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Title: Moral Leadership : Getting to the Heart of School Improvement by Thomas J. Sergiovanni ISBN: 0-7879-0259-4 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 14 February, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An absolute must for teachers and principals.
Comment: With this book, Sergiovanni has assembled a "covenant of shared values," a way of "expanding the value structure of and authority bases for leadership" in such a way that the reader can have a "powerful set of ideas for influencing what and how people think and feel."
Being an assistant English teacher-I teach English at the middle school level for the City of Naha, Okinawa, Japan-and having aspirations to eventually become a "full-time" teacher at the high school level, I chose to do a review on this book about the roll of leadership in public education. I feel that it is a very good book, both insightful and educational...although I did find it a little "over my head" in some of both content and the context in which it was written. This book, Moral leadership: getting to the heart of school improvement, would make a valuable addition to the guidance resource pool of anyone who cares about our children and the education system that is preparing them to be productive members of adult society.
About the Author-- Thomas J. Sergiovanni, Lillian Radford Professor of Education at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, has an extensive education history backing up his work: BA degree from the State University of New York in 1958, MA degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1959, and his Ed.d. Degree from the University of Rochester in 1966.
He has also built up quite an impressive work and experience history as well: he was an elementary school teacher from 1958 to 1964, a science consultant in New York state, a teacher in the teacher education program at the State University of New York, and he gave nineteen years of service to the faculty of educational administration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign starting in 1966 (he chaired the department for seven years). He now teaches at the Trinity University in the leadership program and in the five-year teacher education program. He is the director of the Trinity Principals' Center as well as being the senior fellow at the Center for Educational Leadership. He has served in an editorial capacity for several teaching and leadership publications and has also published many other books about leadership and schooling: "Schooling for Tomorrow: Directing Reforms to Issues that count (1989, with John Moore), Value-Added Leadership: How to Get Extraordinary Performance in Schools (1990), and The Principalship: A Reflective Practice Perspective (1991, second addition)," are a few among his recent works. Along with all of this experience and education, Sergiovanni also apparently has "broad interest in school leadership and the supervision and evaluation of teaching," to bring to his aid in creating valuable resource materials for those involved in education.
Target Audience of the Book-- According to the author, in the introduction of the book, this work was basically intended to serve as a guide for developing moral leadership in schools, from the top down: superintendents, supervisors, principles, and any other persons at the upper levels of school management. The author's design was to provoke thoughts and raise questions in the minds of these people which would help them to analyze the leadership processes in their schools and to help them make adjustments to the leadership process that will in the end reduce the need for "direct" leadership in favor of "moral" leadership. He also makes point that this book can serve as a "counterpoint" to some of the textbooks, currently being used in university courses on leadership. He also states that the book would be useful for parents, school board members and policy makers. Because I am involved in the education process from the "teaching" point of the educational continuum, I see this book as being of particular value to other teachers and myself as well. If "leadership is a process," consisting of and reliant upon the presence of THREE distinct yet interactive elements: the leader, the followers, and the situation, then I feel that the information contained in the book-especially that concerning motivation of teachers, making a school a "learning community," and the importance of collegiality-is very pertinent to the views and understandings from a teacher's standpoint. This book is for anyone who cares about improving the leadership in our schools. Scope of the Work-- The aspects of leadership covered are very broad, from analyzing the traditional leadership rolls, to the tapping of higher and higher levels of human potential. It is written from the standpoint of managers and leaders and covers point by point the author's ideas of how to shift the environment of schools from that of a "factory" to one of community of leaning. The time period of the book, is of course modern, but the ideals expressed are timeless, those of using one's heart and compassion-"living school"-in leadership rather than just being concerned with the facts and figures involved-"playing school." I feel that this work will be of value as long as we have systems that require leadership, any systems, and not just schools. The viewpoint of the author, I feel, is that he is concerned about the leadership processes in schools that are presently accepted as the norm. The author would like to see school leadership shift to one that is self-motivated by teachers who want to do a good job, not one in that the teachers feel they have to as a result of dependency on "extrinsic" rewards.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very profound ideas about changing school administration
Comment: There are some profound ideas in this book about how a school should be run. I particulary enjoyed the "substitutions for leadership". If you are a school administrator you should probably read this book.
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