Alone With Everyone: Isolation, Egalitarianism, and Teacher Leadership

In their research on creating a Master’s program devoted to training teacher leaders, Taylor, et al. (2011) interviewed multiple students for their perspectives on how they had grown personally and professionally over the course of the program. One participant, when asked about the effects of co-construction on their view of teacher leadership, stated:

“[...]usually you go to class and they tell you what you’re supposed to learn and how you’re supposed to learn it. And then you do it and you’re never quite sure if that was the right way. And here it was, they trusted us to take ownership of what we were learning and use it in ways that made sense to us, which I thought was wonderful and exciting.” (Taylor, et al., 2011)

 

Aside from the professional revelation afforded to this participant, what struck me as most pertinent was that the language used here could just as easily be applied to an elementary or secondary student as it could to a Master’s level student. As educators we are often told that current best practice involves the gradual release of responsibility, inquiry-based methodologies, “genius hours” in the style of Google and other future-facing companies - all formats that are designed to help our students function in the world of tomorrow, rather than obtain a job that exists only today. Yet the unique nature of the teaching profession makes it difficult to apply that logic to our own work. We teach students to be flexible, but we rarely change our lesson plans from year to year. We foster community, but we do not seek best practices from those outside our departments or grade levels. This inherent tension between the skills we teach, and culture in which we teach them, makes the development and nurturing of teacher leaders an ever-more pressing need in our Western school systems. 

    Two of the most damaging normative states in teaching that lead to inertia in teacher leadership are egalitarianism and isolation. York-Barr (2004) refers to the longstanding culture of egalitarianism in the profession as “a significant problem with formal teacher leadership roles” by insinuating that “teachers who step up to leadership roles are stepping out of line.” This mentality, arguably fostered and encouraged by strong unions in the teaching profession, has benefits in terms of expressing solidarity across the profession but also disincentivizes advancement, particularly when the traditional path of advancement is through administration, who are seen as being on the “other side” (Wenner, 2017). Associated with egalitarianism - and yet, also in contrast to it -  is isolation. Curiously, educators move from a culture of shared learning in Bachelor’s and Master’s of Education programs, to a culture increasingly marked by isolation as they progress through their careers. 

    Multiple studies have noted how as teachers, we “often feel very isolated within our four walls [...] yes we do have rich staff meetings but rarely is there time for authentic discussion.” (Campbell, Lieberman, and Yashkina, 2017) Others have commented on the detrimental effect of this isolationist mindset on the profession, deeming “uncoordinated practice and isolated classrooms [as] relics of twentieth-century education not positioned to support the forms of organizational learning required for schools to meet the demands for improvement they face.” (Goddard, Goddard, Kim, and Miller, 2015) This sense of “frontier education” where the teacher proudly operates independently of others, particularly at the secondary level, is deeply ensconced within the profession, to its detriment. I present three anonymized case studies whose leadership structures suggest that teacher leadership is essential for effective educational change, as evidenced by the egalitarianism-collaborative professionalism and isolationism-deprivatization dialectics.

Caste Study #1

        Consider a traditional single-gender parochial school, centrally located, with decades of tradition. In this setting, the traditions of egalitarianism and isolationism remain firm and unchallenged. Daily lesson plans are written up and submitted to the department head, then enacted with no variation across sections. Students take notes from a PowerPoint, use those notes to write essays, tests, and labs, then write their final exams. Staff are held to a strict dress code, have their entrance and exit times from the building monitored by administration and other staff, and must visibly participate in all school-wide extracurricular events. This culture is disseminated top-down through the hierarchical leadership structure, and enforced by older teachers amongst newer staff members, so that they quickly became inculcated with the norms. Any attempts to bring changes even as simple as using Google Drive are met with passive-aggression rejection. Teachers work in isolation even within their departments, and there is little sharing of resources other than those that are officially designated as correct, generally coming from a textbook. At this school, teacher leadership - such as it is - exists only to reinforce and police the status quo. This reflects the observations of Taylor, et al. (2011) that traditional forms of leadership remove authority from the classroom and do not encourage innovation. However - the students seem mostly happy; class averages are generally high; there are relatively few behaviour issues; and staff have no real complaints about the environment. This could indicate the presence of the “unsanctioned work of [teacher leaders] as often covert and subversive, but not ineffective...that function outside of the administrator’s purview.” (Taylor, et al., 2011)

Caste Study #2

        In contrast, consider a suburban high school with an exceptional focus on academic and athletic excellence, and a parent base that is by and large very active in school affairs. Despite its success, the student and staff community feel overburdened with the stress of high expectations. This was effectively counterbalanced with leadership programs within the school that helped build a sense of community amongst students. These programs in student leadership, chaplaincy, mental health, and others, actively sought to break down barriers between students and staff and reduce the isolationist tendencies of both groups. These efforts reflect what Harris (2005) refers to as the “brokering” aspect of teacher leadership. Their goal was to link communities, share leadership amongst a wider network, and create new norms. Here, however, they met with considerable resistance from some staff and students, reflecting Wenner’s (2017) observation that taking on the role of a teacher leader changes the relationship with your peers. 

    To buttress against this resistance, the various aforementioned groups joined their efforts together into school-wide events that all could participate in, theoretically eliminating the perceive elitism of being a student or staff member in these groups. This intentional community building worked against the egalitarian model and formally recognized pre-existing leadership initiatives that previously operated alone, allowing these staff and students “self-concept [to] evolve from ‘content expert’ to change maker in their wider communities.” (Taylor, et al., 2011) Although effective, this process took “what was once a comfortable, primary social relationship with teaching peers” and shifted it “ to include implicit or explicit instructional, professional, or organizational expectation” amongst colleagues, which “violate[d] egalitarian professional norms” (York-Barr, 2004) and caused conflict amongst staff who could not disengage from their deeply ingrained egalitarian mindsets. However these initiatives did manage to meet most of the seven dimensions of teacher leadership: coordination and management; school work; professional development of colleagues; participating in school change initiatives; and community involvement. (Sinha and Sanuscin, 2017) 

Caste Study #3

          Finally, consider the non-traditional environment of a hospital-based school. The teacher participates in twice-weekly “rounds” meetings which were collaborative debriefing sessions with hospital staff - psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child and youth workers, nutritionists, and others. These invaluable sessions met most of the criteria that Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018) establish for collaborative professionalism. They were embedded within the culture of the organization; they promoted challenging, but respectful dialogue; they were run by staff based on needs identified amongst the patients/students; when patient advocates were present, the voices of the patients/students were also integrated; and, arguably most importantly, the purpose of these meetings was to better understand the wider purpose of learning - to help the child build resilience and self-care techniques; to educate ourselves and themselves about their physical, mental, and social environments; and to equip them, their families, and their school communities to manage their reintegration into society. There was no sense of egalitarianism amongst staff, but neither was there a strict hierarchical model of leadership that was enforced amongst staff. The insights gained from patient/student interviews were expanded on in rounds meetings, then applied again to those interviews to help move the patient/student towards better mental health. This reflects the cycle of praxis and cycle of impact that Taylor, et al. (2011) identify: better understanding of the patient/student leads to better planning for that patient/student, which leads again to better understanding - reflecting the cycle of praxis - while the patient/student engages in the cycle of impact by engaging in actions that had net positive results in their mental health, empowering them to engage in further actions. The inclusion of collaborative professionalism is, why teacher leadership in this program was more effective than in the second case study, where it was well-meaning but disorganized, or in the first, where it was completely top-down and inauthentic. Based on the four quadrants of collaboration outlined by Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018), it can be argued that the collaboration in the first case has “high precision” but “low trust”, since all initiatives are top-down in design; this is indicative of contrived collegiality. In the second case, the initiatives show “high trust” but “low precision”, due to their disorganization; this is indicative of informal collaboration. 

Ironically, the case of  the least traditional schooling model best reflects current research and literature around teacher leadership, rather than than the quote-unquote “high achieving” schools. These experiences raise further questions around the interplay between teacher leadership development and the professional inertia inherent to the traditional conservative Western education system. The current political climate in Ontario adds another layer of uncertainty as to the next steps for teacher leadership. Regardless, if there is to be progressive, meaningful change in Ontario’s education, then teacher leadership, and its core tenets of deprivatization and professional collaboration, is essential for the effective enactment of that change.

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WORKS CITED

Campbell, C., Lieberman, A. & Yashkina, A. with Alexander, S. & Rodway, J. (2018).

Teacher Learning and Leadership Program: Research Report 2017-18.

Toronto, ON: Ontario Teachers’ Federation.

Goddard, R., Goddard, Y, Sook Kim, E. & Miller, R. (2015). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the roles of instructional leadership, teacher collaboration, and collective efficacy beliefs in support of student learning. American Journal of Education, 121: 501-530.

Hargreaves, A. & O’Connor, M., (2018). Collaborative Professionalism: When Teaching Together Means Learning for All. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Harris, A. (2005). Teacher leadership: More than just a feel good factor? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4 (3): 201-219.

Lieberman, A., Campbell, C. & Yashkina, A. (2017). Teacher Learning and Leadership: Of, By and For Teachers. London & New York: Routledge: Chapter 5: Teachers’ Knowledge Exchange and Sharing of Practices Through the TLLP (pp. 85-120).

Sinha, S. & Hanuscin, D. (2017). Development of teacher leadership identity: A multiple case study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63: 356-371.

Taylor, M., Goeke, J., Klein, E., Onore, C. & Geist, K. (2011). Changing leadership: Teachers lead the way for schools that learn. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27: 920-929.

Wenner, J.A. & Campbell, T. (2017). The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 87 (1): 134–171.

 York-Barr, J. & Duke, K. (2004). What Do We Know About Teacher Leadership? Findings From Two Decades of Scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74 (3): 255–316.