0.4 The art of successful school-based management  (Page 12/36)

In order for teachers to encourage authentic expression from student and for teachers themselves to experimentwith what works for different types of students, there will need to be a special type of leadership. The role of the principal is toprotect jealously the learning environment, to guard the classroom as a safe place where teachers and students may take risks, and topromote an atmosphere of openness and authentic communication. Embedded throughout this vision for leadership is the pivotal roleof trust (Kelehear, 2001).

Through open communication, shared decision making, and mutual respect, the school will model thecharacteristics of a pluralistic, democratic society. There will be many teaching styles; ideally, as many as there are differentlearning needs. The leadership will celebrate those differences while maintaining high expectations for student learning. Allowingteachers to utilize different techniques does not free them from responsibility for student learning. In fact, the opposite is true.In as much as the principal allows for teachers to choose strategies for student learning, then the principal can hold thoseteachers responsible for what happens in the classroom. The question to the teacher will not be "Did you teach well today?" butrather, "Did the students learn today?" As Sizer (1984; 1992) reminds us, if the answer to the second question is“yes,”then the answer to the first question is“yes.”Said differently, one cannot have taught well in the absence of student learning!

Authentic leadership would seek to construct a context where the teachers and principal work together to form aschool culture that is focused on student achievement and engaged citizenship. The teachers and principal would be clear aboutstudent achievement and teaching excellence as essential core values. They would attend only to those activities that support andfoster student and, as an extension, teacher successes (Patterson, 1993, p. 37-52).

The nature of leadership would be such that it too is not a prescription. Rather, leadership in the authenticschool would celebrate children's uniqueness and the art of teaching. Similarly, teachers and principal alike would understandthat leadership is in itself an artwork under construction. Just as the principal celebrates and promotes the uniqueness of teachers,the teachers would likewise support and challenge the principal to be open, authentic, and a risk-taker in making decisions thatsupport the core values of the school.

Authentic learning spaces emerge when leaders create opportunities for teachers and students to reflect onexperiences in qualitative ways. Central to the construction of such a space requires leadership to design a curriculum in whichall the disciplines are embraced as complementary and supportive and not in competition for space and budget. In essence, successfulschool management becomes a process of providing opportunities for meaning-making for teachers and student alike. The final assessmentof our schools might be as Eisner (2001) states,“It’s what students do with what they learn when they can do what they want todo that is the real measure of educational achievement”(p. 370). If our students do not continue after school the things about whichwe talk in school, then we may have failed them.