Differentiating professional learning

Last week I attended a teaching conference. It was the first one I had attended for some time and it was outstanding. The reason for this is that the options available were not only plentiful and practical but they were also being run by teachers for teachers. It was also a conference that met three criteria for successful professional development, about which I have discussed on this blog in an earlier post. In a recent article on Edutopia, the question was raised: why don’t we differentiate professional development for teachers? After all, we emphasise the need to differentiate what goes on in the classroom. The article, which points out four different strategies to help professional learning be differentiated, caused me to reflect on what happens at my own school and the extent to which we differentiate what happens in our professional learning programs.

Firstly, investing in the professional capital of my teachers is a very important. Ensuring that teachers have opportunities for developing their craft contributes to staff longevity on account of staff feeling valued. It also means that teacher capacity is built up so that changes that one might wish to introduce or implement can take place more easily. That is not to say that change is something that will always be accepted or always be perceived as positive. However, if one has invested in the professional capital of teachers and sought to create an environment where teachers expect and are expected to develop their professional learning, change can be considered more amicably. Of course, investing in the professional capital of teachers is something that ultimately benefits student learning, and that is something on which, in all of the discourse about the development of teachers, one must remained focused.

So, how do we differentiate in the professional learning that takes place at my school? How might we do a better job of doing that, thereby giving ownership of learning to the teachers themselves? I came across a quote the other day about leadership not being about being in charge but looking after those in your charge.

Perspective.

Such a comment emphasises the role that leaders have in making sure that teachers learn and develop. It is, I would hazard, one of the central roles we fulfill. A third question we might therefore pose is: how might leaders facilitate meaningful professional learning?

At my own school, professional development is worked into the weekly schedule. Every Wednesday is a “late start” for students; an early start for academic faculty. We meet for 1 1/2 hours to engage in professional development sessions. Sometimes these sessions take the form of a formal lecture, other times they take the form of a workshop or an interactive presentation, and, more recently, they have taken on the form of departmental forums where a broad topic or theme related to the whole school is discussed in a departmental context. These particular discussions have been aimed at incorporating subject peculiarities associated with the topic or theme.

As one who is responsible for the professional development or learning of the academic faculty and staff, in addition to the strategic planning, thinking and development of the school’s academic programs, I regularly find myself in an interesting position. On the one hand, I want to grant professional development and learning time as much as I can to those under my wing. On the other hand, I need to incorporate the thoughts, reflections and discussions of academic faculty and staff regarding strategic planning and development. Professional learning often develops into a combination of the two. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. After all, I am keen to encourage a culture where there are ongoing conversations and discussions about teacher best-practice, and that such conversations are not going on in isolation but involve all of a school’s constituents.

That is where we are at, at the moment, as a school. Professional learning and development has become a forum where academic faculty and staff can discuss matters pertaining to the school as a whole. It is also a forum where, simultaneously, practical discussions take place about how those matters relate to their own department and subject areas. Recent curriculum work on establishing standards is a good illustration. Key learning areas of the school are examining different standards, determining which best-suit the vision and mission of the school, as well as what they seek to develop within the students that study their subjects.

How can this evolution be considered ‘differentiation’? In one sense, it can’t. The question, theme or problem (in our current situation: what standards are best?) has been mandated from the top down. It is the expectation of leadership that departments complete their investigations within the parameters laid down at the start of each session. However, in another sense, there is a great deal of differentiation taking place. The question acts as an anchor point, a central focus question if you like, which tethers conversations to a particular issue at the same time as allowing for the freedom to explore the set topic as freely and as deeply as individuals wish or feel.

The Edutopia article poses a very interesting question and one that, at the very least, should cause educational leaders who are responsible for teacher professional learning and development (and as leaders we all should be!) to pause and reflect on how their school professional learning and development takes place. The question about differentiation ensures that any professional learning and development that does take place is meaningful and challenging. It is relevant and applicable. Most of all, it means that it won’t be considered a waste of time, energy and money.

The three “C-s” of change

I have been silent in the blogosphere for the past month. This is not to say that I have decided to end writing on a regular basis. Rather, it is just symptomatic of the busy life one can lead when being in education. That having been said, there have been several things I have been pondering on recently which I thought I would share: coherence, capacity and confidence. These are what I have tagged as the three “C”-s of change.

Coherence refers to meaning, to making sense. If there is a change that one wants to bring about it is important that both those leading it and those impacted by it understand what is going on and why something is taking place. Coherence is something that relates to both individual and groups. It is something that entails a deep understanding of the purpose and the nature of the work being tasked.

Part of making a change coherent is ensuring that individuals, either by themselves or in a more collaborative context, have the capacity to contend with the developments being pursued. To build capacity, or to talk about capacity, is to make reference to the skills, competencies, and knowledge that individuals and groups need to be effective in navigating change, whatever that might be or look like. There are some interesting implications to this notion, particularly in relation to those individuals or groups who draw their identity from the status quo. Developing the capacity of such people so change can be understood, embraced and followed has the potential to be the most challenging of tasks a lead learner will have when bringing about change.

Despite the skills, competencies and knowledge that individuals might have, there has to be confidence in the people who will be responsible for the implementation of those changes. Not to have confidence in one’s key players will make change challenging to bring about and most likely impossible for one to sustain. Conversely, confidence in leadership also has to exist. Those that are impacted by the change must feel that the leader is acting in the best interests of student learning. There are many different ways, in the context of building confidence, that this can be demonstrated. Steven Covey’s The Speed of Trust details 13 different behaviours such as talking straight, demonstrating respect, creating transparency and clarifying expectations that can build the confidence or trust in leaders.

Without successfully netting these three “C”-s, any educational change is going to be difficult to implement, let alone sustain. Three questions emerge from each of these concepts:

  1. Do I use a framework through which my actions make sense to others?
  2. Do my actions build up the capacity of those I lead?
  3. Do I have the confidence of those, and in those, I lead?

A “yes” to each of these should contribute to a clear starting point for implementing change in an educational context and making it stick.

Hastening slowly. The key to being a good school leader.

I have had, over recent weeks, reason to think through what it means to be a good school leader. It does not matter whether one is in a national school or an international school, a Christian school or a secular one. It does not matter whether the school is co-educational or single-sex. It does not matter whether the school is selective or comprehensive. At the end of the day, reflecting on the question “what makes a good school leader?” has led me to a one word answer:

Patience.

This should not be confused with inaction. I don’t mean that a good leader is someone who does nothing (although sometimes, it is just as important to be inactive as it is to be active). It does not take a great deal of effort to google and collect pithy sayings on leadership such as:

“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been”

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another”

“A leader leads by example not by force”

and

“First rule of leadership: everything is your fault”

Patience is the common denominator. If you are going to take people from where they are to where they have not been, you must exhibit patience in explaining to them what is going on, why a decision has been made in a particular manner and how that might impact them. If you are going to lead by influencing others, through natural charisma, that is going to take patience as people and situations respond. If you are going to lead by example and not by force, you are going to have allow for time for the example you provide be seen and internalised by those you lead. And if everything is your fault, patience will be more than a virtue as you seek to work alongside those around you in order to make better the situation in which you find yourself.

“Hastening slowly” is a phrase or saying that I often fall back on as I go through the working week. Patience is at its core and as phrases go, it is not a bad one to help temper one’s leadership, whatever the situation is, whenever the situation is.

 

The end of blogging? Thinking about our online mental graffiti space…

Here are three things that come to mind about why blogging is important and why blogging won’t disappear any time soon.

  1. Blogging is a reflection of the mental chatter that exists in our brain. I have noticed that a number of education related blogs have an address that is often just the person’s username. I’m no different. The address of this blog is timscott674.wordpress.com. People are using their blog as a reflection of their thinking on a variety of different issues, to ensure the personal imprimatur, their username or nic is the basis of their address. They are establishing themselves as a brand.
  2. Blogging can affect the physical world. Its influence is not just in the virtual world. An example of this is Ian Schafer, the CEO of internet marketing firm Deep Focus. His image is shaped by actively updating his blog, his Twitter account and social media profiles. On a broader scale, politics and commerce have been affected by the blogosphere. An example of the political impact of blogging can be found in the Egyptian activist group founded by Ahmer Maher called the April 6 Youth Movement. Through the use of blogs, Twitter, Flickr and even Facebook, this movement (along with others) used cyberspace as a forum to fight corrupt and oppressive governments. In the commercial realm, United Airlines suffered a 75% drop in its share price after Bloomberg’s blog featured a 6 year old story relaying that United had filed for bankruptcy, and Apple experienced a similar bump when the CNN blog featured an unverified account of Steve Jobs’ ill-health.
  3. Blogging represents a Web 3.0 way of thinking. This is because blogging is a natural outworking of the interdependent, hyperlinked and integrated global brain that is the internet. Blogging on its own is a Web 2.0 activity. We use blogs as mental graffiti space much of the time. In the process the blogger brings his or her practical experiences and insights to the digital environment. It is a reflection of what one contemporary thinker has called fusing the analogue with the digital.

Anders Sorman-Nilsson described the situation in Thinque Funky  as: “Blogs are here to stay and they’re affecting our thinking”. I like this assessment. Their continued influence on our thinking means that for now blogging will continue to be an activity in which people will engage over and above the status updates of Facebook or the tweets of Twitter.

What makes professional learning effective?

Our formal professional learning schedule kicks into effect this coming Wednesday. Putting it together was a challenge in part because of the structure I’ve put into place but mostly because I want it to be effective. Thus, the question “What makes professional learning effective?” has been front and centre, and made me consider precisely what it was that I valued in professional learning. I assess professional learning against three criteria:

CHALLENGING.

MOTIVATING.

CONNECTING.

These are the three things I look for in professional learning. Does it challenge me? Does it motivate me? Does it connect me? If the answer to each of these three questions is “yes”, then the professional learning context I find myself in is a winner. I find some professional learning situations can be little more than an explanation of a process or a procedure. Rather than something suited to a professional learning environment, they are better suited to the realm of the Monday recess staff meeting. If a professional learning session is challenging, I believe the individual participating in that session will be more likely to take something away, to benefit from the spending time in professional learning. “Challenging” does not mean that the professional learning has to be ridiculously difficult. On the contrary, what I mean by “challenging” is that it makes you reconsider what you already do or know. Professional learning should challenge your practice, the way you teach. It should cause you to question what you do and how you do it.

Professional learning should also be motivating. Before, during and after a professional learning session, I believe I should feel motivated as a teacher. I should be motivated to implement what I learn, or to change my approach to something, or to pursue further training and development. I should feel affirmed that what I am doing in the classroom is of value and that I have something to offer my colleagues. If professional learning is “motivating” then it will open up the practitioner to changing or enhancing what they do in the classroom. There is a certain “buy-in” that takes place. There could be any number of reasons for the professional learning to be motivating: relevance, resonance with teaching philosophy or subject interest, challenging, affirming to name a few.

Living in an interconnected world, professional learning for teachers needs to be something that encourages connections between teachers. It should connect people with one another – face-to-face or virtually. It is foolish to see professional learning as something that happens in isolation. This might have been the case ten or fifteen years ago but the rise of the iDevice (whatever that happens to be) allowing you to jack into the interweb at any time in any place has set a different set of expectations regarding the interactivity of the professional learning process. We expect that the connections we make face-to-face in the professional learning classroom will lead to, or be replicated in, connections in the online space. How many times have we quickly added people we have just met at a conference to our “following” list on Twitter? Plenty of times, I would hazard as an answer. Today, being connected with other teachers, usually via technology, is, in my opinion, one of the criteria that people use to evaluate whether or not a professional learning experience was worthwhile.

Building on the notion of connectivity is, perhaps, a fourth dimension to professional learning: ongoing. So, I have been at a conference, I have heard you speak and I think that what you have to say is worth following up. You offer your Twitter ID at the end of your presentation, which I dutifully add to my account. I also add a couple of names that you mentioned during the course of your presentation, educational leaders or thinkers that have much to say on where education is going at the moment. What I have just outlined is the enhancement of an ongoing, informal network of learning. I say ‘enhancement’ rather than ‘creation’ because the implication of this scenario is that I already have a Twitter followers/following list. It is described as ongoing because the information feed from Twitter operates 24×7. It is informal because there is no particular structure around it in the same was a university course or a specific conference or seminar.

The issue of professional learning being informal is a fifth consideration. Formal learning opportunities for teachers are important. This is not only because of the credibility formal qualifications bring to what we do but it is also important to pursue what might be labelled as “hard study”. This links into the notion of “challenging”, to a degree (no pun intended). By “hard study”, I refer to something that is academically rigorous, compels us to conform to particular conventions or expectations and to engage in academic discourse on the academy’s terms. Conversely, “soft study” is something that is far more informal, not as demanding on time or energy or brainspace and is not evidential in the same way as conventional, more formal, academic discourse expects. Both formality and informality have their place in professional learning and one is not better or more important that the other. If professional learning is informal, that is not a bad thing at all. It means that teachers are given the opportunity to learn on their own terms, in a manner and at a time of their choosing. The ownership is completely their own. It can be just as effective as formal learning: how many times have we spent time in a pub or a beer garden talking to colleagues over a beverage or two about what we do, the challenges we face and how we intend to fix the world? How many times have we experienced “great thinking” in a pub, after a few drinks with colleagues? Again, plenty of times, I would hazard as an answer! Professional learning cannot just be informal however. There is a time and place for formality and my fear with the free flow of information is that there is a tendency to believe there is little or no need for what a formal approach to professional learning can bring to one’s practice. I suspect, however, that particular argument will have to appear in a blog post in the future!

To wrap it up, then, initially I identified three key characteristics for professional learning. These were born out of my own personal reflections on what I valued in the professional learning experiences I have had. Challenging. Motivating. Connecting. There were several other traits that emerged – the notion of ongoing professional development and the question of informality over formality. In practical terms, then, five key questions come about:

  1. Is my professional learning challenging?
  2. Is my professional learning motivating?
  3. Is my professional learning connecting me with others?
  4. Is my professional learning ongoing?
  5. Is my professional learning something that happens both informally and formally?

While there could be other questions one might pose, as a starting point, a “yes” to all of these, I suspect, will mean the professional learning experience is effective.

Three things that make a good teacher

What makes a good teacher? A reasonable question that regularly pops up in conversations about teaching and learning; discussions at my own work place have been no different. What is distilled from those conversations compressed to three points:

Self-sacrificing – Fundamental to being a good teacher, one must be prepared to put others first. This might mean extra time outside of the classroom speaking to students, marking work and making sure that the feedback is meaningful, participating in co-curricular activities or attending parent functions at night (when you would sooner be at home with your own family).Another way of thinking about the notion of self-sacrifice (at least in the context of being a teacher) is having a passion for working with children, of seeing them prepared for the wider world. In whatever instance, teaching is about service.

Scholarly – at the end of the day, teaching and learning is a scholarly vocation. Content matters. Academics matter. Yes. That flies in the face of what many think teaching and learning today is about. Teaching and learning is about empowering students, to be sure, but that should not be a euphemism for “the teacher can take a break in the classroom”, or “we don’t need to know content as much as we need to know skills”. (That sort of statement sets up academics and skills or competencies as mutually exclusive. I would argue that they are not). As teachers, we should value the academic nature of our work and the subject that we teach. We should be prepared to have high academic expectations for our students and challenge or help them achieve them.

Sound – a strength in teachers is that they are sound. Stable. Sensible. Mixed in with a sense of humour, of course. How else are you going to cope with a Friday afternoon class that implodes for no apparent reason other than the wind changed direction? In many instances, school is a ‘safe haven’ for students because they know there is stability and continuity at school. For others, it is the fact that students know their teachers are people they can turn to for extra advice that is important. I’m not saying that teachers have to be sombre and serious and uninteresting. Again, in a similar manner regarding “scholarly”, my thinking is that as teachers, whether we like it or not, are models to students. We are being watched all the time by those in our care. Being sound or stable or sensible is going to be something that is a given in a our job description.

I realise in putting this list together, there could be further “S”-es to add, other concepts and notions to throw into the mix. For now, this is enough. This list was introduced as a baseline, a starting point if you will, for those traits that are “absolute musts” for being a successful teacher. I am sure there are others that you might add or that might build out of these three but at the very least, “self-sacrificing”, “scholarly” and “sound” is a place to start.

Four dimensions to academic rigour

What is academic rigour? That particular question was the basis for a conversation over a coffee with a colleague earlier in the previous school year. Our discussion came about because assumptions were being made at work about the level of challenge within our academic programs. After far too much caffeine, I wrote out what I believe academic rigour to be. The result was a ‘conversation starter’ for my faculty on the topic of how academic rigour might be defined.

The ‘conversation starter’ defined academic rigour to be something that:

  1. Connects critical thinking with content. Academic rigour is a demanding yet accessible curriculum that engenders critical thinking alongside content knowledge. Critical thinking and content knowledge are not seen as two separate or discrete entities in the rigorous classroom. Rather, they are closely connected. In this sense, academic rigour pushes a student beyond that which he or she was at when they first entered the classroom. Academic rigour goes further than “easy”. Connecting critical thinking and content knowledge entails a process of working through that which one fears or struggles, learning how to modify what is being done until it can be done fully and with success.
  2. Enables reflection. Academic rigour entails time to reflect on what has been learnt. Cramming a lesson or homework task with more to do does not equate to a rigorous class or subject. Academic rigour engages a student in the challenge of learning to bring about understanding. Reflection is an essential part of the learning process. As soon as it is removed, not only does the learning process suffer but so too does any practical application of what is learnt. 
  3. Includes accountability to outside of the school for what is taught. In the same way as any business or organisation would look to have its accounts audited by someone independent of that business or organisation, so it must be for schools in relation to learning. For learning to be rigorous and challenging, it is important to avoid a scenario whereby only members of faculty develop subject content, criteria for success in a subject, and processes for ongoing curriculum assessment. Greeted with little or no external accountability, it would be unlikely that no other assessment would be arrived at other than “we are doing well”. Subject content may not evolve as needed, resulting in a curriculum that is dated or irrelevant. Criteria for success in a subject might become negotiable, leading to unintentional “dumbing down” of subjects or an unintentional slide away from a focus on learning. Processes for ongoing curriculum assessment potentially become subject to other changes in the educational environment, such as staffing.
  4. Means operating to consistent and visible standards that are known to all. Consistent, visible and accessible standards for both the teacher and learner should not be interpreted as those that are put forward by a syllabus. Rather, in this context, the notion of consistent, visible and accessible standards refers to what the school is asking of its learners and teachers. What type of learners do we seek to nurture? What type of teacher does the school need in order to foster such learners? If any school is to be successful in promoting academic rigour and increasing the academic challenge within its courses then a “same-language” approach to the language of learning, in addition to the shameless promotion of what is expected of both faculty and learners in any aspect of the school is a must. Implicit in this aspect of academic rigour is a demonstrative or practical approach to learning. That is, the teacher and the learner should be able to express the learning that is taking place in the classroom in such a way that all can see what is happening.

The purpose of the paper was to start a conversation (or conversations) amongst faculty about what it meant for a school to be academically rigorous. To that end, these four points (which, I hasten to add are in no particular order) are simply a starting point to develop an understanding of what academic rigour is and what it might look like in the classroom. There might well be other considerations to add to this list in conversations about academic rigour but perhaps the initial steps following this definition are:

  1. Evaluate the four aspects of the definition presented here and determine what is the most through to the least important in order to take the definition further.
  2. Upon reflection, determine the extent to which one’s own classroom is authentically demonstrating these four aspects of academic rigour?

Over to you.

Understanding intercultural education

This is the second in a series of posts about international education. To recap, international education might be something that is not aligned with the national curriculum within which the international school exists. It could also be considered something that is offered as “the other”. That is, it is something that exists because what it has to offer students will not be or may not be found in the national curriculum of the country in which the international school is found. The last post on this subject area presented several quotes that sought to define international education. In this particular post, the focus is shifting to what is meant by intercultural education.

The intercultural education network defines intercultural education as that which:

…promotes the understanding of different people and cultures. It includes teachings that accept and respect the normality of diversity in all areas of life. It makes every effort to sensitize the learner to the notion that we have naturally developed in different ways. It seeks to explore, examine and challenge all forms of “isms” and xenophobia, while promoting equal opportunity for all. Intercultural education works to transform not only the individual but the institution as a metaphor and mechanism for the transformation of society.

H. Chad Lane, in 2012, defined it as:

the acquisition of knowledge and skills that support the ability of learners to both understand culture and interact with people from cultures different from their own.

The UNESCO Guidelines on Intercultural Education states:

In a world experiencing rapid change, and where cultural, political, economic and social upheaval challenges traditional ways of life, education has a major role to play in promoting social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. Through programmes that encourage dialogue between students of different cultures, beliefs and religions, education can make an important and meaningful contribution to sustainable and tolerant societies.

Intercultural Education is a response to the challenge to provide quality education for all. It is framed within a Human Rights perspective as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):

“Education shall be directed to the full development of human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace”.

More recently, UNESCO has published its Global Citizenship Education paradigm and in the process it set intercultural education within the context of global citizenship. Global Citizenship Education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the 21st century (p.14) defines Global Citizenship Education to have differences in interpretation but…

…a common understanding that global citizenship does not imply a legal status. It refers more to a sense of belonging to a broader community and common humanity, promoting a ‘global gaze’ that links the local to the global and the national to the international. It is also a way of understanding, acting and relating oneself to others and the environment in space and in time, based on universal values, through respect for diversity and pluralism. In this context, each individual’s life has implications in day-to-day decisions that connect the global with the local, and vice versa.

I do not believe that intercultural education or intercultural learning is a straightforward thing to define. From the couple of definitions presented here, and I realise there are others to look at, intercultural learning rests on the notion of promoting respect for others and their culture. Its aim is to equip and encourage students to engage in dialogue with each other. This is so that there is a mutual cultural understanding that is conducive to tolerance and sustainability within societies across the world.

In some sense, this appears to be synonymous with the idea of global citizenship. Perhaps to put it another way, intercultural education or intercultural learning is the outworking of or the teaching that underpins global citizenship. In having intercultural learning in our schools we are authentically raising up global citizens.

Why should school leaders continue teaching?

This is potentially a controversial question for some. It shouldn’t be, but, unfortunately, I suspect, it is. It is also a question that has been the basis of some interesting conversations recently with some colleagues.

So, the short answer to ‘why should school leaders continue teaching?’ is: because school leaders should be seen as learners. Lead learners, in fact.

Let me explain this a little more.

In The Principal, Michael Fullan recasts the role of the principal as a lead learner. He seeks to “reposition the role of the principal as overall instructional leader so that it maximizes the learning of the all the teachers and in turn of all the students” (Michael Fullan (2014) The Principal: Three keys to maximising impact, Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, p.7). The book is a compelling argument about the need to redeploy the principal within the school so there is a genuine benefit for all various and related parties: students, faculty and staff, parents, the wider community. Fullan argues that there are three areas within which principals, as they become lead learners, will make an impact: leading learning, becoming a system player and becoming a change agent.

The focus of this particular post is the practical implications associated with becoming “lead learners”. In being a lead learner, Fullan proposes that “the principal’s role is to lead the school’s teachers in a process of learning to improve their teaching, while learning alongside them about what works and what doesn’t” (Fullan 2014: 55). For me, this suggests that one of the things that a principal who is a lead learner should do is to teach. To put it another way, for a school leader to continue teaching, to remain in the classroom, is the best way in which that school leader can come alongside school teachers in the process of learning and help improve the teaching that takes place. The action of coming alongside other teachers and being a direct part of the learning environment is, for me, a practical outworking of Fullan’s words.

Here are three questions that help to clarify my thinking:

  • Would student learning benefit from the principal being in the classroom as a teacher?
  • Would teaching alongside the very teachers that the school leader seeks to assist be one of the ways in which that school leader can learn about what works and what does not?
  • If a school leader is looking to make changes that will have a positive effect on the school they lead, would it not make sense to be in a position to experience what those changes will entail?
  • Assuming ‘street credibility’ positively contributes to the changes an individual school leader makes, would being in the classroom assist with obtaining and maintaining that ‘street credibility’?

To remain in the classroom, even if it is to teach a bottom-streamed Year 9 class (in my case, that would be History), shows a willingness to ‘walk one’s own talk’. School leaders talk about a great amount of change and development and what constitutes ‘best practice’. Sometimes, it doesn’t go beyond that; teachers don’t see the school leader living through what he or she has suggested is the best thing to do. So, in remaining in the classroom, teachers would see a colleague struggling with similar issues or concerns, as opposed to a detached administrator whose experiences in the classroom as a teacher are but only a distant memory. Teachers would see a colleague working to enhance his or her teaching to the best it possibly can be, as opposed to an administrator that appears to leave others to demonstrate professional accomplishment in the classroom. Powerfully, colleagues would see a colleague who, despite being an administrator, shouldering the various responsibilities of school leadership, has not lost a love of learning and a love of the classroom. They see a leader who loves to learn.

Perhaps the most important reason for principals to remain in the classroom is that students get to see the principal in action, as a learner. Students see the principal struggling productively with the same material with which they struggle. Students see a model for learning; an experienced (and we can assume an expert, perhaps) spending time in the classroom to make sure that the students get the most out of a subject. Students see the principal work within the same structures they have to in relation to assessments and tests. Thus, the experience of learning becomes shared, contributing to a coherent approach to learning within the whole school as well as an environment in which deep learning can take place.