A New Generation of Teachers

It is a noticeable trend in schools today, the baby boomers are reaching retirement and the proportion of younger teachers is growing. Often beginning teachers can be seen as a risk and an unknown quantity. I have recently read an article "Realizing the Promise of Generation Y" which explores the challenges and opportunities of young teachers in our schools.
There is no doubt they bring to our schools...

• high technology skills that in most cases they seek to use creatively.
• a desire to make a positive change in the lives of students and the school as a community.
• and in most cases a want to do their best.

The key to the article was the need for us to focus on harnessing the "promise and potential" that these teachers hold. To do this we need to...

• Provide a supportive leadership that involves regular feedback and focused collaborative development.
• Increase the emphasis on supportive and trustworthy relationships. We need to make sure are developing a positive, welcoming, caring atmosphere. This adds to job satisfaction.

No doubt there are risks to employing young staff.

• They are not long-term career orientated.
• They tend to have high expectations about what their career should offer them.
• Often young teachers self confidence and motivation can be seen as arrogance my more mature teachers.

We need to have a differentiated understanding to staff support and development in the same way we are seeking to differentiate the curriculum and learning for our students.

We need to build up our young teachers for the future of our teaching profession.

Collaborative Leadership

It seems the labels are always changing but the basics of effective leadership remain the same. I was reading an Education Update from ascd.org this morning which was discussing instructional leadership. It lead with the quote...

"Effective instructional leadership requires communication, visibility and accessibility on the part of administrators and teachers and a commitment to collaboration."

It seems that the basics of effective collaborative leadership continues to require...

• Building and nurturing shared leadership and decision making.
• All stakeholders having a voice.
• Principals in classrooms and sharing in the teaching and learning process.
• Building of trusting relationships.
• Ongoing self review and reflective practice.
• Leadership by example. Principals as lead learners.

It made me consider again what culture of collaboration am I establishing. I am seeking to establish a learning community culture where...

• There is a clear focus and expectations.
• Systems and structures encourage collaboration.
• Professional development is shared and school wide.
• Staff are given regular formative feedback on the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
• There is opportunity and support for shared leadership.

The theory is awesome, the challenge is to allow for the practice to reflect the theory. Not to allow the busyness of the role and the challenges of people to drag me back to the often base level of self sufficiency.

Growth Learning Rather than Busy Learning

It is constant challenge to target learning to the individual. In a large class it is not an easy feat. Often the management of the class can override the effectiveness of targeted learning. I have just finished reading an article entitled "Even Geniuses Work Hard" By Carol S. Dweck [Copy of Article].

The focus of the article is on how to make learning meaningful for students so that they are challenged, enjoy effort, are resilient and value self improvement. The author calls this a "growth mindset".

To develop this growth mindset requires...

• Creating a culture of risk taking.
• Emphasising challenge, not "success".
• Giving a sense of progress.
• Assess for growth.

The challenge for us as teachers and leaders in education is to develop classroom programmes that are formative. That is they are focused on developing an on-going ability for our students to grow and development, not just a series of mastering levels to be attained. Difficult to do in our current climate of national standards. But not impossible given the scope each school has to develop their own curriculum. It has challenged me to consider what culture our school fosters. Achievement levels or a growth mindset that sees students seeing learning as an opportunity to be as smart as they want to be.

What do you think?