Journal 1

JOURNAL #1
Challenges of Educational Leadership: Meaning, Community and Excellence
David Tuoby SJ and David Coghlan SJ

 Then
o Role of the principal used to be to make sure the school ran efficiently and there
were good relations among staff
o Past 20 years increase in involvement by:
 Government
 Increase in student participation
 Demand for specific social and economic products from school
 Now
o Role of the principle now: administration of internal factors, external forces
 Needs to be a distinction made between Administration and Leadership
o Administration is typically described in terms of working within a system to keep
it in operating order.
 Good administrators: the operational and physical system runs efficiently
and smoothly, however there is a general unease that they are efficient
about the wrong things, that their priorities are wrong or perhaps the future
is not considered.
o Leadership, however, is typically described in terms of the capacity to articulate
vision, to generate commitment and enthusiasm around values, to form culture
and to lead change.
 Good leader: very inspirational, can generate great enthusiasm about
projects and has a great sense of purpose and vision however, they are a
poor organizer

Both administration and leadership are essential.

 Administrators need the leaders to talk them through the vision so they can build
congruent instructional forms.
 Principals who play both roles can reflect on how they can move from one role to another
– creating vision and then institutionalizing that vision in the operating structures of the
school.

3 main forces that affect leadership

 Ideas: reflects what is right and what is significant: clarifying values
 People: involves the way in which ideas are adopted: give rise to new paradigms of
teaching and learning
 Things: gives attention to practical issues of performance and resources

Leadership and excellence in schools (Sergiovanni, 1984)

 Technical: planning, organizing, coordinating, time tabeling,
 Human: school leaders: relations role in encouraging, building and maintaining morale,
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using participation, managing conflict and in enabling people to attain satisfaction

 Education: design and delivery of curriculum, supervision, in service training
 Symbolic: presiding over ceremonies, representing the school to the outside world
 Cultural: articulating values, socializing new members, reinforcing values of the school

o Technical, Human and Educational are hallmarks of competent schools but to be

excellent you need symbolic and cultural.
o Teach the whole child. Support the whole school. (DEWEY, SULIVAN
COMMISION)
 Christian Leadership in schools should focus on: meaning, community and excellence.
o Meaning: common vision on what the school is trying to achieve (BIG IDEAS)
o Religious education: subjects are seen as containing a religious dimension
o Community: how people work together and relate to one another.
(COLLABORATION)
o Excellence: academic, behavioral and extra curricular: student and staff
performance
 School governance, newsletter, parents’ associations, inclusion, discipline code,
integration of different groups (COMMUNICATION)
 Criterion perspective: individuals try to reach a standard
 Norm-referenced: success is judged in comparison to others

Likes
 Made a distinction between administration and leadership and to be successful you need
both. Administration is the organization of the company and leadership is the vision.
Without the ability to plan a process and implement the vision, it will not be effective and
without a vision for the plan, it will also not be effective.
 Reinforced and affirmed my beliefs that collaboration and effective communication are
very important
 In order to have excellence in a school you need symbolic and cultural component.
 Even though the underlying message in this article was a focus on religion, it affirmed the
importance of collaboration, effective communication, vision, big ideas, teaching of the
whole child, which we ‘dug’ deeply into in our previous courses. These thoughts also
align with theorists’ views: Dewey and teaching the whole child, Bruner and discovery
learning, Beane and true curriculum integration and collaboration.

Dislikes
 I would like the article to expand more on the symbolic component to excellence in
schools through leadership. The article spoke briefly but only from a religious
perspective, which was its intent.
 More support from other theorists.
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Journal #2
Article Review For Presentation Richelle Gannon
Pointing them in the Right Direction: Leadership for Transformation
George Flynn

This paper looks at one schools approach move from leadership as transaction towards
leadership for transformation. (CAPS ARE CONNECTIONS TO OTHER
COURSES/READINGS)

Approach
4 levels of participation and behavior
1. Individual: the relationship between the individual and the school, personal life, career
goals FROM A LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE THIS INVOLVES HAVING THE
INDIVIDUAL COMMITTED TO THE GOALS, VALUES AND CULTURE OF THE
SCHOOL
2. Face – to – face team: PRINCIPAL INVOLVED IN PROMOTING EFFECTIVE
TEAMWORK
3. Inter-departmental group: maintain balance of power among competing interest groups,
DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES, THEY ARE THE KEY ELEMENT IN
EMPOWERMENT OF VISION IN THE SCHOOL.
4. Organizational: the relationship of the school to a changing external environment. THE
KEY TO ANY ORGANIZATION IS ITS ABILITY TO ADAPT TO
ENIRONMENTAL FORCES THAT DRIVE CHANGE.
 School leaders in their symbolic and cultural roles create vision and articulate
values of meaning, community, and excellence. In their technical, human and
educational roles they institutionalize these values in the operation of the school
 School leaders; therefore act as leaders and custodians of how meaning,
community and excellence are actualized across the four levels.

As a staff they developed a sense of what leadership meant. John Smyth’s Critical Perspectives
on Educational Leadership: only when leadership in schools is based upon such moral principles
as justice, freedom and respect for persons can learning in schools move beyond a utilitarian
concern for skill related learning. When leadership is regarded as a form of moral action,
decisions are made that amount to a considered and informed cognitive and cultural appraisal.
COVEY, ELLIS, DEWEY and SULIVAN COMMISSION (WHOLE CHILD), UBD,
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

The article spoke about a cultural assessment that they undertook and that the underlying feeling
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of administration was they were busy ‘managing’: finding quick fix solutions to problems and
keeping the organization moving along historical tracks. CULTURAL AUDIT ALSO A
DISCUSSION THAT WE HAD IN CLASS YESTERDAY ABOUT ADMINISTRATION
BEING AVAILABLE WHERE IT IS MOST VALUABLE—IN CLASS, OR A PRESENCE IN
THE SCHOOL.

Administration that are ‘busy’ managing are transaction leaders and they try to overcome
resistance to change by constantly and sometimes desperately trying to find the one-minute quick
fix.

Transformational leaders, however, avoid the use of simple quick fixes; these leaders engage in
debate and have a deep understanding of the morality of concepts of equity, power, freedom, and
the dynamics of decision-making.

The process:
1. Administrative team developed the ideal situation BIG IDEAS, ENDURING
UNDERSTANDINGS AND ESSENTIAL QUESITONS
2. Realized that a paradigm shift was necessary, one in basic values. They were valuing a
system that promoted power, prestige and privilege (a reflection of society). In this type
of system people are not important, except in that they can add to my power, prestige and
privilege. The value system that would be what we wanted was healing, restoration, and
empowerment BIG IDEAS FROM CHAPTER 13 IN EDUC 740: EMPOWERMENT OF
CURRICULUM TAKES COLLABORATION, FLUIDITY AND
INTERCONNECTEDNESS.
3. Looked at each individual issue and assessed it against their values. ENDURING
UNDERSTANDINGS, ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS, ALLIGNING WITH THE BIG
IDEAS, BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Thoughts and affirmations

This is an example of leadership with a religious component but if you just sit down and pick out
the key points of effective leadership you end up with the same big ideas and understanding.
This is very important for me because I feel that no matter what walk of life you are coming
from the same essential values and beliefs are used. The same process and the importance of
collaboration, working towards a common vision, and empowerment are needed in successful
leadership.

Possible Misunderstandings/ Misconceptions

Getting hung up on the religious component and passing an article by because you don’t teach or
you are not the administrator of a Catholic School. Being able to look past and focus on the
trends and patterns needed for effective leadership.

Questions
“…A beacon for the nations, to open eyes that are blind… I will not yield my glory to another,
nor my honour to idols. Isaiah, the unlikely and practical visionary, was a voice of sanity in a
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time that desperately needed that voice.” EFFECTIVE LEADER

1. Who will be our Isaiah? Who will be the voice of sanity?

2. Who will emerge as transformational leaders in our time to design and build the bridges
between our traditional culture, which is ending and what comes next.

Journal #3
Effectiveness, improvement and educational change: a distinctively Canadian approach?
Andy Hargraves and Dean Fink

SUMMARY
 This paper looks at the Canadian perspective on educational issues and the changes that
are happening in Canadian Schools.
 Each province has power over their education
 Promoting and integrating teacher training, teacher induction, professional development
and whole school change: Ontario: Learning Consortium
 Offer financial and technical resources to secondary schools that apply and meet the
criteria: Manitoba
 Different models were investigated: top down and bottom up.
o Top down
 Little involvement from teachers
 Not successful
o Bottom up
 Did not lead to improvements of student achievement
 Did support professional growth, teacher collaboration, and flexible
planning
o Middle approach: MOST SUCCESSFUL
 Top provided direction and support
 Bottom deciding how to implement changes
 Distinct Canadian school of thought on educational change.
 The key to school improvement is encompassing human experience among educators,
parents and students.

THEMES
1. Complexity – Change Frames
o Schools look at an area of concern through various lenses
 Clarify the school’s purpose
 Build better cultural relationships
 Design structures that support
 Ensure students are more emotionally engaged in their lessons
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2. Context
o Canadian educational change is ‘up front’
 Social and political contexts and purposes of change
o Administrators respond to powerful areas of social change
 Labour market
 Information technologies
 Child poverty
 Changing nature of family life
3. Critical Edge
o Canadian educational change takes a more socially critical direction than most
 Gender issues affect change
 Racial politics affects change
o Inward and outward dimension
o Self-reflective about the intellectual and practical improvements of the past

4. Culture and Development

o Central to thinking about implementing school improvement
o Creation of school success or the combating of failure is taken on by the ones
who ultimately make improvements work—the teachers

5. Emotions
o Safe and orderly climates for learning are established
o Infusing more passion into the classroom
o Reorganizing school structures
o Create conditions where feelings of hope and efficacy are felt among teachers

Dislikes
o I would like to see an example of provincial perspectives on educational issues because
each province has its power over education
o Some examples from Ontario and Manitoba were discussed but what about the rest of
Canada. Living in northern British Columbia and how we deal with educational issues
may be different from the East. It may be different within our own province.
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Journal #4
Leadership that sparkles.
J.T. Walers, R.J. Marzano and B. McNuly

SUMMARY
o This study questioned if leadership makes a difference or not in student achievement.
This was interesting to me because we have had several discussions around this and it
appears that teachers have the most impact and administration has very little in
comparison.
o Researchers examined quantitative research spanning over 25 years
o Concluded that leadership does matter.
o Effective leadership can be identified by 21 key areas that are correlated to
student achievement
o Effective leaders understand which school changes are most likely to improve
student achievement

21 KEY ARES OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

o Christine Todd, in her article presentation, posed this question “of the 21 key areas of
leadership, which areas are more important to develop as a leader? Is there a ranking as to
importance? Why or why not.”
o I feel there are a few key areas that are the most important:
o Relationships
o Communication
o clear focus
o visibility.
o I feel that if these key areas were the focus, everything else would fall into place.
o In order to feel valued as a person and member of the school family you need to have
relationships where you feel valued
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o A clear focus and purpose allows everyone to see why you make the decisions you do,
whether they are around discipline, knowledge, monitoring, evaluation, etc. people would
understand.
o If you have excellent communication then your relationships, sense of community and input
would be taken into consideration
o Finally if the administrator were visible and had high contact with teachers and students their
relationships would be stronger, their communication more effective and the focus and
purpose for the school would constantly be affirmed.

DISLIKES
o Further development of this paper
o Sample sizes, the studies, the types of tests done on the data, the assessment
teachers completed about their leaders