Teacher as Leader, The

Montessori Life, Spring 2004 by Torrence, Martha

I began this professional journey as a teacher...solely that (note that I do not say only). Through considerable soul-searching, looking under many rocks for what constituted my "calling" (in the late 70s we talked this way), I found it. I would become a teacher, better yet, a Montessori teacher. And so I did. Packed my dog and myself off to Ithaca, New York, to immerse in the rituals, language, and philosophical/ pedagogical training of the Montessori classroom teacher.

It took. Twenty-five years later, through numerous changes including owning/administering a school, serving as principal of another, teaching adult learners in both private and university settings, moving from rural to urban America, I am doing what I started out to do. I am a classroom teacher.

I am also an educational leader. Recently T became the president of this organization. Amidst many congratulatory conversations, a few have expressed surprise (cheeky of them, I think) that a (insert your adjective here, but they all add up to mean mere) teacher could head a national educational organization. No kidding. In an organization that warms itself around the central glow of the child, some of us fall victim to the unfounded belief that the further from that glow you move, the wiser you become in terms of leadership skills, knowledge of educational policy, and organizational know-how.

In truth, it requires enormous energy to do both, and at times a split personality. This I know from personal, daily experience. When I am presenting a constructive triangle lesson to a four-year-old, I am not thinking about President Bush's "no child left un-tested" educational policy. I reserve this type of hand wringing for my after-school hours. When I am on playground duty, I am rarely involved in inner dialog about critical pedagogy. Instead, I busy myself making sure that Josh doesn't fall out of the tree, that Claire is only ankle-deep, not thigh-deep in mud, that the child who just bounced soundly off of the teeter-totter is in fact unscathed and still smiling. I reserve my reflections on which pieces of Montessori equipment better served children 50 years ago than they do today, for my precious after-school hours. And so it goes. As a teacher, the demands are so in-your-face great that the mere thought of moving professional mountains beyond one's classroom hours can be just plain daunting.

So, it takes time to teach and lead. Time to do what, exactly? Time to read, reflect, write, speak. Time to gather around the conference table and hash over the momentous impact of decisions about educational reform, usually made elsewhere. Time to think deeply about what our schools should do to better educate a test score-crazed parent population about what it takes to do real educational assessment. Time to reflect on best teaching practices through critically reviewing what we are doing versus what we intend to do; time to put such reflections into writing and use them to guide practice.

This time hurdle is no small barrier. Even the likes of Jonathan Kozol and John Holt had to quit teaching to write their books aboutteaching (Walsh, 1995). The time hurdle can be surmounted only with the staunch support of administrators who value the evolving leadership of their developing teachers, who feel that the redefinition of teachers will gradually transform schools into the kinds of living pedagogical laboratories that Dr. Montessori envisioned. This requires unselfish and secure school leaders who value their teachers as colleagues and have the guts to be truly collaborative in their leadership styles.

This leads me to share a core belief of my own: that teachers are in fact the essential educational leaders and reformers. This is radical thinking, to be sure. To believe so bucks the entire history of educational reform in this country. Keep in mind that all educational reform movements, be they open classroom, progressivism, back to basics education...all have essentially failed to provide that brave new model that actually works across the board. Perhaps this has been because teachers have rarely been invited to participate meaningfully in the decision-making processes that created these initiatives.

"OK," you may be saying, "I am a Montessori teacher and a member of AMS and I am reading this. What opportunities can AMS provide to scaffold my progress as an educational leader?" Glad you asked. Here are a few.

Teacher as researcher: This summer AMS will sponsor a new cycle of the Teachers Research Network. It takes place August 2-6 in Princeton, NJ. This session will be facilitated by Drs. John Chattin-McNichols and Greg Nelson. As a participant, you will learn methods of completing classroom-based research as you direct the kinds of reflective questions routinely asked about classroom practice into a systematic inquiry project. You will spend a year collecting data, then return the following summer to learn how to interpret your data and write up a report. Look for information on the AMS website (www.amshq.org); call the AMS office to ask how to apply for the $500 Teachers Section scholarship, available to a worthy participant.