Leadership Response

How will you continue to develop your own personal leadership skills during the first 5 years of your work as an educator?

Although it is against my nature to try and gaze too far into the future (10 minutes is about as far as I care to go at any particular time), or make predictions about the kind of person I will be in the future, I will look into my crystal ball here, and attempt to give some semblance to the kind of teacher-leader I see forming within....


I envision that in the future, I will be leading by example. In the book Teaching Learning and Assessment Together, Arthur Ellis describe a reflective classroom as one in which, "the teacher models the excitement of intellectual and emotional discovery. This condition," he goes on to write, "implies two things. first, the teacher must be an enthusiastic learner. Secondly, the teacher must be a relational person. (46)" So in other words, a teacher must first find in themselves a legitimate passion for their content (or learning in general), then, find ways to convey and cultivate this passion in others, or make it a shared passion, one that others can picture and envision themselves as a part of. I see this as one of the most important characteristics of a good leader. Just picture Steve Jobs doing his annual keynote speech at the Macworld expo (which on a sad side-note he will not be doing this year). The man leads with his own personal enthusiasm and his interest/involvement in the products his company sells. His vision is your vision, his ideas, your ideas, his goals, everybody's goals. This is what I see myself doing ( just without all the cool ultra-high tech gadgetry).

I see my self as a creative force within the educational community of the school. Inside and outside the classroom I will take an open mind and a pragmatic eye for finding positive, constructive solutions to social and curricular problems. I want my lesson plans and my methods for establishing strong bonds with my students to be unique and effective. I want to involve technology in new and interesting ways that will equip students with the knowledge/skills/tools they will use in the future. I want to build strong inter-disciplinary ties with colleges in order to create conceptually larger and more meaningful projects for the students. In my school, I would hope that other teachers would enjoy observing my class or looking at my lesson plans and being inspired or getting ideas that they would like to use in their own teaching (of course I have every intention of doing this in their classes as well). It is only when ideas are shared and power is passed on that a school really forms an authentic identity and creates a palpable, infecting energy that moves from teacher to teacher, teacher to student, student to parent, parent to administrator, and administrator back to teacher.

Another way I would like to influence the educational climate is by founding some organizations (either student, or less formal grouping of some kind) that pushes learning outside the four walls of the classroom. What I have in mind is primarily a film club and a essay/short story group of sorts that gives students that are interested an opportunity to discover readings and films they would not have known about otherwise. These groups do two things. First, ideally, they will ignite in the students the desire to continue searching for works of art that speak to them, works that, no matter when they may have been created, succeed in conveying a deeply human truths of some kind. It also gives them the much needed extra practice of critical consumption (obviously not the literal kind of consumption). As citizen of a consumer culture, they will be assaulted by advertising, images, rhetoric, etc. and they need to develop a keen eye for B.S. (as they will be exposed to a lot of it). Second, running this kind of group forces me to constantly be on the look out for more important, interesting works of writing and/or film myself. By keeping me immersed in new materials, I continue to lead by example and I find new ideas/images/perspectives that will keep my own passion burning.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of our youth, I plan on being out in the front lines. While there are many alternative life-views for the kids to adopt (many of them leading to the creation of a self-centered, voluntarily ignorant mindset), a teacher that wants to make a difference has to show their mentees the other options available. Tolstoy once wrote, "Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised." If there is one thing I know will kill your chances of making a genuine connection with your students, it is to say one thing but do the opposite. If you are not backing up what you are "preaching" in class, those that are supposed to be learning from you wont take seriously the the things you are asking them to do/believe, they will simply discount you as another disingenuous or uninteresting creature in a long line of those already encountered. It is one of the rather inconvenient points of being a leader, but living up to your own standards is a must if one hopes to make an actual impression.