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Exploring teacher’s innovative leadership roles in small rural schools. P. Koulouris , [email protected] S. Sotiriou , [email protected] Ellinogermaniki Agogi Athens, Greece. Our focus here:. New leadership roles teachers can play in small rural schools and beyond. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Exploring teacher’s innovative leadership
roles in small rural schoolsP. Koulouris, [email protected]
S. Sotiriou, [email protected] Agogi
Athens, Greece
Our focus here:•New leadership
roles teachers can play in small rural schools and beyond
Inviting the teacher to become a change agent in the community
• We believe that an informed, adequately prepared teacher of a small rural school can:– Catalyse innovation and development in the
school and the local community– Turn the school into a lively node supporting
lifelong learning for everyone– Make the school more responsive to the
growth and survival needs of its community– Develop responsible citizens and create
opportunities for tomorrow's rural leaders to emerge
Rural schools promoting personal and community
development• A skilful and devoted teacher may turn
known and emerging opportunities into an advantage for his students, himself/herself, the school, as well as the wider local community.
• Diverse roles that the remote rural school can play are recorded in the literature.
Diverse school roles• Non-educational impact of schools
on rural communities (Salant & Waller, 1998)
– multi-faceted school-community relationship
• positive economic and social impacts• a resource for community development• offering a delivery point for social services.
Links between education and rural development
• Educational attainment as a rural development strategy (Barkley, Henry, & Haizhen, 2005; Beaulieu & Gibbs, 2005)– a better educated rural population leads to
greater economic growth
• Recent studies in the USA: – more rapid earnings and income growth in rural
counties with high educational levels – improving local schools can reverse the
tendency of loss of young adults through outmigration (‘rural brain drain’)
Community development: not only economic
• Economic, social & environmental well-being
• Miller (1995) on rural schools:– Working in partnership with local
leaders and residents– Giving students, working alongside
adults, meaningful opportunities to engage in community-based learning that serves the needs of both the community and the students.
Social capital: a crucial concept• ‘Social capital’:
– social organization and resources embedded in the social structure of the rural communities, which can facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit, and thus community development.
• Social capital exerts a positive causal influence on economic development (Woodhouse, 2006).
• The school is an important element in the creation of community’s social capital (Miller, 1995)– We should build and sustain strong linkages between
the community and the school– Rural communities may have a head start in
developing these linkages: schools have traditionally played a central role in the life of the communities
Yes, but how?
This remains a challenge• A strong school-community
partnership remains a major challenge:– this is not generally viewed as a
traditional element of schooling• Approaches are needed that cross
the boundaries traditionally separating the community as a place of learning from the school
Three approaches (Miller, 1995)The school as a community centre
– a resource for lifelong learning, a vehicle for the delivery of a wide range of services
– school resources (facilities, technology, well-educated staff) can provide educational and retraining opportunities for the community.
The community as curriculum– Study of the community in its various dimensions. – Students generate information for community development by
conducting needs assessments, studying and monitoring environmental and land-use patterns, and by documenting local history through interviews and photo essays.
School-based enterprise– Developing entrepreneurial skills– Students not only identify potential service needs in their rural
communities, but actually establish a business to address those needs.
The case of satellite broadband internet
• Let’s imagine that satellite broadband connectivity is made available to the school
• The teacher should be encouraged to: – turn it into advantage and
opportunity for all– promote the development
of a new culture among local citizens
The teacher can turn the school into a “Learning Hub”, a gateway to knowledge and lifelong learning which will be open to everyone in
the community.Contact us to give you examples and ideas!
So, teacher’s multiple roles
• Typically, the teacher is already:– Struggling daily in a demanding
school setting
– Maybe acting as the head of the small school
– Considered by the local people as a prominent member of the isolated community
Additional leadership rolesThe teacher can also become:• The manager of change in an informal local
‘reform’• An instructional leader exploring new ways to
improve the quality of teaching and learning• A developer of links and synergies between
the school, the community and other schools in the area
• A facilitator of communities of learning in, around, and outside, the school
• The former and implementer of innovation matching local needs
Questions arising• Obvious need for corresponding
professional development:– Which form? What content precisely?
Which competences?• solutions and opportunities of the
Information Society• pedagogies specifically adaptable to the
‘unusual’ settings of the small rural school• Innovation• change management• local and rural community development,
etc.
Questions arising• Possible conflicts with the highly
centralized educational system?– the teacher in this context is encouraged to
initiate and implement an informal local ‘educational reform’
– What if decentralisation and autonomy of school units is not encouraged by the system?
– Can this discrepancy be a source of tension? – What can we practically do to convince the
others and overcome such obstacles?