Examining the Past to Understand the Future: Tracing Teacher Leadership From the Progressive Education Movement to the Present

• In Event: Looking Back, Looking Forward: Exploring Conceptual Frameworks of Teacher Leadership

Abstract

Teacher leadership is often framed as a largely under-theorized field and has been critiqued over the past two decades for not being clearly defined or conceptualized (Muijs & Harris, 2006; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). As progressive teacher educators with a long history of working with teachers through inquiry and action research to develop constructivist, socially just, student centered curriculum and instruction, this call for a conceptual framework of teacher leadership has perplexed us. We contend that teacher leadership is in fact nothing new. Progressive teachers from the early 1900s until the present have enacted sustainable, organic teacher leadership as a means of, individually or collectively, influencing their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning practices.

A progressive model of teacher leadership acknowledges that teacher leadership emerges when teachers see themselves as intellectuals who are always in the process of learning and inquiring; when they are invited to share in the decision making rather than are appointed to artificial hierarchical roles; and when teachers have opportunities to lead, question the status quo, develop instructional practices and curriculum, generate new knowledge, take action, and lead change initiatives within their school setting (Author, xxxx, Author, xxxx, xxxx; Darling-Hammond, Bullmaster, & Cobb, 1995; Dewey, 1913, 1938; Fairman & Mackenzie, 2015; Jacobs, Beck, & Crowell, 2014; Silva et al, 2000). In order for teachers to take on this responsibility, they “must believe that they have the responsibility and power to make decisions, and they need to be knowledgeable to do so” (Goodman, 1989, p. 125).

These teacher leadership principles are not simply theoretical or abstract. They were, for example, experimented with, as a means of evaluating their success, at The Laboratory School that Dewey created at the University of Chicago in 1901 (Tanner, 1997) and have continued to manifest in progressive schools for the past 100 years (Meier, 2002, 2003). Dewey understood that school improvement relied on the knowledge of teachers that was generated as they taught and reflected on their practices with their colleagues. As Tanner (1997) documents, there was much evidence of collaborative reflective practice among teachers at the Laboratory School. For example, teachers kept written records of their work with peers as a source of “professional memory.” They had opportunities to create lesson plans and then reflectively discuss successes and challenges. Progressive schools, from the past to the present, recognize that teachers have the knowledge and power to enact change in their classrooms and schools and that for schools to be successful they must use this expertise as teacher leaders.

In this paper, we illustrate how Dewey’s (1913, 1938) conception of progressive teachers provide a blueprint for how we can conceptualize teacher leadership today; we compare and contrast historical progressive examples of teacher leadership with more current models; and we provide insights into the importance of building from the progressive movement as we continue to theorize teacher leadership today.

Authors

• Monica Taylor, Montclair State University

• Emily J. Klein, Montclair State University

• Janice Marie Marsili, Montclair State University