Living Dangerously, Using Our Voice

“To lead is to live dangerously.”  I am intrigued by the phrase coined by Heiftiz and Linsky (Leadership on the Line:  Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading). To live dangerously conjures up images of risk, adventure, and going beyond what I think is possible.  But what about leading could be so dangerous?  Here I pause. 

I am a teacher.  When in the classroom I work tirelessly.  During the day I teach.  At night I prepare. I am forever on, ready to respond to questions and to face day in and day out challenges that life in a middle school brings.  I work with colleagues who inspire and extend a hand, offering hope and encouragement. I bang my head against the wall as I try to navigate the educational legalese that seems to be so hurtful to those in education.  I celebrate the successes of children and families.  I shout hooray when the system does help.  I smile deeply when a student offers his or her wisdom.  These children before me our the future.  How could I not advocate on their behalf?

Where does the danger lie in opening the door to leading?  It lies in expressing an opinion or belief that challenges someone elses.  It lurks in making a mistake or stepping on someone’s toes.  It sleeps in the dark pockets of gossip only to awaken under the eye of public scrutiny.  It haunts me and holds me back; a perfectionist at heart, I do not want to get it wrong.

Yet there is a thrill to danger too.  This thrill exists in the moment when creativity blossoms.  It comes alive when the change begins. It thrives when possibilities are realized.  Well, to lead is an opening up to the hard work is ahead.  It is a call to action.

Teacher voice – classroom teachers desire to be heard and listened too.  Where shall we begin?  Why is change so difficult?  Who should lead change in schools?

Are we doing a good job?

Any organization, with schools certainly being one of them, manages to solve the problems it faces in order to survive. The school’s culture starts to grow and build itself then as these problems are repeatedly and reliably solved in a similar way; thus the assumptions and beliefs underneath them becoming shared and unconscious while shaping the school’s view of itself and its context (Schein in Evans, 2001). These assumptions while being deep and stable appear throughout the school in the form of values and artifacts (Evans, 2001)

Values such as cooperation and loyalty but also values like competitiveness and mistrust develop as ways to solve problems and challenges faced by a school, and the more they reliably solve these problems, the more they become to be accepted as a reality and transformed into a shared belief that is taken for granted (Evans, 2001). Evans (2001) distinguishes between two types of values: deep ones that unconsciously affect the decision-making process and persons’ behavior; and others that even though schools profess, their members do not typically practice.

It is reasonable then to expect that the deepest and shared values of a school should permeate teachers and students’ attitudes and behavior, as well as their relationship in the classroom. But, the isolation in which teachers develop their work appears as a frontier for this to happen. If, after closing their classroom door, teachers have the power to implement the curriculum according to their own values and if -on top of that- they don’t share the schools’ values and assumptions (whatever these are); then the contents and values that are actually taught may widely differ from the ones intended.

If a given school is missing a strong leader committed to the schools’ values and able to engage teachers with them or if, pushed by its leaders, the school develops a culture based -for example- on competitiveness and mistrust; then would it be possible to think that students are receiving a different set of values from each of their teachers? Going one step further, if in order to improve instruction, teachers need to improve their capacity to judge their work (Cohen, 1990), how could they know if they are doing a good job if their benchmark is drawn by their own set of values?