RUNNING HEAD: THE CONTEMPORARY LEADER

The contemporary leader: The tug of war for a school based leader?
Dana Schafer
University of Calgary
EDER 619.92
Dr. Shelleyann Scott
November 28th, 2016
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The contemporary leader: The tug of war for a school based leader?

Like many educators from the millennial generation, I desire consistent and constructive

feedback to inform my teaching and to help move my practice forward. Unlike many teachers,

who would be considered senior to myself, I welcome regular classroom walkthroughs and do

not view visits from administration as invasive or suspicious. I crave an instructional leader

that has a wide range of knowledge and skills to effectively provide suggestions and solutions to

deal with the issues that arise in the field of education. There is a need within me to find the

mentorship of a contemporary leader to push me and to guide me as I grow and develop as a

master teacher. As a classroom teacher, I have always look to my administration and assumed

that they knew more than me and that they could fulfill this role. It was because they were the

formal leaders that I had trust they must have the knowledge, the skills and the attitudes that

make them more capable than I am at navigating the diversity and variation of learners within the

classrooms I teach. That is why they are the principals, right? My expectations have been that

they can guide me as I come to roadblocks in my instructional design or correct me as I steer off

course with an innovative assessment. Whether it is fair or not, this for the most part has been an

unspoken expectation, the assumption that they know it all and could solve the issues that arise

in our modern inclusive schools. It is through the lens of this course that I am realizing and

have noticed the pressure placed on my principal like many other school principals to be an all-

knowing entity in the educational universe and how difficult of a balancing act that must be

given the obligations and realities of what a principal is required and excepted to do.

Just like our classrooms, the job of the school based leader, namely the principal, is

becoming increasingly complex and we must redefine this position to consider this shift (Scott,
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2016). The changes in our education system have implications for our current understanding of

leadership and requires us to consider more than ever before how important it is to encourage

and support principals as they work to become true instructional leaders. This support includes

allowing them the freedom to focus less on managing the day to day operations of the building

and more on being the lead learner of their school community (Scott, 2016). This leaves us to

wonder, can a leader transition from the more traditional role of school principal to the role of a

more contemporary leader of a learning community? What does would this new role look like?

And how should this change be made?

Strong instructional leadership is pivotal to enhancing student outcomes (Fournier, Scott

& Scott, 2016) therefore it is vital that as aspiring leaders we work to understand and truly

examine what being a learning leader encompasses (Scott, 2016). We need to be able to honestly

examine the leadership qualities that are needed to appropriately address the trends emerging

from new and more inclusive educational practices. It is important for both new and veteran

principals to challenge the status quo of leadership and reimagine their role to include

confronting and dealing with the issues that surround our students, teachers and schools. If

leaders are willing to seek constructive disruption of practice and policies (Scott, 2016) true

instructional leadership can be taken on but not before we determine what qualities and actions

are necessary to fulfill the role of a true contemporary instructional leader.

The diversity of student populations has important implications on the evolution of the

current role of school based leaders or principals. Students come to schools with different

experiences, backgrounds, abilities, talents, strengths, weaknesses and skill sets. Diversity has

always existed in our schools but the way we are responding to the needs of these diverse groups

is and should be changing and a big component of how schools respond to the needs of the
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community is school leadership. Principals now must have the knowledge, shared

understanding and common language of these varied characteristics to effectively plan for,

address and support all the needs within the schools walls and in the surrounding communities

(McKean & Aitken, 2016).

It is not enough to understand the needs of the individuals within schools, principals must

also appreciate and promote equality by leading with a strong moral compass that is centered

around the ethic of care. If principals are to lead with an ethic of care then they need the skills

and attributes to effectively re-examine the fairness of school based assessments, the use of

inclusionary practices in their teachers instructional design and increase their own awareness of

how culturally sensitive their school structures are (Sherman & MacDonald, 2016). This forces

principals to purposefully examine how the teachers in their schools develop relationships,

implement teaching innovation, differentiate their instruction and design their assessment to best

serve the unique needs of students.

Leaders need to be able to take a critical look and ask if what they are seeing is effective

and purposeful. It is the leaders responsibility to have those hard-critical conversations if all

students are not being engaged through a variety of strategies on multiple paths to a learning

target (Taylor, 2015). Success for all students depends on how well teachers master different

models of learning and how well they access that tool box to suit the needs of their students best

(Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2002). Research shows that the support a school leader or principal

provides their teachers is directly correlated to the level of student achievement (Bennett, 2016).

Principals need to know enough about diverse needs, instructional design, differentiated

instruction and assessment to be able to select the right supports for the schools teachers and
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support staff (Scott, Scott & Longmire, 2016). This means they need to be offering opportunities

for professional development that encourage ongoing skill development in areas of

differentiation, assessment, collaboration and exceptional needs. School based leaders and their

administrative team need to look beyond what they implement for programs and structures and

spend time asking questions about what is happening inside classrooms because they have such

an important role in improving the way teachers teach (Fournier, Scott & Scott, 2016).

If these are the many lofty expectations of our leaders than there needs to be an

investment into the capacity building of those leaders. (Fournier, Scott & Scott, 2016) They need

to be afforded the time doing the things that really matter in schools, working with teachers to

improve student learning. Leaders need to be allowed more time to spend reflecting on their

own beliefs and align those with philosophies that support the ideas that all children should be

treated equally to have their unique needs met. Time needs to be given to leaders so they can

plan accordingly to create a culture of inclusion driven by the expectation that success is for all

students (Scott, Scott & Longmire, 2016). This will mean that leaders need support, access to

current up to date research (Fournier, Scott & Scott, 2016) and the time to explore and unpack

what it means to lead school teams that are culturally responsive, inclusionary, innovative and

sensitive to the many diverse needs inside their collective learning community.

Observation of any school based leader makes us quickly realize that this capacity

building is a rare occurrence. The day to day tasks of a manager take priority and much of an

administrators time is spent putting out fires that arise from managing and dealing with issues

that naturally occur in a building full of people. The reality is that very little time is left over to
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become the all knowing, all seeing, all doing lead learner that we understand is needed

and wanted to spear head large scale reform to effectively improve teaching in our schools.

It is this dichotomy of theory and reality that keeps me thinking that a reconceptualization

of instructional leadership requires more than clarifying the definition and requires a

restructuring of leadership roles and responsibility in schools. Traditionally the principal was the

only leader a school had and needed. The job of a principal did not require such an in depth and

thorough understanding of teaching and learning, they were meant to keep order, manage the

people in the building and ensure policies were followed. An instructional leader now needs to

blend those responsibilities with improving student achievement through educational reform.

A principal, in a more traditional sense, and a modern day instructional leader are not the same

thing and require two varying skills sets. The tug a war that exists between the two roles makes

it difficult to be both and everything effectively. Schools need instructional coaches whose sole

purpose is to cultivate cultures of best practice. Coaches that focus primarily on teaching and

learning and improving student achievement. This would leave management of school

operations to a leader more like that of a business manager. A leader who focuses on attendance,

district policy, stakeholder concerns, discipline issues and day to day management. Society has

changed so why would education stay locked in old traditional models, most namely leadership

structures (Scott, 2016).

It is my passion and my goal as a teacher in my school to work towards creating an

excellent learning environment to best serve students of our school community. My hope is to

inspire better teaching and encourage my colleagues to do whats best for kids in our school.

In my limited experience in the office or leading a professional learning team and department
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there are many times where we have had to put aside critical discussions about what is happening

in our classrooms to get to some of the tasks required of us as professionals. If I were to move

to the office would that mean that even more than ever I would be tethered to my desk and

obligated to focus my energy on so many other tasks other than what is required to move each

teacher toward their best practice. After examining the complexities of school based leadership

and the many considerations that a leader must make in the roles, I wonder if I have a better

chance of making an impact as a lead school teacher walking the walk rather than in a more

formalized leadership role. This dilemma between what I would hope it would mean to be a

school based leader and what I see as the reality of a principalship is what leads to my hesitation

to make the next steps in my career.

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References

Scott, S., Scott, D.E., & Webber, C.F. (Eds.). (2016). Leadership of assessment, inclusion, and

learning (Vol. 3). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Taylor, B.K. (2015). Content, process, and product: Modeling differentiated instruction. Kappa

Delta Pi Record, 51(1), 13- 17. doi: 10.1080/00228958.2015.988559 Lourenco, G.F.,

Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun (2002) - Chapter 2 Where models of teaching come from. Multiple

ways of constructing knowledge.