Leadership in the classroom

The roles of teacher and student in a classroom is complicated, multifaceted and philosophically robust. Blogs, articles and books have been written for years about how those two words relate in formal school settings.

Soheili, Alizadeh, Murphy, Bajestani, and Ferguson (2015) found “when students experience school as a supportive, democratic, and encouraging environment, they have greater satisfaction with school and with their teachers, and they improve more in their academic attainment than do students who have the usual classroom experiences” (p. 451). I know. Shocking. Who would have guessed?

But the point here, is that words have meanings, and sometimes through use and context those meanings can be misconstrued or changed all together. Leadership, especially in a classroom setting often meant “dictator” or “absolute control” and for a teacher to be a leader in the classroom, negative connotations were often associated.

Soheili et al. (2015) show that teachers who level with their students, both by getting on the students’ level as well as bringing the students up to their level, built mutual respect. This mutual respect and modeling on the part of the teacher what warmth, respect, and cooperation looked like, drastically changed classroom outcomes, behaviors, and student perceptions.

We want to connect with our students, but we all know there’s the fine line between mutual respect and door mat; or being a leader and totalitarianism. As Soheili et al. (2015) establish, the classroom is a primary area of a students life, and a teacher is a key figure in their world. There’s real gravity there, and we owe it to our students to be leaders, and to understand what that means.

Reference

Soheili, F., Alizadeh, H., Murphy, J. M., Bajestani, H. S., & Ferguson, E. D. (2015). Teachers as Leaders: The Impact of Adler-Dreikurs Classroom Management Techniques on Students’ Perceptions of the Classroom Environment and on Academic Achievement. Journal of Individual Psychology, 71(4), 440–461.