Abstract:

Bill Ferriter, a North Carolina NBCT, emphasizes the importance one colleague had on urging him to become a teacher leader to explain why this book will be useful to administrators. The book provides principals “with specific actions they can take to build relationships.”

Citation: Moller, G. & Pankake, A. (2006). Lead with me: A principal’s guide to teacher leadership. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Full Text:

Lead with Me: A Principal's Guide to Teacher Leadership
by Gayle Moller and Anita Pankake
2006 (218 pp; paperback)
Eye on Education
ISBN: 1-59667-025-8
$34.95

Reviewed by: Bill Ferriter, NBCT
Wake County (NC) Public School System

Several years ago, I was a teacher who was floundering. I loved my kids but hated my job. I was frustrated with education and was at the edge of leaving teaching for good.

That's when a colleague named Carolann saw something in me. She thought I had the potential to lead others within my school and my district. She caught up to me one day and passed along a book that she wanted me to read titled Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers to Develop as Leaders written by Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller. "Check this out, Bill, and tell me what you think," she said.

I was consumed by Awakening. Katzenmeyer and Moller laid out a vision of teacher leadership that resonated with me and kindled sparks of professional passion that had long since disappeared. I can remember reading almost non-stop, finishing the title in less than a week. When I was finished, I was completely jazzed because I saw the power that teachers could have within education. I immediately started to seek out opportunities to lead in the ways that Moller and Katzenmeyer described.

In the following months, many opportunities came my way. I became a Fellow and a Senior Fellow here in the Teacher Leaders Network. I began writing for journals and educational websites. I presented at conferences in our district and at the state and national level and I started moderating a conversation between hundreds of North Carolina's National Board Certified teachers. I worked as the Teacher in Residence at the Center for Teaching Quality and was eventually chosen as the Teacher of the Year in my county and as a regional Teacher of the Year in my state.

Each of these opportunities allowed me to grow as a teacher and as a leader. The knowledge and experiences that I gained inevitably made their way into conversations that I had with colleagues, helping to shape our efforts as a school. What's more, I've nudged several peers towards leadership positions, amplifying the impact of my experiences. Our work has given us the opportunity to be influential. We have become respected voices on education in circles across our school, district and state.

And it all started because one peer saw in me the ability to lead and encouraged me to step forward.

Isn't that amazing?

Imagine the potential that we have to improve America's schools if we could encourage this kind of leadership in more of our classroom teachers. As the Task Force on Teacher Leadership wrote in their 2001 report, Redefining the Teacher as Leader, "It is not too late for education's policymakers to exploit a potentially splendid resource for leadership and reform that is now being squandered: the experience, ideas, and capacity to lead of the nation's schoolteachers."

The challenge is that teacher leadership is still one of education's "great unknowns." Few teachers see themselves as leaders and even fewer administrators understand the hidden potential of the individuals sitting in their workrooms and faculty meetings. Teacher leadership remains a poorly understood concept and a "potentially splendid resource" that is all too often "squandered."

That's why Moller's new book, written with Anita Pankake of the University of Texas Pan American, Lead with Me: A Principal's Guide to Teacher Leadership is such a valuable contribution to the developing literature base on the importance of distributing leadership within a schoolhouse. Together, Moller and Pankake have taken the concept of teacher leadership and made it concrete for the most influential change agents of the educational community-school level administrators. Sprinkled throughout the book are the insights of teacher leaders — including many from our own Teacher Leaders Network — that help underscore the key contentions of the authors.

Part One begins by describing three basic principles that are necessary for "promoting, building and sustaining quality teacher leadership" within a school: that quality relationships are essential for developing teacher leaders, that principals committed to teacher leadership must commit to distributing power and authority, and that teacher leadership efforts must be aligned with efforts to increase teacher learning. "It is time," Moller and Pankake write, "for principals to intentionally move from serving as the director of school actions to being a coach for teacher leaders."

Part One continues with a description of the many different roles-both formal and informal-that teacher leaders play in buildings. Included is a vignette describing a school where teacher leadership is naturally intertwined into the culture of the building. Readers are able to "see" leadership and to imagine what it could look like in their own settings.

Also included is an extensive study of the change process in schools. Predictable stages of the change process are detailed and descriptions of the phases that teachers go through during the course of their careers are included. "With knowledge about the phases of change and how teachers individually experience change, principals are better prepared to lead with the intent of increasing teacher leading and learning."

Building on the foundation laid out in the first three chapters, Part Two of Lead with Me sets out to provide principals with specific actions that they can take to build relationships, distribute power and authority, and to align teacher leadership with professional learning. Tools are provided to identify the teachers with great potential for leadership and for influencing colleagues. Self-study activities are designed to help principals to reflect on their own feelings about teacher leadership and shared decision-making. Working through each of the chapters, principals will develop a clear understanding of the human capital within their buildings and the structures that allow that capital to be accessed.

Recognizing that accomplished classroom teachers do not always possess the skill sets required to lead other adults, the final section of the text examines the concerted actions that principals must take to sustain teacher leadership within their buildings. Suggestions are offered for areas of support that developing teacher leaders will need in order to be successful in new roles. "If principals expect to reap the full benefits of teacher leadership, they can no longer delegate to teacher leaders without offering leadership development opportunities, coaching them in their work, and securing needed resources," write Moller and Pankake.

Sometimes I like to wonder what my career would be like had I not crossed paths with Carolann. Her encouragement resulted in a professional "tipping point" for me that has had significant ripple effects on the students of my classroom, the teachers of my school and community, and educators that I've worked with across our state and nation.

Lead with Me: A Principal's Guide to Teacher Leadership will provide administrators with the knowledge and tools to move others forward in the same way, tapping into the power that rests within the hearts and the minds of the teachers working within their buildings.

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