How teachers as leaders can help students

They are central to the education process. But how far is their potential tapped, asks educationist Abdullah Al Shaiba

There is no doubt that the UAE is undergoing critical and strategic developments in all fields of education. The new expected reforms will focus on improving the standards of teaching and learning to guarantee the best outcomes for our community.

Students are the centre point of the new reforms, which will cover all aspects of the educational environment including defining new educational goals, curriculums, buildings, training courses for teachers, laboratories and libraries.

Almost all the recent signals have given indications as to what the environment of teaching and learning should be.

For example, the new and big annual budget, decentralisation of decision-making, giving the schools' principals full freedom in financial expenditure, renovating most of the schools and encouraging teachers to participate in many effective staff development courses.

From my position, I expect the implementation of the new strategy will require certain qualities from teachers to be able to deliver the new goals of the education programmes.

I, therefore, believe that one of the important questions that needs to be addressed by the Ministry of Education ( MoE) is: are we seeking teachers as leaders or teachers as mere instruments to transfer the new vision into reality?
 
Teachers are the centre of the educational process. But do we really recognise their role as the most important expertise and central in any plan that aims at improving education?

In many developed countries, teachers are trained and well-equipped to be leaders to participate in any education reform process that aims to guarantee the best and appropriate outcomes in terms of graduates.

However, it is unrealistic to think that all teachers concern themselves with all the issues related to schools. But most teachers are really interested in these areas, and it is this category that we should identify and focus on.

"Teachers are leaders when they function in learning communities to:

How to identify the leaders
There are several ways to identify the leaders among teachers. Some of these are: sharing ideas with colleagues, being a mentor to new teachers, improving facilities and technology, working with parents, creating partnership with the community, business and organisations and other universities, becoming leaders in the community, and leading efforts to make teachers more visible and communicate positive information.

Challenges for teacher-leaders
However, as leaders, teachers are likely to face many barriers that will challenge their efforts.

Some examples of these problems are:

To face these obstacles, there must be a collaborative effort between policy-makers, school districts, principals, and teachers themselves to support the practice of teacher leadership.

In the UAE, our teachers should have been trained to become leaders and the fact, indeed, is that many of them are playing this role successfully.

However, the important question still doesn't have a clear answer: have we recognised the critical role our teachers play as leaders who are the most experienced and knowledgeable people, in the efforts to improve education?

Top 10 skills for teachers

Roland Barth in the Phi Delta Kappan of February 2001 points out 10 fundamental skills:

What teachers look for
Creating teacher leaders will lead to the establishment of the ideal school that incorporates four essential factors:

School Culture: Teachers generally search for a school environment that values their ideas and efforts and includes them in important and strategic collaboration tasks. The only way for this is through establishing a school culture that encourages teacher leadership.

Professional Development: Teachers feel the importance of their roles when they work together with administrators to define approaches for improving student achievement. As a result, curriculum and professional development will focus on improving student learning.

Decision Making: Teacher leaders must be engaged in taking critical decisions to be successful in developing schools and the education process in general.

Students: If teachers demonstrate their leadership potential in classrooms, students will believe they can be future leaders as well.