Publication Type:
Web Article
Year of Publication:
2008
ISBN:
978-1-4166-0666-6
Keywords:
action research;
PLCs
Abstract:
In my work supporting school professionals who are working to develop collaborative cultures, they often figure out the structures required but then are at a loss for what to actually do. Reframing Teacher Leadership to Improve Your School provides them a very concrete example: action research.
Full Text:
Reframing Teacher Leadership to Improve Your School
By Douglas Reeves
2008 (212 pp./paperback)
ASCD
ISBN: 978-1-4166-0666-6
$26.95 ($20.95 for members)
Reviewed by Ellen Holmes, NBCT
Distinguished Educator
Maine Department of Education
How can we transcend the boundaries among teachers, leaders and political authorities in a way that allows us to nurture, challenge, encourage, and develop every student entrusted to our care? With this framing question, Douglas Reeves begins to describe his vision of a new framework for teacher leadership.
I am an employee of a teacher union, on loan to my state Department of Education. Each day in my work with teachers and administrators, in a variety of contexts, I ask Reeves' question. Our state, like many others, is working to realize the full potential of best teaching practices and collaborative school cultures. I firmly believe that we will finally make substantive improvements in student learning when we reexamine the roles and definitions of teachers and leaders.
What I am reminded of daily, however, is that this reexamination is a process that usually moves at glacial speed. The historical inertia that exists in the culture of our schools is substantial and positive change comes up against many barriers. Reeves defines the three barriers to improved teacher leadership as Blame, Bureaucracy and Baloney.
Blame, as described by Reeves, is at the heart of most resistance to change. Blame pops up when teachers and administrators say things like, "I would like to do it...but I don't have time," or "I would like to do it... but it is not in my contract." Bureaucracy is the opposite of a network, and Reeves describes how the former is a hierarchical barrier to change and the latter is a non-linear catalyst of nodes, hubs and superhubs that promote momentum. Baloney is a barrier consisting of superstition, prejudice, deeply held assumptions and beliefs, all of which are under-informed by evidence.
Reeves contends that “the best way to expand and extend the most powerful teaching strategies is for teachers to observe the practices of other teachers and school administrators to build teacher leader networks that encourage the sharing of effective instructional practice.” He asserts, for example, that when teachers use action research to answer, "Is my present practice as effective as I think it is?," they become leaders who are informed by evidence. When they then share this evidence with the networks in their schools, they become catalysts for change.
While the first half of Reframing Teacher Leadership can be a compelling read, with amply described research findings and a plausible justification for rethinking agents of change, the professionals I work with day-in and day-out are most interested in the second half of the book. Here, Reeves finally describes in clear language how the development of a culture of evidence is the new framework for teacher leadership. He takes the relatively well known and not-so-new practice of action research and overlays it on top of the current love affair that schools have with the development of professional learning communities.
The parts of the book I find most valuable to the practitioners in my professional circles are the appendices in which Reeves provides templates for action research proposals, scoring rubrics for proposals, project review forms and concrete examples of projects completed by classroom educators across the country. I find that in my work supporting school professionals who are working to develop collaborative cultures, they often figure out the structures required but then are at a loss for what to actually do. This book provides them a very concrete example: action research.
