The Art of Successful School-Based Management

^note: This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of the Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the knowledge base in educational administration.

The Art of Successful School-Based Management

    In this monograph the author offers the reader a new perspective on an important, dynamic, and some-times daunting issue: managing successful school-based leadership. Organized around the seven elements of art criticism, the author uses an arts-based approach to weave together notions of research-based leadership skills for successful school-based management with standards of professional competence as represented by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards for School Leaders. More particularly, in each section of this monograph the author presents a brief introduction of the leadership construct as represented in the art metaphor more fully described below. Then, the author suggests some possible applications of the theoretical element to the real-world realities of school leadership. Using a common-sense discussion on leadership coupled with theory and research within an arts-based perspective, the author encourages the reader to engage in the seemingly persistent problems and old trials of school management from a new perspective resulting in some refreshing possibilities for supporting student achievement in schools. It is also the goal of this arts-based approach that the reader might avoid the tendency to reduce school-based management to formula and instead recognize the complexity of leading and managing students and teachers within the constantly evolving culture of today's schools. As a result of this qualitative inquiry into the nature of leadership for today's schools, the author invites a new vision for old assumptions in schools, for teacher leadership, and for student learning. The eventual product of such an investigation might be a new vision for school leadership that is “more diversified and equitable” and one that “can expand our conception of human cognition and help us develop new forms of pedagogical practice” (Eisner, 1998, p. 245).

    Leadership in the school building is at the heart of school leadership. It is in the school building, the halls, and classrooms that principals most directly impact teacher behavior. The question that arises from a study leadership in the school building is not about if principals can affect teaching behavior but rather in what manner and to what extent principals might affect teaching behavior, school environment, and ultimately student learning (Stronge, 2002). And there is growing consensus in the literature, most recently reported in the “School Leadership Study” out of Stanford University (Davis, et al. 2005) that successful school leaders can influence student achievement in at least two important ways: (1) By selecting, supporting, and developing effective teachers; (2) By managing, implementing, and adjusting effective organizational environments. Other authors in this book will devote more time to the first element of effective leadership. In this monograph the author will focus on how school-based leaders can effectively manage the competing, and sometimes conflicting, demands of leading in today's schools so as to provide an organizational environment that encourages growth and development on the part of students, teachers, and administrators. The responsibility of managing a successful learning environment is one shared by all stakeholders. If doing it alone is the plan for the school principal, then research suggests that the leader is less likely to maintain and support learning environments and is more likely to “burn out” under the broadening responsibilities of today's accountability environment (Hargreaves, 2006). In light of this harsh reality, in sections of this monograph the author will offer school leaders ideas and possibilities for sharing the awesome responsibility of managing effective schools.

    In distributed leadership contexts, school based leaders find ways for multiple stakeholders to participate in the leadership, and thus successful management, of schools. This notion of distributed leadership is most recently articulated by Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink (2006) in their book, Sustainable Leadership. The principal, as school building leader, interacts with teachers and students. It is at the school building where teachers also provide leadership in the daily interactions with their peers, with their students, and with their parents and other stakeholders. And, it is in the daily interactions with students that teachers and principals can encourage students to take on leadership. The literature regarding successful school based management continues to grow both in breadth and depth and if my graduate students are any indicator of today's leaders, school based stakeholders yearn for specific and guiding principles for how to manage today's learning environments. In very obvious ways it is at school building level where the tug between theory and practice is most powerful and most often confrontational (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006). Although establishing theoretical context is essential in framing a theory of leadership, principals often consider such discussions meaningless in helping them make sense of daily pressures and demands of schooling. What principals want is a theory of school building leadership that can speak honestly and directly to the challenges of helping teachers and students achieve in an atmosphere of standards and accountability (Stronge, 2002).

    A Way of Thinking

    Over the past few years the author has investigated leadership in the schools from an arts-based research methodology. Based on his own experiences, conversations with leaders, and research, he grew to be suspicious that leading was in fact more than just good management. Indeed, it was management but also much more. There was this sense of art, not just craft, among the very best leaders. For example, the author began to discover that traditional assessment methods for instructional leadership were often quite effective in addressing narrowing teaching functions but failed to grasp the nuances, subtleties, and totality of successful classrooms (Blumberg, 1989; Pajak, 2003). From a very different point of departure, Stronge (2002) also concludes that school leader practice has little to no effect on teacher behavior and subsequently student learning. According to Stronge, principals managed to do the craft of observations and provide some evidence of what they saw. They often completed this task with short, drop-in visits. But what was missing from this type of management was the fact that little change in teacher or student behavior came about as a result of the observation. In some ways, according to Stronge, principals failed to address the complexity of the teacher function. Indeed, leading schools and supporting teachers required school principals to do much more than managing. Successful schools were places where craft and art were practiced.

    At this point, the author needs to ask the reader to consider a slight shift in thinking. Instead of trying to compete with the reader's assumptions and practices regarding school leadership, assumptions that emerge from powerful and successful experience no doubt, and instead of trying to convince the reader that the answer is “this” instead of “that,” the author wants to encourage the reader to engage in “and” thinking. Recently when working with a high school principal, the author had this exchange: “I noticed that your teachers did not feel you visited their classrooms often enough. How might you respond to them?” The principal, in obvious frustration, responded “Yes, I know I need to do more than I have been doing but I cannot find time because of all the discipline referrals.” The principal was doing what the author affectionately calls “Yes . . . but” thinking. How many times might one say in a day's time “Yes, I could get to that job but I cannot find time” or “Yes, I need to be in halls greeting students but I just cannot get out of the office and all the paperwork.” This type of thinking tends to be defeatist in nature as it builds obstacles instead of possibilities. A different way to consider our thinking is what the author calls “and” thinking. For example, “Yes, I need to be in the halls more often and I will distribute some of the paperwork so that I can find time to do it.” In reality, individuals tend to find time for those things that matter most. If being in the halls greeting students was really important, then they would create a world where that could happen. The shift from “yes. . . but” thinking to “and” thinking is a subtle but powerful change. Such a shift represents a change in values and priorities, indeed a paradigmatic change. In like fashion, when considering the work in this monograph the author wants to challenge the reader to engage in “and” thinking and not “yes. . . but” thinking. Instead of looking for the absolute answer in this work, consider the possibility that the content offers another way to be successful; not the only one. Now let the reader put that type of thinking to work as he or she prepares for the more specific discussion of successful management of schools.

    Arts-Based Research as a Way of Seeing

    Is quantitative research the best choice for discovering truth? Or, is qualitative research the best method-ology? In some traditional debates, the argument might follow something like this: “Yes, qualitative research offers some answers to questions on teacher performance but the real answers are in quantitative analyses.” Or, “Yes, quantitative research has been around a long time but it is qualitative research that most clearly offers the best picture of teaching.” Both examples tend to create obstacles and not possibilities. The alter-native conversation might flow something like this: “Quantitative research has certainly withstood the test of time with its rigor and analysis and qualitative research provides another perspective and level of analysis on the same behaviors.” This type of thinking encourages possibilities, not obstacles.

    A similar dichotomy emerges regarding the nature of effective teaching. The debate over whether effective leadership is art or craft, or if effective teaching is technical in nature or aesthetic, is important and often lively. Indeed, there is growing research that supports the notion that teaching, when done well, is both art and craft, technical and aesthetic, personal and clinical (Lewis, 2004; Newmann et al., 1996; Blumberg, 1989; Eisner, 1983). When individuals begin coupling their thinking that teaching is both art and craft with a growing presence of arts-based research that seeks to extend the notion of what is meaningful, then they can begin to see the value of “and” thinking. In fact, teacher effectiveness research findings support the notion that students learn best from teachers who can be characterized as managing both the craft and the artistic dimensions of effective teaching. So as the reader engages in the journey of what makes for successful school based management, the author wants to implore him or her to engage in “and” thinking so that he or she can begin building power bridges for successful schooling and fewer walls.

    Toward defining, evaluating, and thus understanding the leadership function in the school building the author will ground the following discussion in an arts-based research theoretical approach (Eisner, 1998; Barone & Eisner, 1997). The arts-based research format seemed appropriate for this investigation because as a form of qualitative research, arts-based investigations can more readily gain “a firm foothold” on the nature of human interactions embedded in school cultures (Eisner, 1998). The function of successful leadership is characterized as practice that acknowledges, embraces, and develops the relational nature of schooling. That relation may be student to student, student to teacher, student to subject, teacher to teacher, teacher to leader, leader to community, community to school, and on and on. At some level, all successful schooling is relational in nature. In addition, qualitative thought is always a component of interaction between individuals (Eisner, 1998) and coming to terms with the nature of relationships is central to the human experience. So, as readers come to terms with the fact that leadership encompasses both technical and aesthetic dimensions, craft and art, then they can begin to understand that an arts-based approach is entirely appropriate as one way to understand effective school leadership and management of schools.

    As the author begins the work from a qualitative theory perspective (Eisner, 1998; Barone, 1998) that leadership may be viewed as an art form and that it can be described as interactive and relational, a sort of choreography of human understanding, then the reader might do well to develop a mechanism for “seeing” it as an artist might view a painting or a choreographer a dance (Kelehear, 2006). For the purposes of this investigation, that mechanism comes in the form of the elements of art and it is the goal of this monograph to help the reader begin developing some facility with aesthetic dimensions of leadership in the school building. Specifically, the author will use the elements of art to help frame the discussion of school-based leadership in this monograph. Just as the elements of art can assist a viewer of art describe, analyze, interpret, or evaluate a work, those same elements can help a viewer of leadership art describe, analyze, interpret, or evaluate the management of schools. When individuals continue to view leadership narrowly, as a function of management and formula, then they narrow their view of leadership from an art of human experience and understanding to a strategy for control and manipulation of personnel. By applying the language of art individuals can construct a lens through which the nature of one's humanity begins to become clearer.

    Elements of Art as a Way of Understanding

    The elements of art are line, value, shape, form, space, color, and texture. In the first part of each section the author will offer an artist's definition of each element. In an attempt to help the reader connect the arts-based frame to the leadership frame, in the second part of each discussion the author will briefly describe the leadership themes and possible implications. In the third part of each section, and indeed a key part of the entire discussion, the author will highlight key research initiatives and findings relative to that particular function. In the final analysis, the reader can have a helpful and grounded overview of what makes for successful school-based leadership in today's schools.

    Because the author is framing the leadership discussion in an arts-based theoretical approach, some additional consideration about that approach is necessary. Similarly, as the author organizes the leadership discussion with a corresponding and appropriate language of art, in the form of elements of art, then that format can help the reader to understand the nature of the form. Eisner (1985) has explored the implications of this challenge of leadership as art most fully in his work, The Educational Imagination. A few of the more notable scholars who also looked to the arts to provide useful models to better understand and improve educational practice include S. L. Lightfoot (1983; 1997), P. Jackson (1998), T. Barone (1988), and A. Blumberg (1989). Within art, the author suggests that disciplines of aesthetics and criticism in general provide us a structure for understanding.

    Dewey (1934) conceived aesthetics as the branch of philosophy that allows one to analyze the way he or she looks at the qualities of the world and assign value to experiences. Dewey's aesthetics provides a theoretical construct for thinking about leadership. Individuals are engaging in aesthetic thinking when they use their perceptions, sensations, and imagination to gain insight into what they might feel and understand about the world (Greene, 2001). Furthermore, Dewey (1934) implies that aesthetic refers to one's first critical reflection on objects he or she experiences. What is especially important is that experiences stem from attention to qualitative relationships. Through these reflections one's world and the wonder of life begin to take on deeper meaning. Priorities become clear. Important events assume an appropriate relationship with daily challenges. As these experiences first occur outside of language and the expected constructions of the world, by reflecting on them they offer individuals opportunities for understanding. This type of reflective analysis of experience is an integral part of critical theory through which one examines his or her own practice and habits of mind.

    In cultivating this sensitivity one begins taking on an aesthetic task. One begins answering the questions: What is of value? What is meaningful? What is moving about a given situation? It is through attending to the smallest nuances of art or life that one begins to transcend to a more attentive form of existence. He or she moves to a plane of existence that releases imagination, passions, curiosity, and extraordinary circumstances. It is Dewey's view of reflection that leads one to the notion of critical theory as a vehicle for understanding and valuing. Dewey was adamant that this form of aesthetic experience as antithetical to the appreciation of beauty. Dewey's aesthetics is an active form or mental engagement with the world not a detached, coldly objective appraisal.

    When one begins to recognize that leadership is inseparable from human interaction, then one begins to understand that leadership is more about listening to and understanding each other rather than devising a checklist of behaviors. Leadership is engagement, not detachment or mere observation. The benefit is that one begins to appreciate the nuances and subtleties that come with managing and leading people. Being able to engage in this critique of human interaction and motivation allows one to view leadership as an art rather than a formula. It is interpretative, relative, and sophisticated. As such, it requires a comparable methodology for understanding: aesthetics, critical theory, and leadership as art. Following the guidance of aesthetics and critical theory, one can begin to view the art of leadership through the lenses of the elements of art. Just as the elements provide art observers with a language for critique, those same elements can help frame the critique of leadership.

    Borrowing this notion from the world of art, the author will use the elements to describe specific, observable attributes of the art of leadership. As mentioned above, the elements are line, shape, form, space, color, value, and texture. In terms of understanding leadership, the author suggests that the elements will offer building blocks for understanding basic leadership skills. The author takes each of the elements as discrete parts of the leadership function. As the reader becomes more skilled at describing leadership, then he or she will also notice that it is difficult and artificial to see the elements as “stand alone” skills of leadership. Rather, the reality is more about one element playing a primary role while other elements function in a supportive capacity. Together, they support the leader's ability to work through a given situation.

    As one begins to rely on elements, one begins to come to terms with what is seen, felt, and sensed. Understanding leadership becomes an aesthetic process. One not only knows it cognitively and conceptually, but also emotionally and personally. And leadership is skill, emotion, and personal. Leadership, when it is done well, is an art and applying the standards of the seven elements of art might help one to begin to know what leadership does, what it looks like, what it feels like, what makes it work. Just as with art, school leadership is not about finding a “magic formula.” Given the complexity of people and situations that leaders confront, it is no small wonder that no prescription exists. But, when one sees something work at this school or that system, one may often try to assign the success to a single strategy or individual. The reality is, however, that the success comes from the interdependence and interaction of several leadership functions in much the same way that the elements might contribute to the interpretation of an artwork.

    Effective School Building Management: A Way for Learning

    The elements of art are the basic visual symbols in the language of art. They provide a specific, and often concrete, vocabulary for describing art. The elements are line, shape, form, space, color, and texture. The elements of art help create a view, a perception and a vision of effective management in the school building. Within each school, all seven elements may be present. The relative perceptivity of the various elements in a school, however, can be very different depending on changing needs, varying times of the year, or changes within the district. The constant, however, is that in effective schools, and by association in effective leadership, the seven elements provide a specific mechanism for reflecting on practice and for navigating the often difficult choices that come with educating our children for successful citizenship.    

    In the table below [See Table 4.1], the author offers an alignment of the ISLLC to the Elements of Art and the particular Leadership Dimension embedded in each element. In the discussion to follow, the author will offer each element, an artist definition, a leadership perspective, and then relevant research as a way to frame the key research and best practices for successful school building leadership.

    Element # 1:
    Line: A long narrow mark or stroke made on or in a surface

    The Artist's View:

    Artists recognize the important contribution line brings to a holistic understanding of a given work. Lines can be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curvilinear, and zigzagged. When artists vary the line's length, width, texture, direction, and degree of curve they can multiply the visual impact of a work of art. For example, vertical lines convey height and inactivity. Vertical lines also express stability, dignity, poise, stiffness, and formality. Imagine how vertical lines on the side of a building will make the building look taller, more stable. By contrast horizontal lines are static. They express peace, rest, quiet, and stability. Horizontal lines can help make one feel content, relaxed, and calm. Diagonal and zigzag lines suggest activity. They communicate action, movement, and tension. Diagonal lines also seem to work against gravity and create a pull and tension that can be uncomfortable. Curved lines also express activity. Spiral curves around a central point are hypnotic and tend to draw the eye to the center. Zigzag lines in an artwork help to create a feeling of confusion. Clearly an element as simple as line can have a powerful affect on the message of an artwork.

    ISLLC Standard #1: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.

    A Leadership Perspective:
Artists recognize the important contribution line brings to a holistic understanding of a given work. Lines can be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curvilinear, and zigzagged. When artists vary the line's length, width, texture, direction, and degree of curve they can multiply the visual impact of a work of art. For example, vertical lines convey height and inactivity. Vertical lines also express stability, dignity, poise, stiffness, and formality. Imagine how vertical lines on the side of a building will make the building look taller, more stable. By contrast horizontal lines are static. They express peace, rest, quiet, and stability. Horizontal lines can help make one feel content, relaxed, and calm. Diagonal and zigzag lines suggest activity. They communicate action, movement, and tension. Diagonal lines also seem to work against gravity and create a pull and tension that can be uncomfortable. Curved lines also express activity. Spiral curves around a central point are hypnotic and tend to draw the eye to the center. Zigzag lines in an artwork help to create a feeling of confusion. Clearly an element as simple as line can have a po

    For school leaders, line means to be clear about boundaries and parameters. Successful school leaders communicate expectations for students and staff. They are consistent with the application of that under-standing. Few things are as demoralizing to a staff as to see the leader apply rules inconsistently. The school draws stability, dignity, and poise from the consistent and fair application of rules and expectations.

    Line also serves to remind leadership of the important role of mission and vision. When teachers are clear about where the school is going and how they are going to get there, then they begin to understand their role in the process. Conversely, when the direction of the school seems flat, or horizontal, then the learning atmosphere becomes stagnant and unproductive.

    Finally, line informs leadership about the delineating negotiable and non-negotiable boundaries. If a school committee is to decide a particular issue, then effective leadership is clear about what is open to conversation and what is not. For a committee to work at an issue and submit a solution only to discover that the answer was not one of the options can frustrate good intentions.

    In a recent article regarding organizational culture, Patterson and Kelehear (2003) assert: “Even with the best of intentions, organizations can't devote equal attention to all of the important culture values. Something's got to give when various culture values compete for your organization's time and energy” (p. 35). Without attending to the assumptions and beliefs in managing the school, leaders run the risk of developing “organizational blind spots [that] represent undetected misalignment between what the organization says it values vs. what it really values, what it says it does vs. what it really does, or what it really does vs. what it actually values” (p. 35). Although there continues to be some debate over the relationship between culture and leadership, the debate is not that the two do not impact each other but the degree to which one has influence over the other. In the NASA article referenced above, the conclusion of the investigating committee on the Columbia disaster was that leadership absolutely effects organization culture. In fact, the committee asserted unequivocally that leaders create culture and leaders alter cultures. When what is valued, what is said to be of value, and what is valued in practice are not consistent, then leadership has created a dysfunctional organizational culture destined for failure.

    Bolman and Deal (2003) assert that leadership plays a key role in providing symbolism for what the organizational culture values. Whether in terms of providing symbols (e.g., clothing, school cultures, trophy cases), providing vision and mission statements (e.g., in writing, on walls, in shared language), sharing organizational stories and myths (e.g., founders' day, past heroes), maintaining rituals (e.g., pep rallies, senior lunch rooms, seasonal concerts), or in other symbolic ways, leaders help craft a shared perspective on what matters most in the school and help build a culture that supports those articulated values.

    Starratt (1991; 1994; 2003; 2004), Sergiovanni (1992; 2005), Strike, et al. (1998), Fullan (2003), Buzzelli & Johnston (2002), Cooper (1998), and others have articulated that school leadership has a responsibility of not only establishing a shared vision but that they are to create a shared ethical vision of behavior among all constituents in the learning community. That is to say that an effective leader helps others know how interaction among teachers, parents, and students is to occur, helps others know what to do in moments of confrontation and crisis, and helps others know how to engage each other in matters relevant to student concerns whether academic, emotional, or physical in nature.

    When the rules of interaction and roles are clear, then individuals reduce the chances for misunderstanding that otherwise might infect healthy organizational environments. Sometimes leaders like to refer to their schools as families, a comfortable analogy upon first view. There is, however, something dysfunctional about such a comparison. In a family environment, there are often very clear distinctions between what parents may do and what children can do. When we apply the family metaphor to schooling, then we run the risk of establishing very clear expectations for the parent (i.e., principal) and the children (i.e., teachers and students) and there is something very unhealthy about such an organizational culture. Thus, making expectations clear is only part of the challenge. Treating each other fairly, so as to encourage a shared stewardship of learning and a shared responsibility for what happens during a school day, is an important part of establishing the element of line in an effectively managed school environment. An element closely related to that of line in effective school management is that of value where the leadership creates a culture of mutual growth among students and teachers alike.

    Element #2:
    Value: The lightness or darkness of a color or object

    The Artist's View:
    Value is the art element that describes the relative darkness or lightness of an object in a drawing or painting. How much value a surface has is dependent on how much light is reflected. If there is an absence of light, the surface will be dark; and if there is much light, the surface becomes lighter. There are many ways that artists create value. For example, when one looks at a dollar bill, one may see an entire artwork that is composed of tiny lines. The artist or the engraver uses lines to create value. The closer and more plentiful the line appears in a space, the darker the value. In turn the less line in a given space there is less value, and the space appears lighter. In fact, value is related to all the elements and is often understood best in association with other elements.

    ISLLC Standard #1 and #2: A school administrator facilitates a vision and promotes success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

    A Leadership Perspective:
    For school leadership, value represents the “light” that emerges from daily activities that reflects attention to what matters most. Often times in schools individuals can fail to recognize, or to remember, what is most important. They earnestly engage in any number of activities that seem important, for the moment, but cast little light on the picture of what or who they are. In other words, their actions do not adequately support their most central, core values.

    Core values are not observations, perceptions, or operating rules. They are things individuals believe to be extremely important. They are characterized by descriptors such as fundamental, guiding, philosophical, and pointing the way. Core values help answer such questions as: Who are we? What do we stand for? What business are we really in? What is important to us? Where do we want to go in our preferred future?

    Accompanying core values are “we will” statements. “We will” statements are specific, concrete, observable, measurable actions that support the philosophy that emerges from core values. In many instances, the “we will” statements are single efforts such as special events or activities. In other cases, however, “we will” statements involve multi-year approaches to complex and systemic issues.

    When individuals consider leading a school, it is important to note the relative importance of the many activities that come in a school day. Value in leadership means defining what matters most so that all can begin to understand what the business of school is. As individuals articulate the core values, the guiding and philosophical principles, then all decisions can emerge from a shared belief. The synergistic effect is that they can begin putting their energy toward specific values, avoiding the ad hoc decisions characteristic of many schools. What the student, teacher, leader, and community see reflected in the activities of the school is a value-driven institution with a vision for where it is going rather than an event-driven body. Just as with value in art, core values speak to all other elements of leadership. When done well, core values become the guiding principles for all decisions and help create school space characterized as a place for authentic learning and caring.

    In watching the students and teacher work together one trait consistently emerges as essential to a caring and authentic school: Empathy. Empathy can become value in that it represents a guiding principle for the school culture. Empathy is that interpersonal quality that allows one to know the feelings of another (Kelehear, 2001; 2002). As students work with each other, as teachers work with the students, and as the principal assists the teacher, the level of empathy present defines the qualitative relationship. And at the same time, the participants cultivate a sense of caring in the relationship as they began to understand the commitment in working together toward shared goals. In as much as caring becomes a part of the school climate, the relationships become more substantive and paying attention to each other becomes the order of the day. A process by which we can begin to shape a positive school culture might begin as school based leaders realign the role of four key players in the school day: the student, the teacher, the leader, and the curriculum.

    Given the powerful influence on standardized assessments, federal mandates, and state-level oversight, it is easy to reduce students to input/output items rather than see them in their humanity. In his book Schools Without Failure, William Glasser (1969) emphasizes that allowing grades to create an incentive for learning has, in fact, a contracting effect on what is learned. The more that grades, and by extension standardized tests, are emphasized the more that students want to know what is exactly on the test, and only those items on the test. Students come to believe that any other information can become an obstacle or a distraction to getting the grade, and thus should be ignored (p. 65). Effective school leadership will recognize that there is a role for grades and standardized testing. Indeed, they can help provide accountability for learning certain bits of information. But to rely solely on grades and traditional assessments is painfully shortsighted.

    School based leaders can build a school culture that shines light on authentic student learning and staff professional growth. One way to construct such a climate is to place emphasis on what Ted Sizer (1992), in his book Horace's School, calls exhibitions. This type of assessment helps encourage students to bring together facts and basic learning to create a new understanding what Mortimer Adler (p. 29) called maieutic expression. A word of Greek origin, maieutic is loosely translated as "giving birth." Just as an artist might be able to use the elements of art to paint a still life, it is the artist's use of those "skills" and the simultaneous interpretation of that object through experience and feelings that can give birth to a new perspective, a new understanding, a deeper cognition (Eisner, 2001). Similarly, other aspects of the curriculum could have the same consequence.

    School leaders and teachers must help students come to command facts and information, the kind of information that is readily assessed through pencil and paper tests and standardized assessments. Quickly, however, students begin to use the newly acquired information in applications of the concepts through repeated practice and coaching; just as the artist begins to command the elements of art. Although many very good teachers might guide students to this level of mastery, this is not enough. Through demonstrations, exhibitions, or other public forums, teachers should encourage students to create a new, deeper understanding, a maieutic expression. The student's knowledge and understanding takes on what Eisner (1994) calls "a social dimension in human experience" (p.39). But teachers and students will only be able to do such authentic practice when the environment in general, and school leadership in particular, supports such practice.

    In a recent study of an arts magnet school (Bender-Slack, Miller, & Burroughs, 2006)researchers observed teaching practice in the standard curricular areas such as mathematics, English, social studies, and science. The researchers also followed the students to the classrooms for visual and performing arts. The purpose of their observations was to ascertain the degree to which an arts-infused curriculum was being implemented. The observation and data collection were conducted in an art magnet school; the same type of place that one might think that arts-infused practice would be the norm, not the exception. To the surprise of the researchers, teaching practice among the core subjects areas remained traditional (i.e., teacher centered, lecture formats, seat work) and void of arts-infused practices. Similarly, the art teachers rarely embraced the standard curriculum in their delivery of instruction. Keeping in mind that the mission statement of the school emphasized an arts-based, multi-disciplinary approach to learning, the researchers discovered that the school had changed leadership several times in the previous five years. The message for the researchers was clear, where leadership fails to support innovative practice for teachers and authentic performances for students then leadership could not expect for the school to be any different than one that might be characterized as unimaginative and traditional (Bender-Slack, Miller, & Burroughs, 2006).

    Understanding the teacher's role in developing authentic learning experiences is essential to supporting a school culture focused on teacher and student learning. The traditional view that the teacher is the conveyor of knowledge and truth is only partially correct. Newmann and Wehlage (1995) and Newmann, Marks and Gamoran (1996) assert that students learn best when teachers are engaged in authentic pedagogy design and provide learning experiences that: 1) encourage students to build new knowledge, 2) embrace and support disciplined inquiry, and 3) have value beyond the school setting. Creating such authentic pedagogy supports knowledge that students believe is more meaningful and relevant than what might be expressed in traditional pencil and paper tests that seek rote answers to prescribed questions. This position is not to suggest that knowledge memorized is always an undesirable product of schooling. The practice alone, however, is wholly insufficient. Rather, and in keeping with a position supported by Dewey (1934) and more recently embraced by constructivist philosophy (e.g., Lambert et al., 2003), when students begin to engage subject matter in meaningful ways, then they begin to construct meaning of and establish value in the school curriculum. The ownership of problems in the curriculum moves from teacher to student. In other words, instead of a teacher presenting problems to students to be addressed, students move to engage problems (i.e., sources of dissonance) that compel them to resolve apparent inconsistencies in their previous understanding. An important part of this authentic perspective posited by Newmann and Wehlage (1995) and Newmann, Marks and Gamoran (1996) is that authentic pedagogy supports meaningful, personal, and private reflection on the part of students and teachers alike. In essence, they are addressing qualitative relationships and fine grained distinctions (Eisner, 2002) between what they knew to be true before the learning experience compared to what they are coming to know based on the personal construction of new knowledge. This intrapersonal reflection then becomes part of a classroom that embraces the aesthetics of learning. As students continue to seek meaning and purpose in the new knowledge, then they move to open discourse with their peers and teachers.

    In order for teachers to encourage authentic expression from student and for teachers themselves to experiment with what works for different types of students, there will need to be a special type of leadership. The role of the principal is to protect jealously the learning environment, to guard the classroom as a safe place where teachers and students may take risks, and to promote an atmosphere of openness and authentic communication. Embedded throughout this vision for leadership is the pivotal role of trust (Kelehear, 2001).

    Through open communication, shared decision making, and mutual respect, the school will model the characteristics of a pluralistic, democratic society. There will be many teaching styles; ideally, as many as there are different learning needs. The leadership will celebrate those differences while maintaining high expectations for student learning. Allowing teachers to utilize different techniques does not free them from responsibility for student learning. In fact, the opposite is true. In as much as the principal allows for teachers to choose strategies for student learning, then the principal can hold those teachers responsible for what happens in the classroom. The question to the teacher will not be "Did you teach well today?" but rather, "Did the students learn today?" As Sizer (1984; 1992) reminds us, if the answer to the second question is “yes,” then the answer to the first question is “yes.” Said differently, one cannot have taught well in the absence of student learning!

    Authentic leadership would seek to construct a context where the teachers and principal work together to form a school culture that is focused on student achievement and engaged citizenship. The teachers and principal would be clear about student achievement and teaching excellence as essential core values. They would attend only to those activities that support and foster student and, as an extension, teacher successes (Patterson, 1993, p. 37-52).

    The nature of leadership would be such that it too is not a prescription. Rather, leadership in the authentic school would celebrate children's uniqueness and the art of teaching. Similarly, teachers and principal alike would understand that leadership is in itself an artwork under construction. Just as the principal celebrates and promotes the uniqueness of teachers, the teachers would likewise support and challenge the principal to be open, authentic, and a risk-taker in making decisions that support the core values of the school.

    Authentic learning spaces emerge when leaders create opportunities for teachers and students to reflect on experiences in qualitative ways. Central to the construction of such a space requires leadership to design a curriculum in which all the disciplines are embraced as complementary and supportive and not in competition for space and budget. In essence, successful school management becomes a process of providing opportunities for meaning-making for teachers and student alike. The final assessment of our schools might be as Eisner (2001) states, “It's what students do with what they learn when they can do what they want to do that is the real measure of educational achievement” (p. 370). If our students do not continue after school the things about which we talk in school, then we may have failed them.

    In today's schools, leaders are confronted with the harsh reality that effective teaching and leadership involve experiment, reflection, and refinement and that effective school based leadership supports such practices. Today's school cultures must be places that allow teachers and leaders to recognize their own humanity and that of their students (Palmer, 1998). Both teachers and students ought to be allowed to fail and leaders must provide for them support in their mistakes. School leadership can begin, thus, to acknowledge that out of the diversity of ideas, great wonders can emerge. Indeed, Steinbeck (1955) reminds us, "teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit” (p.7). Today's school building leader must have the strength of will and the commitment to doing what matters most: attending to the needs of the children. The best way to achieve this goal is for school leadership to allow for the art that is teaching where authentic learning and caring for each other carry the day. Being clear about value and the light it sheds on practice is indeed a crucial part of successful school based management.

    Element #3: