Meet the Scholar Facilitator
Jen Morrison
Biography
In her various roles as teacher, professional developer and consultant, Jen Morrison believes and demonstrates that teachers must be leaders. She is a regular presenter at national conferences and publishes in magazines like Teacher Magazine, Classroom Leadership, and Educational Leadership. In 2006, Jen was featured in the ASCD video Best Practices in Action: Using Visualization to Enhance Background Knowledge. She works with teachers and administrators all over the United States to move teaching and learning toward 21st century standards and expectations.
In 2004, Jen was an international ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award winner. She was also a Teacher of the Year finalist in two school districts over the course of her classroom career. Currently, she is working on a number of independent projects while completing her PhD in educational administration at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Links to her work can be found on her Web site, www.artofeducating.com.
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In Her Own Words: A Leadership Reflection
What has led to your development as a leader?
My parents, as ambitious rule-breakers themselves, raised me to be a leader. My mother runs the only female-owned and operated construction company of its type in the Southeast. She's 54, wears a pink hard hat, curses, and smacks around a gang of roughneck construction workers all day. No Southern lady is supposed to buy and run her own backhoe.
At age 63, when most of his colleagues are looking toward retirement, my father just made a significant career change. He was a respected environmental engineer with a stable career, but he felt he was stagnating and needed a challenge. In our chosen fields of work, we Morrisons like to climb mountains.
I chose education because it is stimulating and challenging on all levels: intellectual and emotional. My overall goals are to move teaching and learning toward 21st century standards and expectations, while bettering the perception and experience of schooling. I believe schools harbor much of the potential for overcoming the social challenges of our time and that good leadership by teachers and principals is the key to unlocking that potential.
What leadership article has inspired you?
I don't think I started thinking about myself as a "teacher leader" until I had the good fortune of attending a one-day session with Roland Barth down in Charleston, S.C., in February of 2002. For that reason, my leadership article inspiration is:
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