Tereza Sekiya shares her key learnings from Dr. Sue Swaffield’s talk on Leadership for Learning, taking a closer look at what we mean by ‘leadership’ and ‘learning’.
When I started watching Dr. Sue Swaffield’s talk on Leadership for Learning (presented during the Better Learning Conference in 2016) I had the impression the content would be based on the results of the research project she is involved in (in collaboration with Cambridge International Exams). Indeed, she talks about this research project, but the content of her presentation goes far beyond that.
She starts by calling the audience’s attention to“Leadership” and “Learning” as separate ideas at first, and then refers to the possible connections between both words. This talk is not specifically connected to Language Teaching, and Swaffield suggests a thinking routine to be applied:
Connect. Extend. Challenge.
• When we Connect, we apply our background knowledge to understand, interpret and value the information.
• When we Extend, we take those given ideas further; we rethink, go backwards or change directions in our line of thought.
• When we Challenge, we might be challenging our own ideas or the ideas that are being presented on to us.
Although “Leadership for Learning” has become a common phrase nowadays, Swaffield defines Leadership not as a position or a role, but as an activity (e.g. the act of influencing people). Likewise, Learning is also considered an activity.
It is very interesting to think of Leadership from a different perspective. Frequently, talks on Leadership focus on confidence building and recipes for becoming leaders in the classroom. From this point of view, any person (teacher or student) can practice actions of leadership. These actions would certainly foster/enhance student involvement, awareness and independence. Here are some examples:
• Influencing others
• Taking the initiative
• Modelling new behaviors
• Making the moral choices for the wider goal
Developing the topic further, Swaffield starts presenting some possible connections. The first one she mentions is the fact that “we learn to lead through learning.” Similarly, “Opportunities to exercise our leadership enhance our learning.”
The speaker also emphasizes the importance of having a moral purpose in education: a sense of value or personal identity, which will shape our ideas and goals, and determine strategic actions to pursue and achieve those goals. “Leadership is not necessarily good. Bad things can come from leadership” she argues.
Swaffield then explores interconnected levels of learning, building her way up to the result of her research project on Leadership for Learning: a framework of ideas with five principles for practice. This framework is being applied in the Leadership for Learning Program, a huge program that involves institutions all over the world – its results are generating other tailor-made projects for specific schools and universities, according to the diagnosed issues. This is a great example of how to face the challenge of developing education in the real world.
Here is a quote from Sue Swaffield’s presentation which exemplifies how we can make a difference every day in the classroom:
“The capacity for leadership arises out of powerful learning experiences.”
Do you agree with that? I just want to add three more words:
Connect. Extend. Challenge.
Find out more by watching Dr. Sue Swaffield’s full talk on Leadership for Learning.