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Teacher: We Are Pawns in Someone Else’s Game

Schools market a product. It’s called education. It’s called reading and writing and math and social studies and science. It is called college and career readiness. But most importantly, it’s called hope and dreams. It is the future we market.

Or at least we used to. Nowadays, we’re forced to market high test scores and low suspension rates.

Ravitch (2004) described the existing failure of many reform efforts as, “… forgotten innovations [that] continue to live in schools where they were introduced with great fanfare . . . schools are like archeological sites; digging would reveal layer after layer of fossilized school reforms and obsolete programs” (as cited in Jones, 2007, p. 189).

The roundtable theory (RT) is a shared leadership theory for school change. Gabriele (2002) explained RT as distributing leadership and learning equally across participants. Involving stakeholders in the decision-making process through shared leadership can lead to higher levels of commitment.

Change will affect staff regardless of the change theory chosen or the changes proposed. Bueker (2005) stated, “One of the most difficult aspects of implementing a whole school reform is striking a balance between proper program implementation and individual teacher flexibility” (p. 411). Bueker noted that empowering teachers, treating teachers with professional respect, and providing structured and continuing support for staff, could minimize the negative effects of school change.

1.  Cultural Awareness: All teachers should take a moment to self-reflect about their own understandings and questions in regard to cultural differences. Take the time to learn about different cultures, gestures, and traditions and celebrate these differences with all of the students in the classroom. Encourage all students to share their culture with classmates.

2.  Empathize: Try to imagine how overwhelming it must feel to leave your home country and family members while trying to assimilate, learn and socialize in a foreign language. Be aware that ESL students will be in culture shock and feel highly alienated for some time. Garner patience and understand that it will take time for ESL students to talk, as a silent period is highly expected. Smile and show support to your best ability. 

3.  Provide A Comfort Zone: Assess where the ESL student’s abilities are in relation to basic survival skills and needs.  Assign a friendly and welcoming buddy to assist with common school locations, requirements and routines. If possible, keep an extra eye out during busy transition times to assure the student gets to the correct location. If possible, find someone in the school, another classmate, parent or volunteer that may speak the student’s language. Connecting the student with someone who speaks his/her native language will provide a great deal of comfort. 

This included parents who are a great untapped resource within our own communities.  We can no longer have children going home and being asked the question, “what did you learn today?”, and responding with, “nothing.”  By opening the doors to our classrooms through both physical and virtual environments, we have the opportunity to change the conversation at home.  Parents are able to be actively involved in the process of learning, leading to a higher opportunity for success of each child.  The more we can involve parents in this process at home, the more likely students will be successful in school, and beyond.  This community support is imperative.

They Are Self-Aware

They Continue to Learn and Grow

They Work Through Other People and Delegate

As we continue to look at teachers, students, and learning becoming more “innovative”, it is important that leadership changes.  As administrators often set the tone for their district or their building, if they are saying the same, it is not likely that things are going to change in the classroom.  Leadership needs to not only “think” different, but they need to “act” different.

 Innovative leaders help people continuously grow with small steps that build both confidence and competence, so they are more willing to become more innovative themselves.

“If I was a teacher in this school, what would I expect of my principal?”  That trickled down to trying to empathize with being a student in the school, and a parent in the community.

This study was motivated by the premise that no nation grows further than the quality of its educational leaders.

The

purpose of this theoretical debate is to examine the wider context of leadership and its effectiveness towards improving school management.

Trait theories ignored the assumptions about whether leadership traits were genetic or acquired.

two traits; emergent traits (those which are heavily dependent upon heredity) as height, intelligence, attractiveness, and self-confidence and effectiveness traits (based on experience or learning), including charisma, as fundamental component of leadership

o leadership style is precise as a stand-alone as the leadership style used is reliant upon the factors such as the quality, situation of the followers or a number of other variable