Research On Teacher Leadership In School Development

The development and change of school is the theme of the era, and teachers are the keys of school change. The studies of teacher leadership has been a hot topic of foreign studies in recent years, and people are appealing to teachers to take the responsibility of school change. Teachers are regarded as the ones who not only implement the top-down change, but also become the initiators and leaders of change, leading the school development. The potential of teachers’ leadership is treated as undeveloped resources of school, and teacher leadership becomes an important strategy of promoting school development and change. It was during the second educational reform of America that the studies of teacher leadership began, and after three decades of development, the connotation of teacher leadership is evolving from providing teachers with official position, and making them become administrator—such as head of department and career ladders, to offering teachers teaching-centered position, playing to their talents, and making them become curriculum developers and professional developer of the faculty, etc. With the emergence of the idea of learning community in recent years, teachers have been seen as the keys of reconstructing the school culture, and the ones who should play important part in the leadership of school.Studies on teacher leadership are still in its infancy in China. This study is aimed at understanding the status quo, problems and their courses under the background of school development and change in China. On the basis of these, the study tries to prospect the development trends of teacher leadership and propose some suggestion on how to promote the development of teacher leadership in Chinese schools. Breaking the framework of traditional hierarchical system, this study recognizes teacher leadership under the framework of learning community, and the meaning of teacher leadership refers to, it is a process in which a teacher could affect and help other teachers to improve their educational and teaching practice in the professional learning community, regardless of whether he holds a position or not, and promote teaching and school development in the end. Every teacher has the potential of becoming a leader, and he can be a teacher leader. The conclusions of the study are as followed as below:Conclusion Ⅰ:The characteristics of teacher leadership are collective, inquiry, cooperative, situational, and self-conscious. Teacher leadership is not a kind of a few individual teachers who share the leadership, but a group leadership phenomenon in which teachers take the role of leaders and inquiry into the educational teaching practice together with other teachers according to their situation, interests and expertise, etc. Teacher leadership consists of three aspects:taking part in decision-making, teaching leadership and teacher development. The great implications of promoting teacher leadership are as follows:first, as for one of the biggest beneficiaries are students, the improvement of teacher leadership can be beneficial to the improvement of students’academic achievement; second, it makes teaching into a real profession, and makes teachers become real professionals; third, it will contribute to the sustainable development when teachers take the responsibility of leading reform.Conclusion Ⅱ:The characteristics of the policies on teacher leadership in China are as follows:First, teacher leadership policies are based on the theoretical assumptions of the traditional conception of leadership which equates leaders to the position and power, and empowers teachers based on their roles. The traditional conception of leadership is a representative of elitism, which elects a few teachers to take the role of leadership; second, predominated by administrative department, the development of teacher leadership provides teachers with hierarchical positions and differentiates the teacher leaders by using the standard of their grades, but not their expertise, which narrows the connotation of teacher leadership; third, teacher leadership is isolated to teacher learning as the result of the vague understanding of the nature of teacher leadership and the lack of the view which regards leadership as a kind of learning. Actually, leading is a kind of learning that is reciprocal and goal-oriented in a community, and the teacher leader should not only be a leader, but also be a learner; fourth, the functional orientation of teacher leadership emphasizes more on management, but less on leading. In fact, the leadership is different with management, and the former tends to change, but the latter tends to maintain the status quo. The function of teacher leadership should be leading the change of education practice.Conclusion Ⅲ:It is found that the overall performance of teacher leadership is low according to the status survey of teacher leadership in primary and secondary schools in China. In the three-dimensional construction of teacher leadership, the strongest is the instructional leadership, then the teacher development leadership, and the weakest is the teacher’s participation in decision-making. With careful analysis, teacher’s individual characteristic has significant effect on teacher leadership. The following problems exist in the development of teacher leadership in primary and secondary schools:first, it did not consider the most teachers as leadership resources, instead, it attached too much importance to the development of formal teacher leaders, rather than the cultivation of the informal; second, since the scope of teacher leading is mainly confined to the classroom, teachers lack the leadership of school affairs; third, teachers lacked the consciousness of leadership; fourth, teacher leadership channels are not smooth, what’s worse, it is lack of professional learning community to provide opportunities for teacher leadership in schools; last but not the least, it is useful to improve the manners and ways of teacher leadership. Additionally, the analysis showed that the traditional culture, administrative management system of education, the school’s organizational structure and culture, and teacher’s personal ideas and skills are the influential factors of teacher leadership, too.Conclusion Ⅳ:The future development direction of teacher leadership in China is as follows. On the one hand, it should turn the emphasis of the development of individual teacher leadership to that of collective teacher leadership; on the other hand, establish formal teacher leadership positions given priority to teacher’s specialty, and focus more on the development of informal teacher leadership. Totally speaking, it aims to let leadership become one of the professional roles of each teacher. Furthermore, it is necessary to establish a quaternary system with individual teacher, policy guarantees, school supports and teacher education, etc., to promote the development of teacher leadership together.