CEDO 565 Entry Six

Leadership is a complicated and challenging skill. It requires a great deal of communication, understanding, persistance, and work. Schools have historically favored a top down leadership model with occassional directives from administration and teachers being isolated and independent. Newer models favor collaboration and teacher leadership. Leading peers can be extremely challenging as there is technically very little formal recourse that can be taken by the leader. For this reason teacher leaders must be positive and focus on improvement and communication. They must win over the support of their peers by establishing themselves as on their side and there to improve them and not judge them. This is especially challenging in a historically isolated profession.

I have always felt, and continue to feel, that I possess good leadership qualities. As a relatively young teacher I still have many facets of leadership to develop and experience is one of them. I have already went to conferences and presented at an inservice as positive steps towards teacher leadership. It will be important for me to continue to positively communicate and collaborate with my colleagues as I hope to grow into a leadership role. I due enjoy sharing my successful classroom strategies with others and want to play a key role in improving education in the future.

Although I believe that to truly improve education the stakeholders within the system will play a vital role it is hard to say that it can only be improved from within. As much respect as I have for my fellow educators and as seriously as I take my profession the reality is teachers have a limited scope of what is necessary for students to succeed in modern private sector jobs. There are universal skills and values such as hard work, discipline, punctuality, and quality that ring true in any line of work but the job market is constantly changing and educators are isolated from it a lot of the time. Therefore it will be necessary for schools to continue to partner with the community and local businesses to help bridge the gap that exists. I will continue to grow professionally by staying up to date on best practices and new educational initiatives. Someday I hope to possibly also become an Instructional Technology leader in a school district and maybe even an administrator.

CEDO 565 Entry Five

Reading about helping teachers improve instruction was captivating to me. In my experience I have noticed administrators using several of the strategies in the chapter to support my teaching (focusing on positives, supporting my self proclaimed weaknesses, providing me with feedback, etc.). Most of the time I have found it extremely helpful and appreciated the comments. Our school began group observations in which all three administrators and a teacher would observe a class and follow it up with a discussion. This was particularly valuable as it gave me a chance to receive feedback from not only my bosses but a peer as well. It has promoted collaboration within the building by facilitating discussion about best practice and giving teachers chances to show and learn from each other. The program is continuing this year and now include department crossovers to continue to promote a building wide professional learning community. I have really enjoyed the process and wish it was something that could be done more frequently. Apparently it must be the Millenial in me wanting that constant feedback and desire to collaborate with others :-)

The chapter did cause me to really reflect more on change in schools. I still hold on to the idea that teachers can be difficult to change largely due to their passion and because many of their lessons and strategies have worked for a long time. I have however noticed many occasions in which best practices were not being used and colleagues have chosen to not listen to new ideas or feedback. This challenge is very difficult for administrators and teacher leaders alike. Teacher leaders are caught in an especially difficult situation because they are still a peer to the teachers that they are leading. It is my hope that the increased availability and use of data in schools will provide more ammunition to promote best practice for all, even those who are uncomfortable with the change.

CEDO 565 Entry Four

Reading about climate and morale in the textbook was an interesting reflective activity. With all of the upheavel in education Wisconsin has experienced over the past two years there has been plenty of times in which teacher morale has been low. It has been challenging for teachers who are feeling unappreciated and disrespected to have the same zest and energy in the classroom. Although most do truly love what they do and their sense of responsibility and professionalism have kept them working hard, it may be some time before things stabalize. It will be an important responsibility for both administrators and teacher leaders to keep morale up and facilitate a positive climate.

On top of being in a department with an at-times negative climate a lot of what I read about in the book rang true. Over the past year the climate in the department has improved dramatically and it has felt as though the group has become more productive and collaborated better. As our school moves more to working with data it will be interesting to see how the climate of the building corresponds to student achievement and if there is a way to measure it.

CEDO 565 Entry Three

Reading the chapter in the textbook this week really helped me better understand a lot of the actions that have been taken by administration during my 5+ years teaching. There is no doubt that teachers can be...somewhat difficult...to deal with. And not always for bad reasons. Teachers are people who are passionate about what they do and take a lot of pride and ownership in their work. Managing them is a challenge and being a teacher leader, with no legal power, brings about a new set of challenges. But with that being said being a teacher leader can be very powerful as well. I am a coach and although coaches provide leadership to their team, there needs to be players who are effective leaders as well. Although players do not have the power to take any direct action they play a huge role in the success of any team by improving performance and accountability. Teacher leaders can have a similar impact.

The generations articles were also interesting. It does help explain some of the differences that I feel that I have with some older colleagues. Although I try not to view generational conflicts as a right and wrong type of issue there can definitely be value clashes. It must be extremely challenging for school leaders to manage this. With those differences however there is always room for growth and generations can pass on their best values for the good of the system.