ASCD Conference Day 1

Opening general session on 'Connecting Every Level of Leadership from Board Room to the Classroom'.
Presenter: Douglas Reeves

Learning points and Team Reflection:

1. Leaders should not change for the sake of changing, but rather bring about changes where there is a need. Leaders want to sustain the changes.

2. Teacher leaders are agents of change. They will face difficulties in education reform. Therefore, they need support and resources from school leaders.

3. Generally, students do not thank teachers immediately because the benefits are not realized until much later in life. Therefore, colleague support is very important. Colleagues are the impetus for coming together as a profession.

4. What is a teacher leader? They are teachers who ignite pupils’ participation during lessons to engage them in learning. They are able to see beyond the classroom and believe that the pupils are “our children, not my children.

5. For successful implementation of any initiatives, emphasis should be placed on level initiative rather than adopting a whole school approach. One way is to get the drivers to carry out the planned initiative first. Leaders should allow for experimentation and refinement before rolling out to the masses.

6. Adult action is very important, not blame factors beyond their control. Teachers’ accountability is more important than just test scores.

Some points for leaders to be aware of:

1. Initiative fatigue will set in if there are too many initiatives within a period of time. As a result, implementing the initiatives becomes a touch-and-go process, which will not lead to the buying in of these initiatives.

2. Constant monitoring of the progress of the initiative is important.

3. For any new initiative to be successful, changing the mindset of teachers is important. Part of this is to create an acceptance that change is constant.

4. Leaders as change agents must try to help others believe in the change.

5. Intention vs action: action can be an opposing force to good intention. Failure may be a result. What is important for leaders is to recognize and learn from these failures.

6. Constructive negative feedback vs pure negative feedback. Constructive feedback can be seen as a challenge to leaders to move to a higher level. Leaders need to develop a “helicopter” vision in order to meet these challenges.

7. Often, teachers see leadership roles and teaching roles as separate. However, by taking up a leadership role, teachers can learn the rationale behind policies. Explaining and persuading teachers to understand and believe in new policies is difficult. The best way is for teachers to take up a leadership role within their own level.

8. Often, teachers do not buy in ideas because the rationale behind the ideas may not be stated clearly. Also, teachers may not have the time to react, reflect and response to these changes. Therefore, timing and duration for change is important.

9. Leaders need “mirrors” to reflect in order to manage change effectively. To avoid initiative fatigue, it is better to focus and streamline initiatives, rather than have many initiatives. Leaders can adopt a bottom up approach. The role of leaders is to provide the key focus that guides the initiatives. Anything not within the focus should be ignored. Communicating this message clearly to teachers is important.

10. “Whipping a dying horse” is not effective. Sometimes, doing things in a non-conventional way can be more effective. Leaders may need to reflect on what is working, and what is not working. Respect must still be given to the culture of the organization in the process.

Participants then attended morning and afternoon sharing sessions on various aspects of teaching and learning.