DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS AND LEADERSHIP. Project 2

Democratic schools and leadership.pptx from Los Gochos

DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS

A democratic school is a school that is participatory, egalitarian, non-sexist, non-classist and lay, encourages the open flow of ideas, has faith in the ability of the individual and the people to solve problems, promotes reflection and critical analysis to evaluate ideas, there is a concern for the welfare of others.

To be democratic has to:

• Guarantee the school success of all students, but without giving up a good quality.

• The knowledge in the school must revolve around the student and not around the teacher as it is currently done. The students must have the need to continue learning throughout his or her life. The students have to be protagonists of their learning processes.

• The public school (although also the private one) by the help of the teachers, parents and students has to leave the state of general uselessness that is currently now.

Nowadays the democratic centers are public in their great majority, a private school has complicated to be democratic because part of the base to collect money to accede to them, with which they discriminate to a part of the population.

The few centers of secondary that follow democratic ideas have begun solving their problems of coexistence through norms realized with the intervention of the students. It has been seen that much more progress is being made by working together than by doing each teacher in his classroom or ignoring the students' voice.

Main characteristics of democratic centers

• Work with projects, curriculum globalization: They try that there is no work by subject. Project work is very common because it can include a large amount of content.
• Use of libraries: In democratic colleges the library is used as a tool in the search of information and is fully integrated into the curriculum. In addition, the first half hour of the day is usually dedicated to the students reading the books that interest them most.
• Opening to the environment: The surroundings are not just museums, exhibitions or plays. So are people, activities, the countryside or the city in which the centers are located. An environment of a large city may be advantageous for certain activities, but may not be for others. In these schools, especially primary schools, there is a great effort to connect knowledge with reality and to know nature.
• Classroom organization: The primary classes of these schools are full of life and activity, they are not based on seats surrounded by four walls in which the projects are hanged up. There should also be a library in the classroom where students can find the information they need. And the teacher’s desk should be at a place that doesn’t disturb the free movement of the people in the class.
• Teaching based on dialogue: The students are the ones who propose the topics on which to investigate. During the school day three times a week there is a dedicated assembly line, a place where all students have the opportunity to express themselves, and bring something about an issue that has caught their attention. In addition, there is a time for the delegates of the courses to speak in the teachers' room about the global problems of the school
• Use of the new technologies: Democratic colleges use new technologies as a means to make teaching more attractive to students. On the internet you can find activities for all subjects and of all levels.
• A democratic coexistence: In these schools the voice of the parents counts more than that of the teachers themselves, the parents form a cooperative - which becomes an element of creation of social fabric - acquisition of curricular materials and other types of materials. In addition to these schools there are students who are called mediators, who become reference people for all those who suffer integration problems or who feel harassed, getting a conversation between the affected parties solve the problems that exist.

LEADERSHIP

The objective of educational leadership is to find a directional model that contributes in the development of a quality school for everybody.

According to Kurt Lewin there are three different leadership styles than can be followed at an educative centre:

Authoritarian leadership: the leader holds all the power and is the one who makes the decisions. It is a unidirectional leadership exercise in which followers obey what the leader says.

Democratic leadership: it is based on the collaboration and participation of all the members of the group.

“Laissez faire” leadership: the leader is not responsible of the group and let it to its own initiative.

Furthermore, Likert finds five behaviours in a leader’s effective conduct:

♣ Promotes positive relationships and increases the sense of personal growth of the members.

♣ Keeps a loyalty sense of the hole group.

♣ Gets high standards of performance and transmits enthusiasm to reach groupal  objectives.  

♣ Has technical knowledges.

♣ Coordinates and planifies.

A leader can’t always carry out all these behaviours because the ideal behaviour of a leader depends on the context it is developed, the relationship between the leader and the members (the leader’s capacity to motivate his mates and to influence them).

When we realize the leadership exercise we need to keep in mind that its development is influenced by two variables:

Leadership style: directive, oriented to productiveness, supportive and participatory.

Maturity of the members of the group, the ability and disposal of the people to accept the responsibility to lead his own behaviour in the correct task which will influence the capacity (knowledge and abilities) and will (motivation and interest) of the group.

If the team doesn’t have capacities neither will the leader must “lead”, establish the objectives, give instructions, etc. The leader is who provides what, when, where and how. 

♣ If the team doesn’t have capacity but has will, the leader must persuade. The leader has to explain the objectives and tries to convince the members to accept them and get involved in the task. The leader is the guide.

♣ If the team is competent but doesn’t have will, the leader promotes participation. The leader gives responsibility to his followers, helps them to make decisions and their collaboration and commitment. The role of the leader is to make participation possible and to stimulate it.

♣ If the group has capacity and will, the leader has to delegate. The leader observes and accompanies. The rest of the members make decisions and do the tasks. The leader gives the subordinate the responsibility and the instrumentation of the decision making.

Over the years, different proposals for educational leadership have emerged: instructional-transformational leadership-facilitator-persuasive-sustainable-distributive

In the 1980s, a form of educational leadership emerged that broke with authoritarian leadership, instructional leadership, thanks to which the schools that practiced and practice it, have achieved a greater overall development of all its students

It contributes the missions settlement and scholar goals.

♣It helps generate a positive learning climate.

♣ Helps and supports the professional development of teachers.

♣ Develops, coordinates and supervises the center's curriculum.

♣ Encourages teamwork of teachers.

♣ It favors the participation of the school community.

 ♣ Has high expectations for teachers and communicates them.

 ♣ Contributes to generate a culture of evaluation for improvement between teachers and the center.

Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability of the principal to promote the functioning of the school; The development of explicit, shared, moderately challenging and feasible goals; And the creation of a zone of proximal development for the manager and his staff. It is characterized by being a dynamic process, depending on the situation and change generator

Facilitating leadership: it favors the collective capacity of a school to adapt, solve problems and improve its results. The strategies used are: to foresee resource limitations, build teams, provide feedback, coordinate and manage conflicts, create communication networks, practice Policies of collaboration, so anyone can start a task and involve anyone to participate; The process works through negotiation and communication.

Persuasive leadership. It is based on:

Optimism: the leader holds high expectations for others;

 ♣ Respect for the individuality of each human being manifested in behaviors such as civility, education, courtesy and affection;

 ♣ Trust, since humans are interdependent, trust becomes the highest form of human motivation; and,

♣ intentionality: persuasive leaders act from an intentionally suggestive stance.

These premises must be developed in four dimensions: self-motivation, personal (demanding, recognizing) as professional (risky, investigating), and invitation to others, also personal (spirit of community, personal relationships) and professional Learning and supervising learning).

Sustainable leadership. It is based on seven principles: 1) Sustainable leadership generates and maintains sustainable learning; 2) Ensures success over time; 3) Supports the leadership of others; 4) It directs attention to social justice; 5) Develops, rather than uses, human and material resources; 6) Develops the diversity and capacity of the environment; And 7) Has an active commitment to the environment

Distributed leadership, which has more impact and greater acceptance is characterized by a boost to the multiple leadership of faculty, students and the entire educational community, which allows learning from peers and projects of all of them. It involves breaking away from the isolation and individualism of teaching and student practices by supporting the community to move forward with such cooperation. Distributed leadership does not consist in delegating or assigning tasks or responsibilities to others from a central point of view, but rather of taking advantage of the capacities and skills of all, passing functionally from one member to another according to the actions required in each case.

But for any of these proposals to be carried out it is necessary a change in the culture and organization of the whole educational system.

CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE DIRECTION OF SCHOOL CHANGE

Management should be a shared task for the whole school community.

Cultural change of the school based on concepts such as involvement and commitment, learning from everyone, teamwork, good humor, risk, respect. Where they all learn, they develop professionally and personally, to become a true learning organization.

The director of change must focus on the development of the people who make up the school, have high expectations and communicate with them.

The principal must be a school manager, must possess skills and abilities to achieve a new school model, inclusive, based on a realistic plan of action.

In short, we can say that in order to achieve a direction for change, it is necessary to rethink the leadership model from its foundations, starting with reformulating the concept of leadership (to define the power point): who and how it is assumed Equally). Thus, it is necessary to have:

♣ A shared and distributed leadership

♣ A direction focused on the development of people both individually and collectively

♣ A visionary direction

♣Take risks;

♣ Be directly involved in pedagogical decisions

♣Be well formed in processes of change.

Possibly the direction for the change, as we are formulating it, is only a vision, a utopia. But to change you have to have a utopia to fight for. And if, in order to change the school, the principal has to make the maximum commitment, then the management model must be changed and the principals who have to take that step are the principals. Because schools of higher quality and more equitable will be achieved only if managers commit themselves to the task of transforming the culture of the school, a transformation that inevitably happens through a profound reformulation of the management model as it is today. If we want another society, we need other schools, and also another model of direction.