Getting Unstuck: Developing Caring Leadership
“We know from our research that when teachers feel cared for they’re much more likely to express caring for their students and to feel that they are responsible for all students, not just the students who happen to be in their class in a given hour or given year.”
Today on Getting Unstuck
Our mission since the publication of our book is to look at change and change leaders in education, answering the questions “Who is leading what change? Why and how are they doing it? And what outcomes are they seeking to achieve?”
Mark Smylie & Karen Seashore Louis
Two individuals who can provide interesting insight here are Mark Smylie and Karen Seashore Louis.
• Mark is Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His teaching and research focus on school leadership, organization, and improvement.
• Karen is Regents Professor and Chair in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on school improvement and reform, school effectiveness, leadership in school settings, and the politics of knowledge use in education.
• Karen and Mark along with Joseph Murphy are the authors of Caring School Leadership, and Stories of Caring School Leadership.
And because of their perspective, we’re including their voices in our special professional development series “Tomorrow – How Might We Reimagine Our Schools?”
The Essential Point
Whether you’re a parent, an educator, or a citizen of the US, you have a big stake in what happens in our classrooms – the incubators of our future. If you listen to education transformation advocates – Sir Ken Robinson, Ted Dintersmith, Richer Gerver – we need to change those incubators by recognizing that we’re in a post-industrial society and build an educational system that better prepares children for it. What we see, however, is what at best is described as “change around the edges” and at worst, clinging to the bureaucracy that focuses on evaluating students instead of helping them become their best self for today’s world.
Mark’s and Karen’s school transformation ideas
Let’s listen in as Mark and Karen explain the imperative of including “caring school leadership” in any discussion of school transformation.
There is as difference between caring about something (thoughts) and caring for something (taking action).
Students in schools that have an identified culture of caring tend to outperform academically those students in schools where there is an absence of caring. “In such schools, students do not feel cared for, they feel excluded, they feel marginalized.”
The heavy emphasis on academics, rigor and accountability have negatively impacted the building of caring relationships.
It’s critical to demonstrate caring for the faculty if having the faculty demonstrate caring for students is the desired cultural goal.
“You cannot reform a school unless you can see it through the eyes of the students. Typically we prepare people to see things through the eyes of those who are in control, and not through the eyes of those who are supposed to be served.”
Students learn better and teachers feel better when the school has strong ties to parents and the community at large.
Universities and colleges of education need to play a stronger role in helping pre-service teachers and administrators build the caring- and relationship-side of their interactions with students, parents and the community.
“You can’t just engineer your school through that perfect system of programs and practices that you would adopt. You first have to have the vehicle of relationships.”
Could a book on how to effectively lead change in schools be more timely?
We’re pleased to announce …
…that our book Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change is now available from Corwin Press or Amazon. Please consider leaving us a rating and review. Thank you!
From our publisher:
In Shifting, educators and leadership experts Kirsten Richert, Jeff Ikler and Margaret Zacchei empower educational change leaders to proactively and coherently navigate complex change in schools to achieve the desired outcomes.
Using a three-part framework—Assess, Ready, Change—this book leads educators to examine a school’s imperatives and readiness for change, identity the tools and abilities required to manifest change, and take action by defining the roles and processes necessary to effectively implement both sweeping change and smaller day-to-day adjustments.