The Art of Teacher Leadership is asking teachers to master the following:
1. The Art of Teaching
2. The Art of Leading
3. The Art of Coaching
Teachers lead every day. It's a vocation that embraces leadership as its core. They make instructional choices in their classrooms to best fit the needs of every one of their students. Those who do the job well are always reflecting and collaborating, always reaching the end goal of highest level attainable for student engagement and learning.
Those that go above and beyond are the unsung heroes. They make changes and contribute to the overall well-being of the school climate without a title. What they also face, however, is criticism from others as doers and overachievers because this role 1) has not been clearly defined in the district or 2) has been an afterthought to the numerous initiatives instead of prioritizing its role in leading them.
Just recently, ASCD released an article called Four Ways to Create a Positive School Culture in which it highlighted Teacher Leadership as their number 1 attribute for raising the standards of student achievement. It is no surprise that fostering the Teacher Leader model also increases teacher effectiveness and retention.
Compliance versus Empower
In Katie Martin's book, Learner Centered Innovation, she discusses the importance of the evolving role of the educator. How can we best empower our teachers to maintain a rigor of excellence?
Here are some ways to promote Teacher Leadership in your school:
1. Train them. Teacher's need to learn how to effectively coach and how to productively disperse the responsibilities of leading to others. Teacher Leadership training can begin with new hires, but don't neglect the expertise of the veteran teachers. All teachers inherently want to lend a hand. It takes a village to roll out this mindset.
2. Promote them. If your message is true that you value teachers as leaders, what does your district's philosophy on promoting these leaders look like? Nothing shows a more incongruent practice than training teacher leaders but stopping short of hiring them as administrators.
3. Offer teacher led professional development. The most meaningful professional development have come from those most knowledgeable about their own fields. This empowers your teacher to act as facilitators, mentors and celebrates their expertise.
4. Provide a library of books and resources. If our intentions as educators are to promote a love of learning in our students, we should be allocating funds to developing a professional learning library to promote the same behavior in our teachers. Consequently, resources also allow teachers to build upon common definitions of practices instituted in the district.
5. Mentorships. We need more mentors. All educators should either be mentoring or have a mentor in all stages of their career. It's that simple.
It is my hope that the model of Teacher Leadership thrives in all districts and schools. As we ask teachers to trust in the potential of our students, leaders too must trust in the potential of the teachers they lead.
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Credit: The picture of the Teacher Leadership wheel was from the Kentucky Teacher Leadership Framework
Katie Martin's book Learner Centered Innovation is a great read to empower those your lead.
