DEVELOPING TEACHER LEADERS

TO TRANSFORM CLASSROOMS,
SCHOOLS, AND COMMUNITIES
Maureen D. Neumann, Laura C. Jones and
P. Taylor Webb
ABSTRACT
All teachers are leaders by the nature of their work. They lead within their
schools, whether implicitly or explicitly, for good or for bad, proactively
or reactively. In this chapter, we present a framework of teacher
leadership that is an assemblage of our previously published works. We
use this chapter to provide a consolidated view of how to help all teachers
to acknowledge, understand, and use their awesome power as leaders to
transform their classrooms, schools, and communities. Schools are sites of
social, political, and economic inuence and teachers play key roles in
either maintaining the status quo or creating environments that are
transformative and equitable for all members. We argue that a teachers
power is essential both within and beyond the walls of the classroom.
Teachers have the capacity and power to participate in change decisions
and efforts that traditionally either have been tacitly assumed by them or
deliberately dened by others. By having an understanding of critical
leadership or leadership for social justice, teachers will be more prepared
Transforming Learning Environments: Strategies to Shape the Next Generation
Advances in Educational Administration, Volume 16, 321
Copyright r 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1479-3660/doi:10.1108/S1479-3660(2012)0000016004
3
to identify and resist the variety of contexts which threaten their
professional expertise and contexts that deliberately question their
professional knowledge.
Keywords: Teacher leadership; leadership for social justice;
transformational leadership; teacher knowledge
Knowledge of educational leadership is seen as superuous to a teachers
knowledge base. Unfortunately, maintaining such a conceptual absence of
teacher leadership knowledge forties teachers roles as technicians. Our
conceptualization of teacher leadership connects issues of educational
politics and political acts related to a teachers awesome power (Raywid,
1995; Reed, 2000) to transform our school environments toward social
justice. Schools are sites of social, political, and economic inuence and
teachers play key roles in either maintaining the status quo or creating
environments that are transformative and equitable for all members.
Teachers are leaders in their school and local communities and, therefore,
need to become cognizant of their leadership and its effects and develop
deliberate commitments toward social justice. Otherwise, they are culpable
within the organization for maintaining the status quo (McDermott, 1995).
We argue that without opportunities to acknowledge and learn educational
leadership for social justice, teachers are less likely to lead school improve-
ment initiatives that help all students learn. Instead, without knowledge of
leadership practices, teachers are more likely to rely on traditional structures
of management and administration structures that reinforce their
subjugated positions and structures that have repeatedly shown an inability
to meet the needs of schools in the new millennium (Zepeda, Mayers, &
Benson, 2003).
Schools in the new millennium require teachers to assume pivotal roles in
school reform activities, and hence, contribute directly with the context of
their work. Teachers do not work in vacuums; however, teachers have been
both the targets and agents of change for decades (Apple, 2001; Sikes, 1992).
Such conicted roles misrepresent teachers knowledge and lead them to
equivocate on their power as integral leaders of school improvement efforts.
Too often teachers have not been trusted to lead school reform activities,
even though they are held accountable for (others) reform expectations
(Sirotnik, 2002). In short, most reform efforts assume that teachers are to be
led even though the literature is quite clear that teachers leadership is
crucial to successful reform (Murphy, 2005). Teachers can provide a
powerful and insightful voice regarding decisions about school change
because teachers have knowledge of local school conditions knowledge
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 4
that policy makers and curriculum developers rarely have to facilitate
successful reform attempts (Hargreaves, 1996).
ACKNOWLEDGING LEADERSHIP, POLITICAL ACTS,
AND POWER TEACHERS EMPLOY
All teachers are leaders by the actions of their work. They lead within their
schools, whether implicitly or explicitly, for good or for bad, proactively or
reactively. However, without leadership knowledge, the qualities of ones
leadership will be tainted or enhanced based on the qualities of the
individual (Gardner, 1995). Therefore, teachers need to have the knowledge,
abilities, and dispositions to envision (and reenvision) goals and purposes,
make decisions, as well as analyze and assess the appropriateness and
effectiveness of those decisions (Fullan, 2001; Phelan, 2005). By including
leadership knowledge as an area of professional knowledge in addition to
knowledge of content, curriculum, and pedagogy teachers utilize their
knowledge to participate in school change that will lead to a more shared
consensus about what denes a good school (Crowther, Kaagan,
Ferguson, & Hann, 2002; Oakes & Lipton, 2003).
Teachers Work in a Political Environment
Certainly, politics exists at every level of school life (Apple & Buras, 2006).
[P]olitics is a form of social conict rooted in group differences over values
about using public resources to meet private needs (Wirt & Kirst, 1997,
p. 4). Politics exist in how teachers interact with their students and with
parents. Additionally, politics exists in how teachers interact with collea-
gues, principals, superintendents, teachers union, school board members,
local, or state community members (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Spring,
2005). Each of these groups has competing and conicting ideas over an
array of important educational ideas and practices: including but not limited
to curriculum, assessment, pedagogy, and funding (Forster, 1997; Oakes &
Lipton, 2003). Politics is not just a piece of their professional lives, it is what
they navigate everyday. The work of teaching is situated in political spaces.
In this sense, teachers are political activists, or at least, active contributors
to public life. However, many teachers do not want to own or claim that
title, perhaps are even discouraged to think about their work in these ways
(Barth, 2001). The essence of a political act is the struggle of private groups
to secure authoritative support yfor their values (Wirt & Kirst, 1997,
Developing Teacher Leaders 5
p. 27). If teachers are to be prepared, interested, and educated participants
of transformation and school change for the betterment of all students, then
teachers need to understand how the use of leadership practices play out in
political spheres of education reform and in relation to the kinds of
curriculum and pedagogical knowledge they use everyday (Oakes & Lipton,
2003).
The nature of teaching is political. Our belief is that teachers ought to
control their knowledge rather than other macro-political interest groups.
By having knowledge of politics and leadership practices, teachers can
recognize and respond when their professional knowledge is being
questioned and undermined. We argue that the political expertise of a
teacher that is often practiced by teachers is best described by the phrase:
teacher as leader.
A teachers presence is also inherently political because s/he is a key
power player in the school. Yet, teachers are seldom recognized for the
power and knowledge that they have. Many teachers remain unaware that
questions about power, professional knowledge, and leadership even exist in
their work (Oakes & Lipton, 2003) and because of that lack of recognition,
teachers do not recognize the power they wield.
Teachers need to understand the conicting purposes for school
improvement and understand how they can be unique leaders for more
socially just schools (Oakes & Lipton, 2003). In addition, teachers need to
understand the political context schools are situated in and how to respond
to the political nature of schools, so that all students needs are met and the
best education practices employed. Teachers can no longer be spectators in
the education arena or remain within the connes of their classrooms;
rather, they must be important players in its operation and development
(Coulter & Wiens, 2002).
Recognizing their Awesome Power
Unfortunately, many recent policies have not trusted teachers to contribute
to the decision making process on school reform or these policies have been
designed to usurp teachers classroom power (Webb, 2002, 2007). In this
chapter, we also argue that a teachers power is essential both within and
beyond the walls of the classroom. Teachers have capacity and power to
participate in change decisions and efforts that traditionally either have been
tacitly assumed by them or deliberately dened by others. Teachers do apply
their power in the variety of ways, particularly in how they respond to school
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 6
reform. Some teachers push or sustain reform efforts, while others resist or
actively subvert them. In the end, almost all teachers make adaptations to
reform efforts (Datnow & Castellano, 2000). Often imposed change creates a
mismatch between teachers personal beliefs and knowledge about how
students learn. The most common reaction to change mandates was to reject
them and carry on as if nothing happened (Sikes, 1992). Our purpose is to
help teachers become more active participants in improvement efforts by
understanding the educational politics involved in change. Specically, we
want to help teachers create structures that support their professional
knowledge within contexts that threaten its implementation and/or
legitimacy. When teachers are acknowledged for the power, brokerage
ability, and voice they have outside the classroom and inside their school and
local communities, sustainable change to our schools will occur for the
betterment of student learning (Silva, Gimbert, & Nolan, 2000).
Earlier, Shulman (1983) worried that an increasing policy environment
would only subjugate teachers as policy implementers, rather than pivotal
policy leaders. It was Shulmans (1987) intent to represent a minimal set of
the intellectual, practical, and normative basis for the professionalization of
teaching [italics added] (p. 4). We believe that Shulmans normative basis
for professionalization is inherently related to reclaiming power and profes-
sional capacity in an increasing policy environment that restricts teachers
decision making. Maxcy (1991) noted the leadership implications when
basing a professionalization movement on teachers knowledge. He stated,
Professionalism implies a kind of normative power. Educational professionals ought to
have the power to form directives for action with regard to problems arising out of the
exercise of their skills and expertise. Teaching professionals ought to have the power to
make policy and policy decisions. By professionalism, I have in mind power being placed
in the hands of educators such that they may possess leadership in policy and decision
making affecting learning in schools. (p. 160)
At worst, teachers remain unaware that questions about power,
professional knowledge, and leadership even exist in their work (Goodlad,
Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990).
Sustained Change for Schools Involves Transformational and
Critical Leadership
A limited conceptualization of leadership limits teachers effectiveness as
leaders of change (Jones, 2009; Neumann, 2007; Silva et al., 2000; Wasley,
1991). They are likely, however, to rely on traditional structures of
Developing Teacher Leaders 7
management and administration structures that have shown an inability to
meet the needs of schools in the new millennium and structures that persist
in subjugating teachers and their knowledge. Developing teachers profes-
sional knowledge of leadership can do more than just raise teachers
awareness of the political nature of schools and their assumed roles within
such organizations. It can help teachers draw upon a complex under-
standing of leadership so they may more effectively recognize, understand,
and respond to the motives of others during school reform efforts (Crowther
et al., 2002; Darling-Hammond, 1997).
In order to shape contexts that support and sustain their professional
knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy, teachers can develop the commit-
ments, abilities, and knowledge required for transformational or critical
leadership (Lieberman & Miller, 2005; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). In
addition, teachers need to understand the conicting purposes for school
improvement and understand how teachers can be unique leaders for more
socially just schools. By having an understanding of critical leadership or
leadership for social justice, teachers will be more prepared to identify and
resist the variety of contexts which threaten their professional expertise and
contexts that deliberately question their professional knowledge.
LEADERSHIP AND POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Teacher knowledge is much more than knowledge of what happens in a
classroom. It is more than understanding content knowledge, pedagogical
content knowledge, learning theories, and classroom management strate-
gies. Being a teacher means becoming a professional leader who is active in
the political environments of the school and the broader community. More
importantly, teachers who act as leaders improve the entire school
community, not just manage their respective classrooms (Katzenmeyer &
Moller, 1996; York-Barr & Duke, 2004).
To understand how politics and power play out in schools, a complex
understanding of leadership that goes beyond a simple explanation of
positional authority is required (Portin, 1999). In this section, we provide a
model for leadership that provides alternatives to traditional allocations of
power through positional hierarchies. The triadic model of leadership
approximated the practice of leadership from multiple perspectives that
depend on, and interact with each other. The work was intended to illustrate
a theoretical model of leadership that captured some of the complexity and
interrelations involved with the practice of leadership. The model organized
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 8
and categorized different aspects of leadership but was not intended to draw
absolute boundaries around these distinctions. While school leaders may
recognize their actions within a single frame of the model, the practice of
leadership, we argue, is the ability to move in and out of the three different
conceptualizations of leadership: managerial (transactional), professional
development (transformational) and social responsibility (critical). We
believe that adept and skillful leaders use aspects of all three domains
according to varied purposes and shifting situations. More importantly, the
model opens up discussions of who leaders are. We use this model to
frame how teachers practice leadership by showing acts of leadership
teachers use in their classroom, schools, and communities (Fig. 1).
Managerial Leadership
Within managerial or transactional conceptions of leadership, the organiza-
tional culture often remains tacit and hidden, controlled by the leader.
Transactional leaders frequently attempt to dene and frame the reality of
others in order to maintain organizational harmony (Smirich & Morgan,
1982). Power is expressed as positional authority, often excluding concep-
tions of power as inuence. Managerial leaders often seek an exchange, or
transaction, from followers in order to promulgate a particular organiza-
tional vision (Sergiovanni, 1995).
Even though we agree with several authors that transactional leadership is
not a viable means to improve schooling (e.g., Burns, 1978), the bureau-
cratic, managerial, and technocratic forms of school administration have
never been more active and present than in the current accountability
climate (Leithwood, 2001). Knowledge of transactional leadership is
essential for teachers because it provides teachers with powerful ways to
understand how schools currently operate and its inherently ineffectiveness.
Schools are sites of social, political, and economic inuence, and we should
recognize that teachers play key roles in either maintaining the status quo or
in creating environments that are transformative and equitable for all
members. In other words, by developing deliberate responses against this
form of managerialism teachers can bring sustainable change for better
schooling (McDermott, 1995).
Too many schools, districts, and governments rely and push such
hierarchical paradigms on teachers and schools, therefore we believe it is
equally dangerous not to help teachers understand such contemporary
managerial practices. In the current environment, teachers do not simply
Developing Teacher Leaders 9
rely on implicit moral arguments of best practices to initiate change, but
instead react to policies that require action plans to negotiate change
initiatives that inevitably challenge their professional knowledge of effective
teaching and learning (Quartz, 2003).
MANAGERIAL (TRANSACTIONAL FRAME)
Autocratic (Winkley, 1983)
Leader centered action
Bartering stage (Sergiovanni, 1995)
Extrinsic motivation
Managerial emphasis
Power expressed as authority
Leader pushes the vision
Organizational concern: Efficiency
Leader as framer, bracketer of meaning
(Smircich & Morgan, 1982)
Rational decision making models
Organizational skills
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
(TRANSFORMATIONAL FRAME)
Democratic (Winkley, 1983)
Leader-follower facilitative relationship;
Building, Bonding stage (Sergiovanni,
1995)
Intrinsic motivation
Leadership emphasis
Power expressed as influence
Leader and followers negotiate the vision
Organizational concern: Transformation
and change
Leaders initiate critical reflection and
mobilize meaning (Smircich & Morgan,
1982)
Limited-rational & political models of
decision making
Improving curriculum, instruction and
assessment
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
(CRITICAL FRAME)
Autonomy of the group (Winkley,
1983)
Idea-centered action
Binding stage (Sergiovanni, 1995)
Critical reflection, reflective practice
initiated from any source
Organizational concern: social change
and emancipation from dominating
structures
Power expressed as capacity
Discourse to level the playing field
Leader steps down from preferential
position; servant leadership
Vision as social influence
Strategic decision making
Social responsibility (Berman, 1997)
Moral stewards of democracy
(Goodlad, 1994)
Focus on equity and conscious social
reproduction (Gutman, 1999)
Fig. 1. Triadic Model of Leadership.
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 10
Leadership for Professional Development
Professional development leaders are transformational leadership that
shape, alter, and elevate the motives and goals of institutional members
(Burns, 1978) through facilitative professional development. Transforma-
tional leadership also reects a political model for decision making, rather
than a rational managerial model (Witherspoon, 1997). Power is expressed
as inuence rather than authority. Redistributing power and authority to
the people orients leadership toward democratic values and that shared
leadership practice better reects teachers professional and egalitarian
culture than traditional hierarchical forms of leadership (Lambert, 1995).
Leithwood (1992) also dened the goals of transformational leadership as
developing and maintaining a collaborative school culture that fosters staff
professional development. In transformational organizations, teachers
develop abilities to work with colleagues in collaborative environments.
By implementing facilitative professional development leadership (e.g.,
Japanese Lesson Study see Stigler & Hiebert, 1999) teachers transform
schooling toward pedagogical excellence.
Socially Responsible Leadership
Critical leadership (Foster, 1989; Furman & Greunewald, 2004; Leithwood,
Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999; Ryan, 1998) attends to the issues of social justice
and social responsibility. It attempts to create and maintain equitable
social relationships and practices for all members of the organization. A
fundamental concern within the practice of critical leadership is for all
members to collectively reect on how well they are creating and
maintaining a level playing eld. Furthermore, a vision of organizational
equity and social responsibility is fostered primarily through reection and
dialogue regarding the communitys vision of its goals and ideals. Though
leaders may frequently engage in reection and dialogue regarding the issues
at hand, the question of who is in control of the conversation, what is
considered an appropriate topic of discussion, and how the dialogue
progresses dramatically changes depending on the type of leadership that is
in play (Heckman, 1996).
To live in Western democracies is to be a citizen that supports equitable
freedoms and opportunities for all members. If K-12 students are to be
prepared to actively participate in our democratic society, then any
conception of leadership, we argue, must recognize that teachers are vital
Developing Teacher Leaders 11
to the work of social justice. Teacher leadership for social justice, then, is an
act that educates for social responsibility (Berman, 1997) and conscious
social reproduction (Gutmann, 1999). This view of teaching is consistent
with others visions about a teachers role, including Girouxs (1992) public
intellectual, and Goodlads (1994) moral steward of democracy.
Critical leadership involves identifying ideologies and epistemologies that
marginalize and sometimes make people and their linguistic backgrounds
invisible. If teachers are to be effective in transforming the organization and
its social context, we believe they must be willing to raise critical questions
regarding how they can best teach all their students and strive to create
classrooms and schools where all members of the organization students,
parents, fellow teachers, administrators have the opportunity to engage in
a dialogue that is both participatory and self-critiquing (see Jones, 2001). As
Smyth (1989) said, teachers must reclaim their rightful leadership role by
continually raising critical questions about the social, cultural, political and
moral nature of their work (p. 180). The greatest limitation to developing
teachers knowledge of critical leadership is the teachers own concerns
about the reluctance or the inability of the community members to engage in
an ongoing critical, dialogic reection.
We believe that all teachers are responsible for consciously dialoguing
with other members of the school community regarding the practices of
schooling in relation to the social, cultural, political, and economic context
of education (Angus, 1989, p. 84). Social justice leadership demands that
organizational members consciously attempt to engage in dialogue about a
level playing eld. The collective group, rather than any individual,
determines the vision that is established through the dialogue. The dialogue
must remain critical in nature with an ongoing goal of identifying inherent
biases and inequities in the community.
APPLYING LEADERSHIP AND POLITICAL
KNOWLEDGE IN OUR CLASSROOM, SCHOOLS,
AND COMMUNITIES
In what follows, we illustrate three types of teacher leadership acts born
from teachers implicit (and often unacknowledged) knowledge of educa-
tional leadership: managerial (transactional), professional development
(transformational), and social responsibility (critical).
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 12
Acts of Managerial Leadership
The most common form of teacher leadership we see in schools today is
traditional acts of leadership that employs teachers as managers of
curriculum materials and other administrative details (Doyle, 2000).
Teachers have no real power in this traditional example of managerial
leadership (Silva et al., 2000). Another example of transactional leadership
teachers employ is how they manage their professional persona. These
teachers focus on what goes on in the classroom from a hierarchical point of
view and how well their students behave in public spaces (i.e., how quietly
their students walk down the hall) (Webb, 2002). Teachers have unique
knowledge of their practice; in these acts they used their professional
knowledge to shape how others perceive their professional efcacy (Blase &
Anderson 1995; Meier, 1995). The ability to manage organizational cultures
in the school is a powerful way teachers control the meaning of their
professional efcacy. Instead of using their power to improve the schools,
teachers efcacy becomes isolated and transactional rather than collabora-
tive and transformative. Managerial teacher leaders often seek an exchange,
or transaction from followers in order to promulgate a particular
organizational vision or culture rather than work to bring real sustainable
change (Nguni, Sleegers, & Denessen, 2006).
Acts of Transformational Leadership
In a transformational or professional development leadership frame,
teachers work to develop and maintain an inclusive school culture that
fosters staff development and works with each other to solve school based
problems (Peters, 2002). The teachers determine their own areas of
weaknesses and develop a professional development agenda to meet their
needs and the needs of their students. Teachers who work from a
professional development leadership frame also meet to discuss how
students are dong for a particular learning objective and work together to
move their students thinking forward.
In this sense, teachers often strive for shared leadership, which for
teachers, is more egalitarian and reects the teachers professional culture
more than traditional hierarchical forms of leadership (Harris, 2003; York-
Barr & Duke, 2004). Leaders and followers negotiate a vision of good
instruction, mobilize commitment to that vision, and institutionalize change
Developing Teacher Leaders 13
measures so that everyone adopts new behavior patterns to implement
better teaching practices (Crowther et al., 2002; Witherspoon, 1997).
Acts of Socially Responsible Leadership
Teaching literacy skills is inextricably meshed with leadership for social
justice (Berlin, 1996). When students learn to read and write, they are
learning the knowledge and skills needed in order to better understand their
world and ultimately to participate in the remaking of their realities. These
principles of social justice are inherent in many forms of teaching literacy
(e.g., mathematical, scientic, historical, economic, etc.). Most subjects carry
weighty moral concerns and overt political/power relations; therefore, the
topic of social justice should not be something that is sequestered to literacy
classes. For example, challenges of equity in mathematics teaching are
pervasive. A disturbing belief exists among some mathematics teachers that
only some students are capable of learning mathematics (NCTM, 2000,
p. 12). This teacher belief creates a power differential and leads to lower
expectations for certain groups of students notably women and minorities.
Within science education the nature of science and what denes scientic
knowledge is part of a constant discussion among science educators.
The teaching of language, numeracy, and literacy is a democratic act
inextricably linked to issues of emancipation and empowerment. That is,
literacy teachers are responsible for developing students use of language to
empower and transform themselves and to participate within various social
communities or discourses. In short, literacy professionals are responsible
for students abilities to critically read the world (Freire, 1970; Freire &
Macedo, 1987). In teaching mathematics with a social justice focus, teachers
enable students to make intelligent decisions about money usage, work
equity, and socioeconomic inequities. As Berlin (1996) suggested:
A literacy that is without a commitment to active participation in decision making in the
public sphere cannot possibly serve the interests of egalitarian political arrangements
yto have citizens who are unable to write and read for the public forum thus defeats the
central purpose of the notion of democracy. (p. 101)
Thus, teaching literacy and mathematical thinking is inextricably meshed
with the work of transformation.
Teachers in schools, then, help create and maintain an ongoing dialogue
about how they can best work together to identify inherent biases and
inequities in their school organization and in the schooling practices that are
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 14
being used to educate students. An example of this type of pedagogical
knowledge is illustrated in the work of Vivian Paleys You Cant Say You
Cant Play (1992) and White Teacher (1989). Also as Darling-Hammond
(1998) noted, [s]chools must cultivate in all students the skills, knowledge,
and understanding that both lead them to want to embrace the values
undergirding our pluralistic democracy and arm them with a keen
intelligence capable of free thought (p. 80).
Recent works in critical literacy instruction have demonstrated how
teachers can provide students with opportunities to develop their abilities to
participate in pluralistic and divergent social communities (Behrman, 2006;
see also Appleman, 2000; Beck, 2005; Comber & Simpson, 2001; Pace, 2006;
Spector & Jones, 2007). At the same time, this educative work is not without
its complications. Because language is used as the primary means to
negotiate ones place(s) in society, teachers of literacy have the power to
liberate and empower students by valuing their thinking, or oppress and
demoralize by shutting down their thinking. Therefore, to meet the
challenges of developing students abilities to fully participate as active
citizens in a democracy, literacy educators utilize a pedagogy of possibility in
order to develop students epistemic literacy and sense of social responsi-
bility (Simon, 1992).
Pedagogy of the Possibility
Students are assigned reading and writing tasks almost everyday in schools,
not only so they can learn how to encode and decode the language
effectively and efciently, but also so they can better understand literacy as a
social practice (Gee, 2001). Teaching students how to communicate means
being responsible for providing students with the knowledge and skills
necessary to participate and cocreate a democratic society. Part of the
process of learning to communicate involves both teacher and student in a
process of identifying the ideologies and epistemologies that marginalize and
sometimes devalue students and their linguistic backgrounds. Wells and
Chang-Wells (1992) argued that All serious and sustained acts of written
composition demand an epistemic mode of engagement y[by engaging
with texts epistemically] one can make advances in ones intellectual, moral
or affective understanding to an extent that would otherwise be difcult or
impossible to achieve (pp. 140141).
Giroux (1992) suggested that teachers should give students the oppor-
tunity to connect their own experiences to classroom knowledge by writing
Developing Teacher Leaders 15
papers in which they explore particular readings by analyzing how they
relate to issues that make up their own daily lives (p. 315). It is through this
type of dialogic practice that one is able to arrive at new self-understanding
and a sense of connectedness with others.
To be literate, one must make connections to the concepts in ways that
connect with their lives, to question the validity of the information, and to
imagine possibilities that have never before existed. In other words, we must
consider ideas from multiple perspectives. These same abilities are identied
in Bermans (1997) description of social responsibility.
Understanding that the individual is rooted within a larger social network, within
interlocking communities that range from the local to the global y. Creating
relationships with others and with society that are framed by the ethical considerations
of justice and care y. Acting with integrity y. Seeing ones daily actions within a larger
social contexty. [and] Living in ways that are consistent with ones values. (pp. 1214)
Any curriculum designed to develop students knowledge of and abilities
to communicate with others in their social communities will also assist the
development of students sense of social responsibility.
In mathematics classes, students can actively question long standing
disparities in education such as the mathematics achievement gap between
girls and boys, white students and students of color, and students of
different economic status (Perez, 2000). Students could also solve problems
that bring to the forefront social injustices. For example,
Children working in a Southeast Asian country earn 56 for every soccer ball they make.
If one child makes 22 soccer balls in one week, how much money did s/he earn in that
week?
By doing so, students can become more aware of their social
responsibility to the world (Gutstein & Peterson, 2005). When teachers
conceptualize their work as a pedagogy of possibility, they provide students
with opportunities to explore and validate their own experiences as a means
of developing their understanding about their world and the language that
they use to dene it (Simon, 1992).
In order to sustain this pedagogy of possibility, teachers need to create
programmatic goals that develop students who have both a commitment to
and activism for engaging the school community in a continual process of
critical and caring reection and dialogue. If students graduating from K-12
schools today are going to live up to the demands of democratic citizenship,
then they must have the knowledge and skills needed to engage all
community members in a critical and generative process; a process that has
the potential to humanize all participants involved.
MAUREEN D. NEUMANN ET AL. 16
We conclude with the argument that pedagogical content knowledge, a
marker of professional teaching competence, must eventually engage
students in the moral and ethical issues surrounding the use of knowledge
in our democracy for any subject matter. In any conception of literacy
(mathematical, scientic, reading, historical, etc.), the work of socially
responsible leaders should encapsulate all subject matter taught in schools.
Teachers are positioned to help K-12 students understand knowledge
relations that reify race, class, and gender inequities still prevalent in our
democracy through each subject lens. The ability to attain and maintain this
transformative habit is dependent, in part, upon the tools professional
tools the teacher (i.e., the leader) chooses to utilize.
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FURTHER READING
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Developing Teacher Leaders 21