Awakening The Sleeping Giant
"Within every school there is a sleeping giant of teacher leadership that can be a strong catalyst for making changes to improve learning" say Katzenmeyer and Moller in a recent book, Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders.
The book serves as a how-to guide on fostering teacher leaders on a campus. Beginning with general descriptions of the various roles that teacher leaders serve and the many definitions of a teacher leader that have accumulated over the last few decades, the book crystallizes the essential functions of any teacher leader into four elements. Teacher leaders:
- Lead within and beyond the classroom;
- Identify with and contribute to a community of teacher learners and leaders;
- Influence others toward improved educational practice; and
- Accept responsibility for achieving the outcomes of their leadership.
Based on these key elements, the authors construct a model of teacher leadership that begins with a diagnostic tool that teachers can use to assess their capacity for leadership, then moves outward to explore how teacher leadership operates most effectively on a campus. The book offers an abundance of learning tools for teacher leaders and principals, including how to deal with peers who are struggling, how to motivate teachers to change, and how to navigate the space between the classroom and the principal’s office.
In short, the text is a great resource for developing effective and sustainable teacher leaders who can drive the work of a campus. The authors conclude that "recognizing that reform requires persistent work compels us to capitalize on the skills, knowledge, and expertise of every teacher who can be agent of change. Ultimately, the schools of the future will look quite different from the schools of today. The evolution of teacher leadership will help to make this a positive difference." In light of this conclusion, the following report from the field highlights the type of evolutionary change that teacher leaders can make.
