0.4 The art of successful school-based management  (Page 9/36)

Element #2:

Value: The lightness or darkness of a color or object

The Artist’s View:

Value is the art element that describes the relative darkness or lightness of an object in a drawing orpainting. How much value a surface has is dependent on how much light is reflected. If there is an absence of light, the surfacewill be dark; and if there is much light, the surface becomes lighter. There are many ways that artists create value. Forexample, when one looks at a dollar bill, one may see an entire artwork that is composed of tiny lines. The artist or the engraveruses lines to create value. The closer and more plentiful the line appears in a space, the darker the value. In turn the less line ina given space there is less value, and the space appears lighter. In fact, value is related to all the elements and is oftenunderstood best in association with other elements.

ISLLC Standard #1 and #2: A school administrator facilitates a vision and promotes success of allstudents by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staffprofessional growth.

A Leadership Perspective:

For school leadership, value represents the“light”that emerges from daily activities that reflects attention to what matters most. Often times in schools individuals can failto recognize, or to remember, what is most important. They earnestly engage in any number of activities that seem important,for the moment, but cast little light on the picture of what or who they are. In other words, their actions do not adequately supporttheir most central, core values.

Core values are not observations, perceptions, or operating rules. They are things individuals believe to beextremely important. They are characterized by descriptors such as fundamental, guiding, philosophical, and pointing the way. Corevalues help answer such questions as: Who are we? What do we stand for? What business are we really in? What is important to us? Wheredo we want to go in our preferred future?

Accompanying core values are“we will”statements.“We will”statements are specific, concrete, observable, measurable actions that support the philosophy thatemerges from core values. In many instances, the“we will”statements are single efforts such as special events or activities. In other cases, however,“we will”statements involve multi-year approaches to complex and systemic issues.

When individuals consider leading a school, it is important to note the relative importance of the many activitiesthat come in a school day. Value in leadership means defining what matters most so that all can begin to understand what the businessof school is. As individuals articulate the core values, the guiding and philosophical principles, then all decisions can emergefrom a shared belief. The synergistic effect is that they can begin putting their energy toward specific values, avoiding the ad hocdecisions characteristic of many schools. What the student, teacher, leader, and community see reflected in the activities ofthe school is a value-driven institution with a vision for where it is going rather than an event-driven body. Just as with value inart, core values speak to all other elements of leadership. When done well, core values become the guiding principles for alldecisions and help create school space characterized as a place for authentic learning and caring.