Julie H. Rucker
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My Personal Reflections on School Leadership
Julie H. Rucker
In partial fulfillment of requirements for
EDUL 6013 and EDUL 6014
The University of Georgia
Spring 2006
Last fall, my perception of myself as a learner-educator lead to an internal conflict as I thought about the next step I wanted to take in my career—becoming a school leader. I continue to wonder if I become a school administrator, will I still be a teacher? Can I be a principal-educator? I do not think that administrators are always seen as people who educate others once they move from the classroom to the main office. Will I still be able to stay on top of my subject (English) or will I have to give it up and adopt leadership as my field? More importantly, who will I be educating and why? For me, holding a school leadership role is very much an identity issue as well as an issue of perception, and through these readings, I am searching for how my identity will change, for myself and others, when I become a school administrator.
Conflict
One reason I delayed reading the material for this course was because I already knew an obstacle in my path to becoming an administrator. I do not like conflict, try to avoid it, will try to go around it, and have been known to avoid it if possible. From Blase's list “How to Think Like a Leader,” I chose to consider #9, “What are my emotions related to “conflict” and how will these impeded and/or facilitate my leadership?” My suspicion that avoiding conflict was detrimental was confirmed when reading several points made by Maidment (1987). Interestingly, the dedication page to Maidment's book was the first indicator that my fear of conflict was counterproductive. He “equate[s] conflict with an opportunity for productive change.” By avoiding, ignoring, or circumventing conflict, I deny myself an opportunity to be a part of “productive change” that can improve my situation as well as that of my students.
I have been teaching in an inclusion classroom for two years now. During the first semester this year, I began working with a new special education co-teacher who had never been in the English classroom before. She told me she was not comfortable with the subject but that she would do what she could to learn. On the surface, this is what I needed to hear. The semester began, and I did not place many expectations on my co-teaching partner for the first few weeks other than encouraging her to observe and work one-on-one with special education students in the class who were having difficulty. I did all of the planning and most of the grading for the first four weeks before asking her to actually teach lessons. I first asked her to accelerate some vocabulary for the next literature piece we would read as a class. I gave her the graphic organizer to use as well as the words. The next day, she proceeded to work with the students on the acceleration, but she was not familiar with the words herself, even though I had given them to her ahead of time. A week later, I asked her to teach a lesson on another piece of literature. I had given her a book, and I identified the piece for her and talked with her about what I would do when teaching that lesson. She told me she was not familiar with the piece, but she took the book as well as the materials needed for the lesson. The next day, I started class and called on her to take over her part of the lesson. I assumed that she was ready because she had not asked me anything else about the lesson. She then proceeded to stammer and look around for the materials. She went down the hall to her room to find the book and the materials, and she then admitted that she had not had time to do anything with them to prepare for the lesson the day before.
Needless to say, my trust in her ability to be an equal co-teaching partner disintegrated at that moment. Instead of taking the time to talk with her one-one-one after this incident to find out why she had not prepared, I proceeded to continue doing what I felt was 99% of the work planning and teaching while she at times would work with the students one-on-one, would read tests aloud to the students whose IEPs required it, and periodically grade papers that had single answers. My perception was that she was not doing her job as a co-teacher, no matter her lack of experience with the subject. I had tried to give some of the classroom responsibility to her, and she did not follow through. Instead of taking the time to approach this conflict head-on, I chose to avoid or ignore it. The rest of the semester I was resentful of her presence in the classroom and felt as if I were enduring her only for the additional help with discipline her presence provided. I did effectively avoid conflict, but the results were a lack of trust in our relationship, little communication, no planning, resentment on my part, and an unequal distribution of responsibilities of which I had the heavier load.
I did not perceive conflict as Maidment's “positive force” and allowed the co-teaching relationship to deteriorate rather than to be improved. The first step I should have taken is evident in his conflict point #6, “Acknowledge It.” By letting the conflict on my side remain unacknowledged, I was enabling my co-teacher to work in our classroom with an uneven distribution of responsibilities. In a sense, I misled her into thinking that what she did in the classroom was fine with me instead of creating a more productive learning environment for the students and the teachers. I did not allow room for collaboration when my first attempts to do so failed without discussing the reasons afterward.
Another conflict point where I failed is point number ten. I did not determine the cause of our conflict. In hindsight, I am sure that her perception of our responsibilities as co-teachers and my perception of our responsibilities differed greatly. Painfully, I read conflict point #17. According to Maidment, “Deliberate or ‘false' unawareness, however, is deceptive since one is denying the existence of conflict.” By ignoring the conflict I had with the co-teacher, I was deceiving both her and my students by allowing them to believe that the status quo within our classroom was acceptable and productive. One of the reasons I chose to ignore the conflict was the co-teacher would only be with me for one semester. I decided that I could endure the relationship as it was for the remaining weeks left in the semester, knowing I would no longer have to work with her afterward.
A final conflict point that addresses the situation I helped to create within the co-teaching classroom is # 36, “Talk It Out.” Here Maidment points out that it is better to talk with a person one-on-one to work out conflict. I avoided talking with my co-teacher because as a person, I genuinely like her. I felt that going to her with my problems about her performance would lead to even more conflict. In a sense, I was creating a “dragon,” as Schmuck and Runkel (1995) point out: “Many times, when people get into disagreements and arguments about what to do, they find themselves worrying not about what is happening to them, but about what might happen to them” (p. 68). Upon reflection, I realized that I did not want my co-teacher to dislike me because I had a problem with the way she did her job in my classroom. I believed in my mind that the situation we were in within the classroom was preferable to what might happen if the co-teacher knew that I was dissatisfied with the way she conducted herself as a teacher within the classroom.
What have I learned from reflecting upon this classroom experience and what I have learned thus far about become a leader in a school setting? Primarily, I have learned that my attitude has to change about conflict. I have to approach it from a positive, rather than a negative perspective. I cannot create negative scenarios or “dragons” within my mind about what could happen if the conflict were addressed. Instead, I should go to the person with whom I have a conflict, if it is a one-on-one situation, explain why I have the conflict and enter a discussion about it with the other party. I should not worry about whether or not it will cause the person to “dislike” me, for in conflict point # 30, Maidment (1987) points out that it really does not matter if a colleague dislikes me as long as we can maintain a professional relationship and perform our duties in a responsible manner. Another important step for me as a leader is to know that I have in the past wanted to ignore conflict or avoid it rather than addressing it in a productive manner; Maidment's point #46 identifies awareness as “key” because it “allows us to make choices, and an appropriate choice can profoundly influence an outcome.”
Communication
The second area I want to approach for reflection is communication. Using Dr. Blase's list “How to Think Like a Leader,” I want to consider point #8, “What are my strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis “communication” and what will be my improvement plan , beginning tomorrow? What opportunities are available to me in my everyday personal and professional world to practice and refine “communication”?
I currently hold a leadership position as the English department chairperson at Irwin County High School . This position does not come with a written job description from my principal. Instead, I am essentially the “liaison” between the five people in my department and the administration at my school. Whenever a mandate or request is made of my teachers, I am the one who passes along the information. Whenever training must be done regarding a change in policies, procedures, standards, etc., I am the one who much train my department. Whenever my administration wants input related to my subject area, I am the one asked for an “expert” opinion. In all of these situations, my communication skills come into play. In general, I consider myself to be an effective communicator. I have always been the person who volunteered to speak for my group and have never been hesitant to verbally present my views to others.
Schmuck and Runkel (1995) discuss three types of communication that I find interesting. The first is “unilateral communication” (p. 120). A speaker who uses this type of communication is giving information without expecting any communication in return from the listener. Schmuck and Runkel give the examples of school announcements and email or memos for this type of communication. Much of the communication I do with my department members involves this type of communication. I frequently send emails, periodically send around written memos, and often hold face to face department meetings where I give information to my department members without seeking input.
The second type of communication I must use, “directive communication” (p. 121), is not as common within my department but is still essential. For instance, this past year, I have been attending the training for the new English/Language Arts Georgia Performance Standards. I am required to come back to my department and redeliver the training to them. While they are interacting with me, this interaction often is to indicate whether or not they understand what is required of us as English teachers regarding how we use the new state standards: “The distinguishing feature of a directive communication is that the sender influences while the receiver merely complies” (p. 121). When I present the information about GPS, it is assumed by all of us that the information is correct because it comes to us from the Georgia Department of Education.
Finally, the third type of communication is one that I would identify as the most valuable, though I believe it is the least used in school leadership situations: “ Transactional communication is a reciprocal process in which each participant initiates messages and attempts to understand the other” (p. 121). This type of communication, a two-way street, would be the most beneficial during a time when school reform is needed. It is only through this type of communication that administrators are able to receive information from the “experts” who are the classroom teachers and communicate their positions in return. Giving teachers the opportunity to talk in a setting face-to-face with an administrator who is seeking to learn from them is empowering for the teachers. This type of communication facilitates understanding between the administration and the teachers. So why is it that so little of this type of communication is done in schools? Do administrators want a dialogue with teachers about issues affecting the schools, especially if it is within the teachers' area of expertise? Because my school is in its second year of “Needs Improvement,” with the state, we now have a “Leadership Facilitator” who comes to our school once or twice a month. As part of the changes we were asked to make by our facilitator, our administration formed a core group of educators representing the different areas of our school. This committee has been able to take part in transactional communication with both the assistant principal in charge of school improvement and our Leadership Facilitator. Right now, our group has been given the task of working with our administration to develop a pyramid of interventions for our school. When trying to view this process through the eyes of an administrator (who is also an educator!), I see teachers who want to be involved in improving student performance at our school. I hear valuable information coming from other teachers who traditionally did not have a voice. And I see evidence of empowerment because these teachers are now more than teachers—they are “teacher experts” who hold a position of leadership within the school. And the administration is listening.
Adaptive Leadership
I have always found it difficult to follow a principal blindly. Whenever a “new” method for school improvement comes down the pike, so to speak, I am wary. Since NCLB went into effect in 2001, each year I have added something new to my repertoire of educational lingo: LFS (Learning Focused Schools), essential questions, big ideas, acceleration, activating strategies, summarization strategies, Understanding by Design, performance standards, professional learning community, professional goal setting, End of Course Tests, differentiation, pyramid of intervention, and the list can go on. Usually when I add to my vocabulary, I also add to my work load. I am wary as an educator because I am told I have to follow certain procedures within giving me the opportunity to voice my own thoughts or opinions. In addition, I don't see how these new methods are going to improve my school's situation. And even if there is an arena where my ideas could be heard, they would not matter anyway because the principal has spoken, or the superintendent has spoken, or (usually) the state department has spoken. My main concern with all of the new options available for educational reform and school improvement is that my school is reacting to our problems by adapting these methods rather than having a vision for where our school needs to be in the future. Right now, we are in our second year of “Needs Improvement,” and the only thing we are considering is how to get out of that hole. We have been told by administrators to go along with whatever our Leadership Facilitator tells us we need to do. I feel as if I'm applying band-aids to the wound instead of producing a vision for where we want our school to be five years from now, how we want our students to be performing, what kind of collaborative unit we want our faculty to be.
When confronted with question #12 from “How to Think Like a Leader,” I have to say that I thought schools were reactionary before being introduced to adaptive leadership. Why did I think this? Prior to this school year, I did not see the educational leadership in my school asking teachers their opinions on issues of school governance. While we have formed a leadership team primarily consisting of classroom teachers, we are still being told what we have to do rather than being asked our own opinions. We are “jumping through the hoops” (words straight out of my principal's mouth) so that we can get out of Needs Improvement. Can we not see above the “hole” we are supposedly in? I have never experienced a school in which my administrator went to the faculty and said, “I need your ideas on how to solve problem X.” I have experienced principals who have used four of the five types of power explained by Owens (2004): Reward power, Coercive power, Expert power, and Legitimate power (p. 261-262). I have never been under the leadership of an administrator who has developed and uses Referent power, where the faculty as a whole is encouraged to be more like the leader. Owens posits that leaders who do look to their teachers for new ideas on how to solve school problems are considered powerful (p. 262).
When I become an administrator, I want to be a leader who has a vision for where my school is going in the future. I want to be a leader who develops a relationship involving mutual respect for the knowledge and talent the teachers in my school bring to their jobs. Owens also points out that “leadership is not something that one does to people, nor is it a manner of behaving toward people: it is working with and through other people to achieve organizational goals” (p. 265).
One of the first priorities I would set for myself as a leader of a school would be to “visionalize” (my word for vision and visualize) for my school and then enthusiastically present that vision to my faculty, establish a mission along with my faculty, and then set goals with them. Collaboration with faculty members is key, and not just for the little things. Supposedly the SACS process would require faculty and leadership to do this, but I could not tell you right now what was in my high school's school improvement plan, nor could I put a hand on a copy of it. I participated in the last SACS evaluation of my school, took surveys, worked on a committee, talked about a mission statement. But after the process was complete and we received a passing mark, the collaborative nature of the process was dropped. Involving all faculty members in school improvement after the committee leaves the building should be important. Owens presciently says that school leadership can be transformational depending on the relationship between the leaders and the teachers: “It is widely believed that the vehicle for bringing about such a transformation is a vision of the future that is better, more desirable, more compelling, and more personally fulfilling than the reality of the present time” (p. 271). Clearly, schools that have leaders who lead with vision are able to encourage and motivate faculty members to transform school culture.
Pellicer (1999) approaches the question “What is a Leader?” with a similar position to Owens. For him, being a leader does not mean just holding a position of authority over others. It involves others: “To me, leadership is the ability to help create a shared vision; it is the ability both to see and to help others see beyond the present realities and glimpse the unlimited possibilities that exist in the future” (p. 13). In other words, a true leader has a vision! I intuit that not all administrators have the ability to be visionaries; at least I have never encountered one in my thirteen years of education. But can this ability be taught? Is it something that has to be “caught”? Perhaps school leaders should become more concerned with “transforming schools” than “reforming” them!
Empowering Teachers
Last month, the newspaper in the small town where I live ran a series of articles about the local school board “retreat.” One of the items they discussed was a possible bonus for math and science teachers who signed a contract with the local school. Obviously, there was a problem hiring teachers in these subject areas. One new member of the board, who is a teacher at a local technical college, spoke up and asked why it should be just for teachers in those areas; she did not see the equity in offering signing bonuses to a select few just because they taught a subject other than history or English. In reply, one sagacious board member replied, “If an English teacher wanted to make money, she should have gone into the math or science field.”
Another issue on the table was the school calendar for the following year. With the rollout of the new GPS, teachers are required to have seven days of training to learn how to unpack standards, use balanced assessments, give feedback, and write units. One of the three calendars proposed incorporated seven half days of school for students so that teachers would have the other half of the days for their GPS training. Certain members of the school board went ballistic when they saw the schedule and could not believe teachers would require that many days of training. It would cause an undo burden on parents to arrange childcare for those seven half days throughout the school year, was the major complaint. When confronted with a compromise, paying teachers stipends for two extra days of training beyond their contractual days, the same sagacious school board member who spoke so eloquently about English teachers again commented that teachers would not receive stipends, that it could be written into their contracts that those training days were just part of their duties and responsibilities. In other words, teachers could do it for free. So the calendar committee returned with another option that would include five days of training, rather than seven. The school teachers for the county (over 600) voted 4:1 to support the calendar with the training days. Do you think the school board followed their overwhelming recommendation? Blase and Kirby (2000) offer a word of caution for those board members: “Dependence on formal authority alone flouders in the new era of restructured schools…choice and collaborative leadership [are]…the only enduring means for reversing the failure of schooling in America” (p. 96).
I use these two real examples of school politics to ask myself first of all, would I want to work for a board that seemingly has a vote of no-confidence for the teachers? Secondly, I see that even in these small items, school teachers' knowledge of their own needs was ignored. Blase and Blase (2001) share six reasons why teachers do not engage in school decision making. Two of the reasons would be evident in both of the above scenarios: “the invitation is not interpreted as being sincere,” and “the audience is intimidating” (p. 12). On another level, how does an administrator encourage her teachers to have an open dialogue about school issues when the people who are in authority above her use their power coercively?
While I am a teacher who would relish being empowered, contributing to school decisions, being considered an expert in my field, I know that there many other teachers who would rather not participate, especially when they feel that it is a hopeless situation for which their voice will never be heard. In these instances described above, teachers had the “ability to act” but were never truly given the “opportunity to act,” and after the school board's blatant disregard for teacher needs, I am sure the “desire to act” was muted in the minds of many teachers in the system (Blase & Blase, 2001, p. 17). These three elements, according to Blase and Blase, are essential for teacher empowerment, and this system's policy makers, who in essence were micromanaging the schools, discouraged all three. They said through their words and their vote that the teachers' knowledge of their needs is not accepted and that teachers need not try to act because the board will vote the way they want to regardless of teacher input.
When considering the reflection questions and the issue of teacher empowerment, I decided to focus on what “the possible outcomes of implementing teacher empowerment for teachers, teaching, and learning” would be. Interestingly, the three areas of reflection I have discussed previously in this paper, all come into play when I consider the principal's five supportive strategies as defined by Blase and Blase (2001). The five issues are “building trust,” “modeling openness,” “establishing effective communication,” “striving to achieve consensus and personal accountability,” and addressing “conflict” (p. 34-35).
In my earlier consideration of conflict, I realized that I did not have the right perspective or attitude toward conflict. Instead of avoiding it, I should see it as an opportunity for change. Instead of ignoring it, I have to confront it and “embrace it” (p. 35). And instead of trying to work around it, I should use it to “emphasize mutual respect” (p. 35). When I focused on communication, I realized that the best communication is transactional, where I am both the listener and the speaker in two-way communication with my teachers. Through transactional communication, I am encouraging openness with my staff. If I am to be a leader with vision and pursue the stance of adaptive leadership, then I will empower teachers building trust, but treating them as equals and experts, and not as subordinates. Another aspect of adaptive leadership that leads to teacher empowerment is allowing room for discussion, for an opportunity to gain a consensus with my staff, for allowing teachers to have a voice and listening to that voice.
Conclusion
As a classroom teacher, I readily believe that there are others in the classroom able, ready, and willing to participate in a democratic method of school governance. As a school leader, I would welcome teacher input on serious issues affecting the school and do whatever was necessary to establish trust between the administration and the faculty. I would also use conflict as a tool to improve the condition of my school rather than pretending the conflict is not there or using the “ignore it and it will go away” strategy. Finally, I also want to establish an atmosphere of open communication within the school that leads to productive discussion about school governance issues. Empowering teachers creates powerful schools.
References
Blase, J. & Blase, J. (2001). Empowering teachers: What successful principals do (2 nd
ed.). Thousand Oaks , CA : Corwin Press.
Blasé, J., & Kirby, P.C. (2000). Positive use of formal authority. In Bringing out the best
in teachers: What effective principals do (2 nd ed., pp. 95-104). Thousand Oaks , CA : Corwin Press.
Maidment, R. (1987). Conflict!: A conversation about managing differences . Reston ,
VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Owens, R.G. (2004). Adaptive leadership. In Organizational behavior in education (pp.
256-283). Boston : Pearson.
Pellicer, L. (1999). What is a leader? In Caring enough to lead: Schools and the sacred
trust (pp. 5-13). Thousand Oaks , CA : Corwin Press.
Schmuck, R., & Runkel, P.J. (1995). The handbook of organizational development in
schools & colleges (4 th ed.). Prospect Heights , IL : Waveland Press.