowsmith, T. (2007). Distributed leadership in secondary schools in England: the impact on the role of the head teacher and other issue. Management in Education. 21(2), 21-27.

Gronn, P (2003). The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London. Sage Publications.

Lovely, S. & Buffum, A.G. (2007). Generations at School: Building an Age-Friendly Learning Community.  California: Crown Press.

Retallick, J. Cocklin, B. & Coombe, K. (Eds.). (1999). Learning Communities in Education: Issues, strategies and contexts. London: Routledge.

Sergiovanni, T.J. (1996). Leadership for the Schoolhouse: How Is It Different? Why Is It Important? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Stewart, D. & Prebble, T. (1993). The Reflective Principal: School Development Within a Learning Community. New Zealand: ERDC Press Massey University.

A reflection on my assumptions, which challenged

A reflection on my assumptions, which challenged

Darvesh Karim

AKU-PDCN Gilgit

Lifelong learning is a continuous process, and it should continue to refresh and update our understanding and knowledge. This process sometimes challenges our knowledge and understanding about different phenomenon. This piece of reflection is the confession of two assumptions I had previously, which were challenged by reading two articles.

Firstly, I had a perception that a child learns according to his/her mental capacity gradually but after going through an article ‘A theory of teaching as assisted performance’ written by Roland Tharp and Ronald Gallimore, in which specifically they discuss about the zone of proximal development in short ZPD. This knowledge came to me and of-course it challenged my previous assumption and convinced me that no doubt the child learns according to his/her mental level ‘gradually’ however, the ability to solve problems by his/her own use to be in a ‘slow motion process’. The writer ensures that this slow motion process of learning can be accelerated further by the assistance of teachers, parents and more capable peers. So in between the child’s individual capacity of knowledge and assisted capacity of knowledge is assumed as ZPD. Through this process the development process increases rapidly. This process continues throughout the life for learning new knowledge and skills.

Secondly, I had another assumption which was also challenged and I had to accommodate the new concept and knowledge and had to build-on it during my university and independent studies. It was my understanding and assumption, as it was taught to me in school life that any child use to be a blank piece of paper mentally and for his/her development, parents, teachers and the environment play vital roles to add new information and knowledge. While, the new concept of different smartnesses or the multiple intelligences of the child is to be kept in mind during the teaching learning process. As it is very much clear that initially every body is quite different from each other and this difference has been categorized and presented as multiple intelligence theory by dividing the abilities to different groups like, word smart, picture smart, body smart , music smart, people smart and self-smart etc. This understanding came to me through the article ‘The Foundations of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences’, written by Thomas Armstrong.