Art of School Leadership

by Thomas R. Hoerr

Table of Contents

Foreword

Some dream. Some enact the dreams of others. Very few dream and then follow those dreams. Even fewer write about this.

In the pages that follow, you will discover that Tom Hoerr does all four. So sit back. You are about to embark on a field trip to New City School in St. Louis, Missouri, without leaving your comfortable chair!

Craft knowledge is the wisdom that educators necessarily accumulate by virtue of spending 6 or 8 or 10 hours a day, 220 days a year, under the roof of a schoolhouse. Craft knowledge is what we learn about teacher and principal leadership, relationship building, staff development, goal setting, power, and teacher evaluation. It's what we come to know about creating a culture of creativity, building teams, running effective faculty meetings, and increasing parent involvement.

I have long believed that if only teachers and administrators would unlock, celebrate, and disclose their abundant craft knowledge, we could transform our schools overnight. Regrettably, in our profession, very little craft knowledge is disclosed. Those teachers who retire next June will leave, taking with them all they have learned in the school of hard knocks over their careers—knowledge and skills that will never again be available to the school. What a tragic loss to the school, to youngsters, to colleagues, and to the educator who never had the opportunity to share.

There are good reasons, of course, why craft knowledge is not shared. The cruel reality is that our profession places us in the role of competitors for scarce recognition and resources. The better you look, the worse I look; the worse you look, the better I look. So we keep our gems hidden away.

Too often, the educator who has the courage to disclose craft knowledge at a faculty meeting (“I've got this great idea I want to share about linking science and literature!”) is greeted by glazed eyes or critical glowers. “Who does she think she is?” So we soon learn to keep what we glean from our school experience tightly locked up.

What you are about to read is the revelation of Tom Hoerr's craft knowledge and that of scores of teachers and parents with whom he has worked for some 28 years. You will soon discover here, as I have, helpful, concrete ideas about ways to expand your repertoire in dealing with recurring school issues, from underperforming teachers to leadership to parent involvement.

It's a rare and welcome opportunity to be invited inside the school and the mind of a fellow educator and have that person hand over the “keys to the store.” I hope that others will follow and profit from Tom's example.

Alas, here we run up against another enduring impediment so engrained in the culture of our schools. In our profession, we are gifted and talented at finding reasons and excuses why good ideas in one school cannot possibly work in “my” school.

• They have all that Title I money to spend on their program.
• They have more freedom with their curriculum than the central office gives us.
• They have all those rich white kids to whom you can teach anything.
• They have parents who will support teachers' efforts.

And so it goes.

Tom Hoerr's New City School is a nonpublic, independent school. A common belief within independent schools is that they are independent and therefore can innovate without bureaucratic restraints. Many also believe their new ideas and practices will soon be noticed, valued, and emulated by those in public schools. I certainly never found this to be the case when I worked in either an independent or a public school! So it is very easy to dismiss what follows as irrelevant and impossible to relate to “my” school.

Don't be deceived. For the important issues and opportunities that confront schools are generic. All schools deal with underperforming teachers, staff development, teacher empowerment, curriculum, and other recurring elements of school life. What is different is how each school responds to these similar conditions. Sadly, all too often the response is discouragingly uniform: A faculty meeting is a time when the principal stands at the front and proclaims while the teachers sit and listen (maybe!).

That is the gift of this volume. Its author, after nearly three decades, is still dedicated, energized, hopeful—and learning. What he has learned and continues to learn constitutes a compendium of refreshingly different ways of thinking about school and about how to lead adults and students in the service of the central purposes of the school. Here, after many turbulent years as a school leader, is one who not only respects teachers, he also likes them! His is a “new school” that offers new ways of thinking about promoting profound levels of human learning. These ideas can be replicated in other schools with no change in budget, only a change of heart.

Several conditions are necessary for a successful transfer of craft knowledge. One has to have some craft knowledge to share. One has to be courageous and willing enough to share it. One has to have others who will welcome and value the sharing. And there is a fourth necessary condition: One has to be able to make one's craft knowledge accessible to others through oral and written language. Again, Tom Hoerr succeeds admirably in this regard.

A central theme of this book is that “leadership is about relationships.” Tom Hoerr walks the talk. He will succeed with you, I suspect, as he has with me, in establishing a strong, engaged relationship. Through playfulness, joyfulness, honesty, and jargon-free authenticity, he earns credibility and respect. His depiction of life in the schoolhouse will resonate with the experiences of most teachers, administrators, and parents.

Aldous Huxley once observed, “Experience isn't what happens to us, it's what we make of our experience.” I think you will find here a multitude of school experiences. And you will find that Tom Hoerr has indeed made something of them. I would like one day to visit New City School and linger with this extraordinary educator and his faculty. Fortunately, none of us has to wait. Enjoy the field trip!

—Roland S. Barth

Table of Contents

Copyright © 2005 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved. No part of this publication—including the drawings, graphs, illustrations, or chapters, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from ASCD.