Preparing Teachers to be Leaders: Barriers in the Workplace

TL;DR: This article argued that obstacles in the workplace are largely products of organizational cultures and climates that place teachers in subordinate roles, and that consideration of these barriers must be incorporated into revi~ions of teacher education curricula.

Abstract: Efforts to prepare teachers to be leaders are often impeded by a number of barriers in society and schools. Obstacles in the workplace are largely products of organizational cultures and climates that place teachers in subordinate roles. The argument is made that consideration of these barriers must be incorporated into revi~ions of teacher education curricula. Discussing reform efforts during the mid-1980s, Darling-Hammond (1988) observed that there were two very different streams of policy based on dissimilar ideas of teaching and learning. One led to the conclusion that schools needed better regulations and the other led to the conclusion that schools needed better teaching. After more than a decade of tinkering with strategies predicated largely on the notion that schools could be improved by simply requiring students and teachers to do more of what they were already doing, reformers are aiming their endeavors toward the structural