week 5 blog

Readings of this week mainly talked leadership role of the school administrator in curriculum and instruction. Firstly, the author demonstrates four types of administer. 
1.    There are administrators who give no attention to the educational program. They are too busy with their works or other things than instructional leadership. What I think about this type of administers is that they are too selfish. They as administers should do their job not only just concern about their own life and ignore school’s business.
2.    There are also administers who put leadership entirely in the hands of the supervisors of director of instruction in the various subject or special fields. Even though the author said that this type of administers are not as many as 10 or 15 years ago. But they can still be found. I think this is a irresponsible behavior that they let others do their own job.
3.    The third type of administer is the laissez faire administrators, who fear that to exercise leadership in instruction is to be undemocratic. I think this type administer is the one that want to do administrative leadership but they are lack of experiences. They need to practice and learn more.
4.    The fourth type of administrator is the one who puts all his eggs in one basket. He thinks his role as instructional leader has been properly played when he has established some simple device of this sort.

What I have learned from this article is how to be a good and qualified administer. First, the administer must understand the curriculum and instructional process. As the basis of the school, curriculum and instructional process is basic what an administrator should deal with everyday. A good administrator should also needs specific concepts about the curriculum and instructional process. In addition, the administer should also recognize that a good learning experience is one in which the learning situation is meaningful and interesting to the pupil so that he becomes involved in the experience rather than reacting superficially.
As a qualified administrator as I said before is firstly to take his responsibility. One has to aware what is the job of an administrator is the most important thing. He has to knowledge the school system, understand how the school curriculums are and what to be an instructional leadership.


But I have a question about this article. What kind of experiences do you think one should have if he or she wants to be a qualified administrator?

Comments

  1. SteveFebruary 14, 2019 at 5:02 AM

    Thank you for your blog. I agree that there are many pitfalls that administrators need to avoid to be effective. Some try to do too much, some don't try to do enough. To answer your final question, in my experience the best administrators are ones who have recent classroom experience, so they understand very well what teachers have to go through on a daily basis. They have excellent speaking and people skills and knowledge of the community that they work in, so that they always make the students/teachers/parents who they're talking to feel respected and not condescended to. Finally in terms of setting the curriculum agenda, effective administrators mostly empower and respect the decisions of the teachers, who are the curriculum experts, to set the curriculum, but also push teachers toward greater rigor, and in the best of cases greater overall cohesion across the building by having a common language and common policies across classes. So it's certainly difficult, but it can be done.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 14, 2019 at 2:22 PM

    Thank you for your post.

    I like the types of administrators that you listed according to the reading. I think it is true that some school administrators do just manage schools and regard teaching and helping students develop as teachers' responsibility only. In essence, I don't think that is a correct way of managing school and improving quality of education. Therefore, I agree with you that a qualified school administrator should not just focus on managing instruction in a broad sense, but understand the details about instructional process and curriculum, and the students as well.
    As for your question, in my opinion, a good administrator should have teaching experience to help them better understand instructional process and interactions between teachers and students during management.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 17, 2019 at 6:27 PM

    Thank you for sharing! I liked how the author categorized administrators you would find in an academic setting. Although we would like for all administrators of to have a focus on clear learning objectives, some will have other priorities or other ways curriculum should be designed and administered. I think one thing I took away from Tyler's article is that all personnel in an academic setting contributes to the design and function of that setting's curriculum, and creating an effective curriculum is a shared effort. Administrators should have academic objectives an understanding of the goals they want to achieve in each subject, like math, science, etc.
    As for your question, I do not think any experience itself qualifies or disqualifies a person from being an administrator of an effective learning environment. I think how the administrator decides to structure a curriculum based off their experiences (whether it be from administering education in an urban setting, rural setting, public, private, etc) will show how the administrators understanding of the curriculum they are teaching.

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  4. Amanda MartinFebruary 18, 2019 at 3:38 PM

    As with any profession, especially in education, the role of an administrater requires one to constantly learn and evolve. This job can be extremely overwhelming but I think it can be done effectively as long as the lines of communications stay open. Within in many districts, including CPS, there are a lot of mandates put on the principal from higher ups. This can put a lot of pressure on the principal and while trying to fix the area of concern from the higher ups, he/she may slack in another area. This is why I think that clear communication is clear along with designating shared leadership roles. The principal cannot and should not be the go to person for every issue that arises within the school building. When principals allow this to happen, things are not handled effectively, but instead swept under the rug or just "band aid" solutions. It can also start to destroy the culture because teachers feel unsupported.

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  5. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2019 at 6:26 PM

    I agree with Amanda, the role of an administrator requires one to constantly be learning and evolving. I think classifying administrators into these 4 categories is unfair. All administrators have their own style, and who is to say one is better than the other. On that note, I think administrators should also be aware of these classifications and be aware of their own role at their school.Out of the 4 types of administrators, the one I found interesting was the administrators who pay no attention to the educational program. I could not imagine having leadership who did not help with my instruction or ignored the curriculum I was planning for my room. I do agree with you that most of these leadership styles show the selfish side of administration. There are administrators out there who sadly are not there to better support their communities,schools,teachers and students.

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