Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks. - Helen Keller

"I love you ... and where you go I'll follow . . ."

The teacher as Educational Leader is a role of paradox and presumes a sense of humility, of clarity, of flexibility. The research on leadership has brought recognition that being able to assume different roles, to fit the leadership style to the time, place, task, ability of followers, is the most crucial skill. We cannot validate the model of one personality type being best at bossing, but rather the greatest potential for leadership is show in the ability to delegate, to step away and to have implicit faith in human nature combined with recognition of the best hat for the situation show the greatest potential. This is referred to as situational leadership (Hershey & Blanchard, 1988).

Some of the reasons we give when resisting this role:

Educational leadership belongs to the role and responsibility of the principal

Many of us have not seen ourselves as leaders and are uncertain of ability

We don't want to boss our students and do not realize there is a series of roles in leadership which need not be similar in any way to bossing

Most teachers do not receive information about this role

The role takes a great deal of flexibility and practice before approaching proficiency, and many donât wish to experience the sense of failure that acquisition of such complex skills might require

Letting go, or delegating is very difficult, especially when paired with a sense of perfection

Giving students permission to try and to fail is very risky, especially when teachers feel that they are measured by student achievement on one test

Many of us fear the unknown which is represented by letting go

We have a great deal of confusion about the distinction between bossing and leading

Many teachers distrust leadership and are ambivalent about accepting the idea that their role as teacher even approaches such dimensions

Some of us believe that delegating authority may weaken the teaching role or make it impossible to regain control of the classroom

Few of us, even in graduate school, had an opportunity to work in this role and learn the fine points through modeling and practice

Competition continues to be valued and used for grading, making a cooperative model seem less attractive and uncertain

Teacher as Educational Leader

Ginger was facing her first day in the high school Chapter One program. She had heard plenty of horror stories about the students and their feelings about remedial math. In particular, she had been warned about a student whose father was on the school board. The student had been expelled the year before for substance abuse and the parents had sued the school.

The other students were already at work when Jim sauntered into class. His body language was very specific. He wanted no part of math class. "I'm never going to need this stuff, Jim stated loudly. When I get out of this dump, I am hiring an accountant to do my math."

Ginger cringed. She could feel the turmoil in her stomach beginning. "Mr. Smith," she began, "Let's discuss this out here so that we don't cheat the other students of their concentration." She walked to the sink area and stood waiting. Jim took out his comb, combed his hair and chewed a minute (he was famous for his chaw). Then he swaggered toward the teacher.

In a low voice she asked, "Jim, what are you planning to do when you get out of school?" "Me? Ha! With my dad's connections, I'm going to the Air Force Academy." Ginger smiled. She had the answer. "Great, Jim," she responded. I just happen to have a sample copy of the ASVAB test that is given to students to let the Armed Services know what their math abilities are. Pilots have to earned a high score on the math section to be considered for training. Let's go get it now and you can look it over.

Once Jim had attempted the test, he seemed chagrined and disappointed. Ginger followed up immediately with an individualized program, using the computer system for tracking and placement. Jim was a whiz on the computer. Over the year he made significant gains in math through learning to program the computer. Ginger used alternate teaching methods and Jim's own impetus to keep him moving toward flight school and high math achievement.

Teacher as Educational Leader

1. Works without dogmatism or disorganization to promote student growth
2. Shows skill in working with individual students and small groups
3. Models openness to new ideas and methods and openly values diversity
4. Shows respect through acceptance of individual differences, learning, personality,
5. Works with ease in a structured setting - warmth, patience, firmness, high demand
6. Provides assists to help children overcome problem behaviors;
   1. makes allowances for things which are unchangeable
      recognizes and verbalizes some conflicts as irreconcilable
      calls for self control, honesty, constructive expression of feelings
      helping attitude rather than overly approving or permissive
      views rules in the context of ends
7. Projects self as an "Honor Teacher, aware of teaching Honor Students"
8. Sees self as accountable and energetically embraces choices and challenges of leadership and innovation

True leader:

1. Desire to really know students and shows appreciation for diversity
2. Willingness to be energetically accountable to self and students
3. Willingness to negotiate honestly
4. Recognition that some conflicts are irreconcilable
   1. does not push for pseudo-agreement
   2. defuses to prevent violence
   3. watch for hostility and revenge and separate as needed
5. Ability to view rules in the context of ends
6. Prevent overly reinforcing docility
7. Modulates roles of leadership and control
8. Eschews punitive stance
9. Uses reward and praise with dignity rather than as a manipulative tool
10. Uses warmth, kind words, friendliness, helpfulness, appropriate touch to promote student leadership
11. Promotes the students as active participants and does less than half of the instructing, talking, teaching, participating - instead is in the energizing, empowering and interacting mode more than the directing mode
    Examples: accepting feelings, accepting and using ideas, asking questions after a response (Flanders, 1970)
12. Willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to ALL!

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