Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed

Structures of classroom assistance--clinical supervision, peer coaching, critical friends, and action research groups;

Formats for observations--frameworks for teaching, open-ended questionnaires, samples of student work, and student achievement on high-stakes tests; and

Approaches to working directly with teachers--directive, collaborative, and nondirective.

Scenarios that describe interactions with teachers of diverse backgrounds and skill levels bring the various approaches to life. The author also provides useful information on summative and formative evaluation of teachers. In addition to forms and examples that readers can duplicate or adapt to their own situation, the book includes an extensive list of resources on the topics of looking at student work, professional development and instructional leadership, and educators' ethnic, cultural, and personal diversity.

Leadership for Learning goes beyond the basics of supervision to place the work of instructional leadership within the context of whole-school improvement. Drawing on his years of experience in working with schools in varied settings, Glickman offers both advice and inspiration to instructional leaders who strive toward the ultimate goal of providing the best possible classroom experience for every student.

The author, Carl Glickman, has an international following because of his work on school renewal and this text gives readers the tools for bringing about renewal through instructional leadership.

In "Leadership for learning," Carl Glickman has reworked the clinical supervision material that is so useful to school leaders, particularly in the United States, who are directly responsible for the formal supervision of classroom teachers' standards. This text will be particularly useful to beginning principals (hence the 5 star rating) but there is still a lot in the book for experienced principals too.

I though that four approaches developed by Glickman were useful and table 4.2 ("Interpersonal approaches, outcomes, and levels of choice," p.44) was an excellent overview of the parameters of the four approaches. The developmental nature of the four approaches can be seen in Figure 6.1:

Directive control- Emergency, infrequent cases
Directive-informational- Beginning of greater teacher choice
Collaborative- Collegial reflection
Non-directive- Masterful teacher, infrequent cases.

Figure 6.1 Moving towards teacher control on on the leader behavior continuum.

From my own experience, I don't think that the number of masterful teachers is infrequent. And, teachers needing directive control don't stay in this category for long because parent complaints and principal supervision will move them on or move them out. However, it is our job to see that masterful teachers are helped in continuing to do a great job for the kids. The four types of supervisory approaches do not represent a normal distribution but a distribution that is skewed to the right. That is, the majority of teachers across states will fit into the collabrative and non-directive categories.

The book is a timely reminder about the importance of driving school change from the teacher-student interface. It is a valuable addition to all school leaders' professional libraries.