What is a Teacher-Leader?

Athena with owl, symbol of wisdom and leadership.  Louvre, Paris

 

I'll admit, I was wary at first.  Before I arrived at VCET, I had a very general, vague idea of what was going to be presented.  I knew it was going to be about developing a bigger voice as a teacher-leader, we were going to learn about education policy, and then develop a project based on a "problem" we saw could be researched and fixed back at our home schools.  It is this, but more.  Presenters have so far been prepared and organized, but not high-pressure.  Classes have been engaging and collaborative, and I feel that everyone is treated with respect and has a voice.  That being said, I want to review today:
We started with "What is Teacher Leadership" as a discussion point.  At first, I thought the presenter was going to continue entirely with Power Point, lecture-style, and I was bracing myself for the long haul.  But, as a good arts educator, the presenter quickly switched the focus from her to us, and we formed groups of five.  Here, we brainstormed, shared, and scaffolded answers to what was and wasn't good leadership.  You could feel our group's energy gain momentum when we found common ground and shared positive examples.  We concluded that good leadership demonstrated advocacy within the school and the community, communication, collaboration, risk-taking, passion, knowledge, and the ability to do what is right, amongst others.  I was especially struck with our group member Andrea who was fed up with being the sole recycler in her school, so she took it upon herself to convince her co-workers to take up the cause.  Small examples of strong leadership to create a worthwhile impact.
We also spoke of ineffective leadership, such as the "top-down" approach used by principals in some cases.  Principals have a visible role as school leader, but they can either collaborate with their teacher team to find solutions, or they can dictate their expectations and vision.  It's about teacher "buy-in"- whether or not they are involved in decision making is ultimately indicate if teachers feel like their treated as respected peers, and in turn, is reflected in dedication to the school and job turn over rate.  It was interesting to note that a member of our group is at a school where they are just beginning to take hold of PLC, whereas my school has gone through many incarnations of what was thought of the time as effective teaching styles within professional learning communities.  Sadly, my school's PLC has unraveled, being reduced to a monthly meeting of the un-core, "misfit" teachers to discuss "house cleaning" items.  I wished her luck.
Knowledge in the content area, although taken as a given for teachers, is not always so.  Teacher cannot be leaders without that foundation.  And it isn't just enough to have received a BFA or Masters, but to continuously research, practice and refine those skills to become a more effective teacher.  After-all, we expect our students to take risks with their art, so, too, must we.
We were then led to go into groups based on our discipline, mine being secondary visual arts.  Several brilliant topics were discussed for possible project ideas, including an idea to add another required arts credit to graduation requirements, which currently includes foreign language.  She hypothesized that shifting Computer Graphics to the technology requirement credit could be seen as more enticing if an Adobe certification was added.  STEM to STEAM was also a discussed topic to explore.
My previous post outlined my intention for my project, which was analyzing the disconnect between exuberant elementary students in art, versus adults who believe they "can't draw".  I am invested in this idea and researching the "L" curve, meaning students start fearlessly strong, decline, then bottom out, and the "U" curve of strong skill set, decline, then resurgence if the arts are continued after the Middle School years.  My project vision has been altered, however, and that in addition to having an area of small art instruction stations, I want to include and expand on something more measurable.  I would like to involve my up coming students to step up and become student-teacher leaders.  I envision several examples where students will have to bring home an informal survey to an adult who considers themselves "not artistic", answer a few questions on making art, draw, un aided, from a prompt, example, "draw a tree with branches", and then have the adult draw the prompt a second time, but with student instruction.  I'm not as concerned with the end result, but more the process.  I'm actually excited to see what kind of feedback I get from this.  Not only am I reinforcing the lesson with the student, but causing a "buy-in" from the parent/adult.
For the rest of class we were introduced to the library system, and briefed on our meeting with Senator Kaine tomorrow.  Look for my tweets! #imfinallyontwitterlol