Teacher Leaders: Puppets or Powerful?
New York teacher Ariel Sacks this week pointed out some of the challenges faced by teachers who wish to exercise leadership beyond their classrooms. In this essay, Beyond Tokenism: Toward the Next Stage of Teacher Leadership, Sacks points out some of the pitfalls she has experienced. These include finding one's voice used to advance someone else's agenda, making one into a "mouthpiece," rather than a true leader. Another is be used as a token teacher, so nobody can say we were not consulted - yet our advice is somehow ignored. And the last is to be "allowed" to take on a monumental task, in which we have the "freedom" to do what we like, but no time or resources to actually accomplish much.
Ms. Sacks encourages teachers to reflect on the leadership opportunities that present themselves, to be sure they have the ability to actually think for themselves, and to make a real difference in the work they take on.
Ariel Sacks concludes in this way:
Ms. Sacks encourages teachers to reflect on the leadership opportunities that present themselves, to be sure they have the ability to actually think for themselves, and to make a real difference in the work they take on.
Ariel Sacks concludes in this way:
Over the last five years, education has moved a long way toward empowering teachers to lead the