Teachers as leaders: a case study

Abstract

Current popular and officially mandated models of leadership position teachers as followers. Transformational leadership is based on the integration of the self into organisational goals, and so the teacher must either feel, or be seduced by, the charismatic vision of the leader if schools to are to deliver outcomes that will meet the needs of the predicted future economy. While the rhetoric is of participative problem solving, the reality is of control and compliance. Creative pedagogy, through which teachers have the capacity to exercise professional courage over learning processes and needs, is being reworked into target setting and auditing and so by its very nature can only pay lip service to educational values. Being 'led' and being prepared to be led is marginalising alternative ways in which teachers can and do understand and experience their work. Teachers as leaders is not a new approach, but is being silenced through the current policy discourse (Gunter 2001). This article makes a contribution to making teacher leadership visible through an analysis of the CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) project within the Department of Education at Keele University.