Obedience, Sabotage, Authonomy : power games within the educational system

The authors’ aim in this article is to use a critical approach to analyse the modernisation process of the pedagogic supervision system in Poland, looking at change not as critics but (co)authors. Their aim is not to exploit the strengths of critical sociology when applied to the processes of innovation, but to use these strengths reflexively to arrive at a better understanding of change, and of the reactions and the behaviour of all the participants in the process, including their own role in the system and its possible dangers. The authors believe that for a sociologist involved in the change process, the reflexive approach is crucial so as to comply with ethical requirements, and that it enables an active, needs-oriented involvement when making decisions about introducing change

Teachers as citizens in times of uncertainty and globalization

In this paper I discuss the necessity of putting global issues at the center of school curricula. I am building this claim on the assumption that schools have the potential to transform reality. Students need a global context as early as possible in order to be able to operate in a globalized world. Today globalization is present in schools, mainly due to global competition and comparisons. I postulate that accountability should be a moral more than a statistical endeavor. In order for teachers to be able to nurture it, they should be involved in building professional capital in three domains : as critical intellectuals, educational activists, and cooperating professionals

Leadership and mental models : study of school principals’ awareness

The main purpose of the proposed paper is to analyze paradigms (theoretical frames) of leadership owned and used by school principals. The analysis is based on the results of the research conducted for the purpose of defining and describing the school principals’ way of thinking about leadership for education. For the purpose of building framework for research it was assumed that four leadership paradigms might be defined. Leadership might be understood through classic paradigm of leadership (domination of the significant person or elite group); or transactional paradigm (influence and negotiations); or visionary paradigm (called sometimes charismatic where the most import ant is clear vision); or organic paradigm (existing in multicultural and diverse world where leadership is flexible and leaders change dependently on a situation) Three methods have been used: interview with 99 principals of schools (of different type), observation in the same number of schools and analyses of the blogs (written on-line by school principals). It is common to ignore the mental models (or paradigms) used by people what brings certain outcomes for every initiative. It is necessary for policy making, change projects or developmental initiatives to recognize and take under consideration the diversity of possible perspectives (mental models) owned by those who are working in the concerned area, in this case head teachers. Civilization changes influence context and demands towards schools. Those challenges impact the modernization of schools. One of the common expectation towards management are more open - participative mode of the decision making process and the involvement of employees in sharing responsibilities. Unfortunately different initiatives towards inclusion of employees into management and leadership processes bring rather disappointing results because they ignore ideologies and assumptions of people who decide about school functioning. Analysis of the results of the research should improve the understanding of the school reality by showing strategies and decisions adequate to the state of "educational consciousness"

How do teachers understand democratic education, equal opportunities and their roles in school?

To talk about democracy in school, several basic principles must be observed that secure democratic organization of schoolwork and equal access to education. The aim of this study, then, was to inquire into teachers’ beliefs towards controversial behaviors that might be noticeable in schools (e.g. relations with students, extra-curricular tutoring, and teachers’ attitudes towards his/her own work (intrinsic/extrinsic). By focusing on questions such as: Who do teachers perceive as responsible for their professional development; How do teachers perceive their work with “good” and “bad” students; and How do teachers perceive their ability to influence the workings of their school? we are led to understand the manner in which teachers beliefs play out in school. These beliefs become important if school is to fulfill its role for democratic society.Aby wprowadzać demokrację w szkołach, należy przestrzegać kilka podstawowych zasad umożliwiających demokratyczną organizację pracy i równy dostęp do edukacji. Celem badań było sprawdzenie przekonań nauczycieli na temat kontrowersyjnych zachowań zauważalnych w szkołach (na przykład relacje nauczyciel - uczeń, korepetycje, postawy nauczycieli wobec własnej pracy). Skupiając się na pytaniach: kto według nauczycieli jest odpowiedzialny za ich rozwój zawodowy, co nauczyciele myślą o swojej pracy z uczniami uważanym za “dobrych” i “złych”, jak nauczyciele oceniają swój wpływ na pracę szkoły? próbuję zrozumieć sposób, w jaki nauczyciele wprowadzają swoje przekonania w pracy w szkole. Te przekonania stają się istotne w sytuacji, gdy szkoła ma odgrywać swą rolę w demokratycznym społeczeństwie

New model of school heads preparation, induction and continuing professional development in Poland

During the last few decades there is a growing interest of management issues in the area of education. Educational systems started to require management competencies from school heads and universities all over the world developed different types of courses to train and prepare school heads and school managers from different levels of the system. In the early 1990s, Polish educational system introduced the requirement of at least postgraduate course on educational management as a prerequisite to become a school head. The programmes and content of those postgraduate courses, as well as the whole area of educational management, were and unfortunately still are dominated by managerial perspective of ‘hard’ or ‘technical’ skills and competencies, to say nothing about the fact that they were designed more than twenty years ago and have not changed since then. It is then clear that the challenges of the contemporary world and a growing complexity of organizational problems in educational context raises the question of adequate management or/and leadership of schools that not only balances ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills and competencies but also creates proper conditions for educational processes that are specific and cannot be managed or led using expertise that was developed in other areas. The paper tries to give a description of the current state of school heads preparation and professional development in Poland using the data from research on existing cycles of educational management training for future school heads. Showing their limitations the authors present a proposal of new complex model of such preparation, induction and continuing professional development of school leaders based on a broad definition of educational management and/or leadership that focuses on learning and development as the main values important for educational organizations

Crossing the frontiers : peer coaching and self - managing in the process of the professional development in multicultural environment

Our effort focuses on the development of a process of cross-cultural peer coaching through which we have sought to grow as reflective practitioners and strengthen authentic conversations between two individuals, from Poland and the United States. By building a theoretical framework around peer coaching, intercultural interaction, and auto-ethnography we have worked to make explicit our development as educators working to enrich the process of the organizational learning and to make education more open, democratic and human. As Kottler [1997] claims, it is possible to find stages that a tourist goes through during the process of recognizing and knowing another culture that was used to mirror the sensation of the professional growth. The findings shed light on how peer coaching might be strengthened, as well as the development of an observation protocol to structure such reflective and, ultimately, life changing work

How parents understand evaluation process : mental models as the main obstacle for engaging parents in school evaluation

One of the most important elements ofthe recent reform of the school inspection system in Polandis to focus on the parents’ voice through the collection of data during evaluation process in schools. Three years of experience with this system has shown that there still is a lot of confusion with the actual understanding of the evaluation process among all the groups actively involved: external evaluators (school inspectors), head-teachers, teachers, and representatives of school partners, parents and students. The authors claim that this is the most important obstacle in the promotion of evaluation as a crucial element in the process of school development. The paper presents an attempt to describe different understandings of school evaluation among parents actively partaking in this process which was undertaken randomly in Polish schools of different types. The paper shows how these understandings can influence participation of parents in an external evaluation process, and following developmental activities that take place in schools. The authors claim that an understanding of different ways of thinking about evaluation process through the analysis of the metaphors used by parents can be a good basis for drawing up recommendations for those working on parents’ participation in transforming school reality

Educational management and leadership in a changing context

The context of educational organizations changes rapidly and requires changes of schools as organizations as well as changes of whole educational systems. Paper tries to show the complexity of social and economic changes that are key elements of changes in school context in contemporary Europe. It then becomes the basis for the proposal of reconceptualization of educational management as a scientific domain that can help better to describe schools as organizations and stimulate their more adequate management and leadership making it possible to face challenges of complex school context