I'm feeling some CHANGE

Marzano outlines the following seven responsibilities of a school leader as being most necessary for second-order change, in order of importance:

1) Knowledge of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
2) Optimizer
3) Intellectual Stimulation
4) Change Agent
5) Monitoring/Evaluating
6) Flexibility
7) Ideals/Beliefs

It seems to me from the reading and from personal perspective that the effective school leader must be extremely thoughtful and flexible due to the complex nature of innovation. Second-order change requires a swift and direct change in strategies to address Type III problems – those that cannot be solved with the status quo and require deeper thought and innovative ideas.

In the past three weeks, I have been thrust into a leadership case study of sorts at my own school. I can see the tangibility of our studies before my eyes. At the highest level of leadership, we have transitioned from transformational to transactional, placing our faculty leaders in a position of leadership not often found in public schools. I have experienced second order change at this school in its first two years of existence, and am now observing our administration attempting to use the status quo of other institutions at our school to address mostly Type I and II problems. I can see how the lack of authentic leadership is affecting our school culture, and find myself in an unintended position of instructional leadership.

I have been a change agent at my school for the past year and a half, and feel more pressure than ever to continue in this role. I have to serve as an optimizer for my fellow department chairs as we interact with a new administration with little to no knowledge of our instructional practices. Even while teaching five classes (out of six in the schedule) of four different math courses, I feel as though I am experiencing all seven of the responsibilities listed above without any formality. I am fixing the master schedule, student schedules, and technology issues. I am answering questions about curriculum, school culture, technology, assessment, professional development, and much more. I didn’t intend for my internship to be this realistic, and look forward to feeling the reality of the position more and more. I just hope my classes don’t suffer too much, as teaching is my first love in education…

A Culture of Learning to Support Reform

From my perspective, school culture is the most important helper or hindrance to school reform and change initiatives. It is dictated by perspectives of students, parents, community members, and teachers. A sense of purpose can be created through many aspects of a school – the classroom, PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings, staff meetings, PTA meetings, at after-school activities, in the parking lot, and more. The Peterson reading reminds us that every member of the school is a learner, and modeling that behavior for all stakeholders is important to establishing a positive school culture. Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models require buy-in and trust in order to succeed, and a positive school culture can assist with the creation of these necessary factors.

When students, teachers, and administrators share common beliefs and values, and have a sense of purpose and vision about the school’s mission, positive relationships abound. Productivity increases, and the school community is more willing to tackle all types of problems through first-order AND second-order change initiatives. The CSR will have the support of the PLC at the school, and administrators will have an easier time monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness as teachers, students, and parents will be more willing to provide their “two cents.”

I have realized that I am very fortunate to work where I do when it comes to school culture. We have established a very positive culture of shared inquiry and dialogue, and our PLC meetings have produced interdisciplinary products which have extended the scope of our students to include the “bigger picture” of their work in school. We embrace diversity and special needs learners, and do our best to inspire students to build their own experiences and perspectives out of our curriculum and after-school activities. I am in some ways at the epicenter of school reform in the greater context of the American educational dilemma through the lens of a small (about 360 students) liberal arts charter school in the heart of New Mexico. We are merging the intellectual freedom components of a liberal arts education with the 21st century demands of technology integration and continually changing expectations of our students, and, when coupled with a more manageable student:teacher ratio and advisory groups, it’s created a tremendously positive school culture and effective learning environment.

Shaping Myself into an Effective Leader

On pages 147 - 148 of the Jossey-Bass Reader, Robert Evans cites a partial quote that rang true to me as a core belief I have about effective leadership: “They [bring] themselves with them to graduate school…and the [take] themselves back to their schools…knowing some new things, perhaps, but still basically themselves” (Blumberg, 1989). While this thought may scare those that feel hard work and experience will trump innate ability and passion any day, it gave me an all-encompassing positive feeling about what I may be capable of producing upon completion of this program. I feel the passion for educational change in my bones, and have successfully led multiple organizations. What I feel I most need is a backbone of knowledge and true understanding of leadership vocabulary and how to mend them in application of second order change.

Leadership, like many other facets of human nature, is hinged upon appropriate balance; there is a continuum for multiple factors of effective leadership. For instance, the continuum of transactional and transformational leadership is one that will dictate a school’s fate. Will it bend to the will of bureaucratic reform agendas, encourage defiance and creativity through only a school-based agenda, or fall happily somewhere in between? Then there’s the continuum of McGregor’s theories X & Y: should the effective leader micromanage his workforce into submitting to a school vision due to their solely extrinsic motivating factors, or place the vision and goal production in staff members’ hands since they will be intrinsically motivated to produce significant tasks? There are many other continua for leadership improvement, and it seems that an effective leader will find his place on each before selecting his leadership position. Then, once he has met his staff and established a shared vision, he will shift along the continua (ever so slightly) until the scale of change shifts in his favor.

In determining the 3-5 characteristics each school leader must possess, I have to say I have an affinity for Mark Goldberg’s list, and until I complete this course and its assessment, I am not sure I have the leeway to produce a better one. To choose these characteristics is not to falsify my own beliefs, but to acknowledge that this list was compiled through soliciting successful school leaders, and to verify that I find myself thus far in full belief that these ARE the five most important characteristics of a school leader.

1) A Bedrock Belief – Walking your talk is easier when you truly believe in what you’re communicating to others – both verbally and nonverbally. I would be more willing to take risks if I were in a position of trust earned through affirmation of my own personal leadership strengths and weaknesses.

2) Courage to Swim Upstream – In today’s world of high-stakes testing and litigious minds, I value school leaders that hold their school to its own standards and vision, regardless of its popularity in the mind of bureaucrats. We have to be willing to discuss Dewey and Socrates’ views on education and experience while questioning the status quo. We have to determine where we stand on the continuum of child and curriculum, and hold our ground when others try to push us more toward one direction or the other.

3) Social Conscience – As Leithwood highlights in “Transformation School Leadership in a Transactional Policy World, the recession of the 1980s prompted a loss of public confidence in schools as the instruments for social improvement. While I believe parents should be the number one contributor to a child’s social development and improvement of understanding social norms, the school must follow up these efforts as a close second. Schools should embrace their standing as a litmus paper for the surrounding community, and reach out to the greater world in an exchange of ideas and principles, for our common philosophical question on this earth is, “What does it mean to be human?” (IB Philosophy HL Course Focus)

4) Seriousness of Purpose – School leaders serve as the voice of their school. They should continually speak with a sense of purpose, a zeal for the goings-on of the students and faculty around them. We should maintain integrity and ethical behavior, as the development of the child is a serious, significant task. We should maintain academic rigor. If a student has mastered everything in his/her courses, why is he/she in school? This is a difficult, but important, question for every school leader.

5) Situational Mastery – Thus far my nemesis on the list… An effective school leader should be able to improvise, diffuse parental “bombs” unruffle “goose feathers”, provide impromptu resources for instructors, know the cliques of faculty members inside and out, and predict, predict, predict problems and possible solutions. I once heard a saying I rather like to fit this principle – “When you come to a wall, you have two options: Go around it as if it isn’t there, or shape the wall to fit your needs and climb over it, growing as an individual and leaving the wall behind you.” I think it’s far better to shape the wall, but I often find myself finding a creative way to go around it. I satisfy peoples’ needs by listening, but I don’t tend to actively engage in the problem to truly leave it behind.

I truly look forward to the next five weeks of this course, as I hope to make myself more of an authentic leader, and practice behaviors and concepts of motivation in my internship. Thankfully, I have a wonderful working relationship with my peers, so they should tolerate my experimentation rather well!

Transformational Leadership

In mathematics, a transformation is an operative factor or set of factors that completely change(s) the function, matrix, or shape in focus. Every variable, every coefficient takes on a new role as part of some overarching systemic alteration of the situation. While the definition of transformation has a different look in every context, it remains true and equitable to my mathematical understanding of the term. Keith Leithwood calls Transformational Leadership broad and systemic, and he provides some possible factors of transformation. If you see it from Bernard Bass’ perspective, the factors of transformational leadership are charisma, inspirational leadership, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Leithwood has worked with colleagues to identify Setting Directions, Developing People, and Redesigning the Organization as three broad categorical factors of transformational leadership. It seems to me that transformational leadership is personal, emotional, and collaborative; intangible in definition to those outside the organization and vital to successful change for the members of the organization.

Regardless of when and how we spend our time on earth, we live in the here and now, the modern world. As effective human beings, we mold ourselves to fit the modern era through understanding of the views of others and the current best practices of our profession and community. It is no different for a school leader. We currently live in a world of high-stakes testing and continually outmoded technological infrastructure. An transformational school leader must ensure that he/she is utilizing educational best practices for successful implementation of systemic change. A transformational school leader must understand and appreciate the needs and strengths of the staff members of the organization, as it is their potential and abilities that will provide the catalyst for transformation, one of the most important mathematical factors (Covey, 1992). In stark contrast to a transactional leader, a transformational leader utilizes situational awareness skills to transcend daily affairs and focus on the big picture – that of the school’s shared vision and professional development while the transactional leader focuses on the mundane day-to-day transgressions. The transformational leader must be self-aware and confident in his motives for change, while the transactional leader’s common motive is to do his/her job to earn a paycheck. While the transactional leader may focus on the high-stakes testing above all else, the transformational leader must merely work his/her way through it en route to accomplishment of the community’s vision for the students at the school.

As I mentioned before, technology is continually updating and outmoding itself. A transformational school leader not only has to be innovative in his/her instructional integration of technology, but also aware of and able to predict the expenses of maintaining the infrastructure for continual quality and effectiveness. In our modern world, every school leader should coax some mention of technology integration into the school’s shared vision, and how it will be beneficial to the students of the organization. How will technology incite their emotions and engage their human potential? Will it be handled ethically and promote self-efficacy, or will it be seen as another standard of curricular development that must be somehow wired into the student’s brain? A transformational leader doesn’t have to have the answer to these questions on his own, but must convey to his/her staff members that these are important questions that should be reflected upon as technology becomes part of the life-blood of the institution.

Transformational leaders are innovative, charismatic, change-inspiring individuals with a sense of purpose and the ability to incite others’ human potential and intrinsic motivation for implementing reform agendas. The primary stakeholders of any school should unquestionably see their leader as transformative and inspirational, and while government bureaucrats and leaders of other schools may not understand his/her methods and potentially despise the risks taken, they have some level of respect and admiration for the emotion and excitement of the school’s community. Leithwood suggests that transformational leadership is vital to success in the world of high-stakes testing and declining community confidence in the school’s non-academic spheres’ ability to influence positive change. Follow the best evidence available in the modern world as you transform your school into a high-achieving, socially aware community of learners.