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.
Being the technology integrator at my school I can vouch for the difficulty in managing teachers with generational gaps in play. Technology integration is becoming a necessary part of a 21st century classroom and finding a way to motivate older teachers and those teachers that are anti-technology can be a daunting task. Putting the right mix of teachers together on committees finding ways for the technologically-challenged teachers to succeed is not an easy job for any administrator.
ReplyDelete