Learner-Centered Leadership: Applications to Teacher Quality of Life and Retention

• In Event: Roundtable Session 104
  In Roundtable Session: How Leadership Contributes to the Quality of Professional Life for Teachers: Team, School, and District-Level Perspectives

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes. The purpose of this paper is to apply the learner-centered leadership framework to understanding to the quality of professional life for teachers and to help explain teacher satisfaction and attrition.
2. Perspective or theoretical framework. Learner-centered leadership (LCL) is a new framework which proposes that leaders need to be learners, first and foremost. This perspective draws from work of John Dewey and takes the pragmatic theory of education in which children are learners, and applies it to the adults in school settings ― teachers and administrators. Being a learner requires certain vulnerability not normally associated with leadership and authority; it involves understanding and exploring personal meaning in relationship with others, and this closeness inevitably creates new vulnerabilities.
3. Data sources, evidence, objects or materials. Learner-centered leadership is built on the foundation of democratic community. Democratic community emphasizes reciprocal (as opposed to hierarchical) relationships among community members, one in which authority is understood as authoring oneself rather than directing others what to do. In democratic settings, learners are best served when they control the conditions of their own learning. The actions and behaviors of leaders are those of learners, participating in communities with other learners.
4. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry. This paper is conceptual and argues that the central task of learner-centered leaders is to be engaged with others in learning.
This paper uses review of significant literature as well as data from the other papers in the symposium to raises questions about what school and district leaders need to appreciate in the on-the-job performance of themselves and others. Variations and diversity in the ways that people learn are the norm, not the exception. Humans come to appreciate the situations in which they find themselves by building upon current realities and prior experiences.
5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view. The skills needed by learner-centered leaders come from appreciating human systems and these skills are learned through dialogue and deliberations within and outside of the formal organization to which one belongs. The performances of learner-centered leaders are judged on how they participate and foster participation of others in a community of learners, how they model and are molded as learners, and how they participate in an environment in which all are learners, regardless of title, position, authority, or pay rate. Learner-centered leaders are guided by the principles which ask questions, look for meaning in human connections, foster empowerment, and value independence.
6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work. This paper describes some of the key components of learner-centered leadership and the commitments required of practitioners who embrace a more democratically informed understanding of leadership. The learner-centered perspective describes new opportunities for collaboration among teachers and administrators. These collaborations are consistent with the learner-centered approach to leadership, and embrace the value of embedding new knowledge into the existing roles, processes, and structures in school and at work.

Author

• Arnold B. Danzig, Arizona State University