Linking Leadership and Learning

Deals with being responsible for the learning of one’s colleagues.

I want to associate this definition by this famous quote “No Man Is an Island.” We cannot live
solely on our own. More often than not, we need the help of other people; help from our family
members, relatives, classmates, and when the time comes that we’re finally in the field of
teaching, we need the help of our co-teachers in order to succeed in our endeavors.
So, linking leadership and learning goes hand in hand. Especially in the school environment,
these two variables which are leadership and learning are inseparable. There is leadership in
learning and there is learning in leadership. That’s why they are linked together and associated
with each other.
However, with this definition, as future teachers, we are not only responsible with our own tasks
or activities within the academic institution, we are also responsible for the learning of our
colleagues. Responsibility in a sense that we also care for their performance and growth as
professionals. When we look at others and we see that they’re struggling to learn some thing, like
for example, when a certain teacher from the faculty of social studies don’t know how to operate
computer as a mean of presenting her prepared lesson to her students, we should be there to
help her, assist her, and lead her. And that’s what we called SHARED LEADERSHIP, we share
what we know, we share something out of our leadership skill.
Some students seem to understand that the classroom and school communities are in the
business of learning together. For instance, when our 9-year-old grandson, Dylan,
completes his own work, he observes how other students are progressing. He voluntarily
goes to the desks of other students and assists them. Shannon, our 10-year-old
granddaughter, serves as a peer mediator at her school in Colorado, helping other
students work out solutions to their conflicts.
Nakita nyo class? The association or the link between leadership and learning is so evident in
that examples. Nung nakatapos na si Dylan sa ginagawa niya, he observed and look at how
others do their works. Without any doubt, he voluntarily went on to the desks of his other
classmates and he offered assistance. That’s a characteristic of a shared leadership. Si Shannon
naman nag serve as a peer mediator at her school in Colorado, helping other students work out
solutions to their conflicts. And I know that you guys also did the same thing even once in your
whole life. I know that you had the chance to help your classmates when you were in your early
years of schooling, because believe it or not, I did the same. I was once served as the tutor of my
classmates, I’m not toothing my own horn, but in Math, wayback when I was in Grade 7, I was
happy tutoring my other classmates in Polynomial. Seeing them progressing and knowing that no
one is leaving behind, that led me to a conclusion that by leadership, we can empower others.
And that applies too in the school management, a principal has the power to empower her sets
of teachers by conducting series of seminars and/or conferences discussing the importance of
leadership.