Teacher Politicians

Shockingly, this Facebook post was made by a former student of mine. I taught her 6th grade in a private American International school in eastern Europe. She showed signs of this supremacist attitude even then, but what is surprising is that she hasn't changed her stance after having the best education Europe can offer. I now look back to see how I could have intervened to instill empathy in my students. Most of the time I shied away from anything political or ethical. At least one student in the class was the son of a Mafia boss, Serbs and Croats were fighting a few miles away across the border, and the animosity between Turks and Bulgarians was such that I couldn't mention the word "turkey" without someone spitting on the ground. In the most part, the teachers kept their heads down, taught the curriculum, and held their tongues in fear of being fired.

But then, I had not trained to be a politician. Things have changed: "Like it or not, teacher development is a political activity, especially so in the emerging postmodern world. Building more awareness, adeptness and acuity among teachers so they can pursue positive politics inside and beyond their schools for the benefit of their students, must therefore become a much more salient and explicit part of the teacher development agenda".(Hargreaves 1994). There is new thinking that "Teachers must strive to become experts in context." (Fullan 1994) That means that we must help students to face the outside world, and help build bridges between the sanctity of the classroom and the bedlam of the world. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and let social media feed lies into the heads of the next generation.

My view of teacher leadership is one of a collaborative group of scholars, administrators and politicians. I feel I have sat back too long, waiting for my head of school to recognize my efforts, or waiting to be given orders. This sort of top down administration within schools does nothing to promote free thinking, active citizenship. In fact it is oppressive. Just as we want students to find their voice within the classroom setting, so we need staff to feel they are part of a collaborative work culture. Is a cooperative possible within education?

Just as with any content teacher, the librarian needs to take more of a leading role. One study I read outlined how most teachers want librarians to teach part of their information literacy curriculum, but don't want to take the time to work collaboratively, or be given PD from the Media Center. And if there must be collaboration, then the teacher wants to be able to control the initiative. This puts the librarian on a lower level of influence within school culture. There is no easy way around this as the present scheduling stands, but librarians must make the effort to reach out and initiate collaboration. The success of this effort is dependent on how much of a politician the librarian can be!

Fullan, M. (1994) Teacher Leadership: A Failure to Conceptualize from Walling, D., Teachers as leaders : perspectives on the professional development of teachers 241-53 OCLC - 31615030; ISBN - 0873674685; LCN - 94066516; Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation Bloomington Ind. c1994. Source: info:sid/minnesotastateuniversity-mankato.worldcat.org:worldcat Copyright: CCL

Crary, S. (2019). “Secondary Teacher Perceptions and Openness to Change Regarding Instruction in Information Literacy Skills opens in new window.” School Library Research. 22.