Compassionate Leadership For School Improvement And Renewal

Download or read book Compassionate Leadership for School Improvement and Renewal written by Kara Lasater and published by IAP. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compassionate Leadership for School Improvement and Renewal aims to equip educational leaders with the knowledge, skills, and learning experiences necessary to approach their work from an intentional stance of compassion. Schools serve as both sites and sources of suffering; yet compassionate leadership can facilitate healing for students, educators, and community members. The moment is right to move the field toward a compassion-centered approach to leadership. In recent years, people around the world have experienced unfathomable loss and suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent inequities and subsequent social justice protests, war and violence, and catastrophic natural disasters. These events created perpetual anxiety, stress, fear, uncertainty, loss, and grief for millions of people—including educators. Now perhaps more than ever, people need to give and receive compassion. The purpose of the volume is to build educational leaders’ capacity to demonstrate compassion, foster collective compassion within their schools and districts, establish organizational environments in which compassion is routinely given and received, and, subsequently, transform schools into sites of healing. Ultimately, through the unique contributions of each chapter, this volume offers a path toward school improvement that is both renewing and sustaining. ENDORSEMENTS: "As a former school counselor and school administrator, my view about compassionate leadership is one grounded in relational practice. This may be obvious to some, but unfortunately lost on many. This thoughtful volume edited by Kara Lasater and Kristina LaVenia explores a desperately needed reformulation of school leadership for our times. Compassionate leadership takes enormous courage because it works against much of the institutional ethos that forms and frames the role, thinking, and behaviors of those ostensibly charged to both manage and lead schools." — William C. Frick, University of Oklahoma "The education system is in its most challenging period in decades, perhaps in the past century. The need now is to address student, staff and organizational suffering. Lasater and LaVenia et. al., offer antidotes in this volume by providing up to date research, theory and insight to cultivate, conceptualize and practice compassionate educational leadership. For those who teach and lead with their heart, this book is essential reading." — Joseph A. Polizzi, Sacred Heart University "In an increasingly challenging educational landscape, leaders find themselves facing teacher shortages, student trauma, and learning loss. Schools could easily become institutions rife with secondary trauma and burned out professionals operating in stark contrast to the unifying motivations that drew each of us into this profession. This volume reminds us that among the many skill sets leaders must employ, organizational and leader compassion fulfills a fundamental human need and unlocks a means by which schools can transform from professional survival to the joyful work of changing lives for the better." — Joshua Ray, Greenwood Public Schools

Download or read book Catalytic Improvement Communities written by Jonathan Eckert and published by IAP. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In chemistry, a catalyst accelerates change without being depleted. As we seek school improvement, we need sustainable, scalable changes, and therefore catalytic structures are ideal. From communities of practice to professional learning communities to Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) much has been made in the scholarly and consultancy literature about collaborative approaches to improvement. The benefit of improvement communities that operate in networks over professional learning communities or isolated communities of practice is that they allow for broader experimentation, more rapid iteration, and greater possibility for scaling improvement. Educators have many tools and protocols to support the various approaches to improvement, evidenced by the many tools the Carnegie Foundation has developed for NICs alone. However, we need to understand how these are being used in a wide range of contexts and iterations. This book answers three questions: 1) How can improvement communities act as catalysts? 2) How do improvement communities serve as discipline, creative inquiry? 3) Most importantly, how do improvement communities support flourishing individuals? These three questions serve as the drivers of three sections with practical recommendations and insights for teachers, administrators, and policymakers that will lead to more sustainable leadership practices and thriving educators, students, and communities.

Download or read book Leadership for School Improvement written by Cherie B. Gaines and published by IAP. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the inaugural issue in the Leadership for School Improvement (LSI) Special Interest Group (SIG) Book Series, this volume serves as a reflection on the foundations of the field of school improvement. Contents include connections between school improvement and the agency of principals, districts, universities, and policy. This volume will be placed in the school improvement literature with examinations of evolution, trends, policies, and future foci in the field of school improvement. This book is rich in research and literature about school improvement, school effectiveness, and school reform policy and implementation and thus holds significance for educational practitioners, scholars, and policy makers at all levels.

Download or read book Trauma-Informed Teaching in Your Elementary Classroom written by Lori Brown and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-16 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research has proven that childhood trauma affects school engagement and success while at the same time recognizing that the majority of students have experienced it. This book offers simple strategies, based on evidence-based studies, that elementary educators can use to effectively recognize trauma, teach resilience, and support their students in being ready to learn. The book covers all the tenets of trauma-informed teaching, including understanding the effects of trauma, creating safety and predictability, fostering healthy attachments, and modeling resilience as part of social emotional learning, all of which are framed within cultural humility and competence. Designed for all teachers, professionals, and school administrators working with elementary students, this practical guide is key reading for creating a safe classroom and school environment that is inclusive of all learners and conducive for learning.

Download or read book Resonant Leadership written by Richard Boyatzis and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2005-09-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blockbuster best seller Primal Leadership introduced us to "resonant" leaders--individuals who manage their own and others' emotions in ways that drive success. Leaders everywhere recognized the validity of resonant leadership, but struggled with how to achieve and sustain resonance amid the relentless demands of work and life. Now, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee provide an indispensable guide to overcoming the vicious cycle of stress, sacrifice, and dissonance that afflicts many leaders. Drawing from extensive multidisciplinary research and real-life stories, Resonant Leadership offers a field-tested framework for creating the resonance that fuels great leadership. Rather than constantly sacrificing themselves to workplace demands, leaders can manage the cycle using specific techniques to combat stress, avoid burnout, and renew themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. The book reveals that the path to resonance is through mindfulness, hope, and compassion and shows how intentionally employing these qualities creates effective and enduring leadership. Great leaders are resonant leaders. Resonant Leadership offers the inspiration--and tools--to spark and sustain resonance in ourselves and in those we lead.

Download or read book Supporting Leaders for School Improvement Through Self-Care and Wellbeing written by Bradley W. Carpenter and published by IAP. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School leadership instability is particularly problematic for scholars and practitioners concerned with PK-12 school improvement, as second only to teachers, campus leadership has been identified as a primary factor in students' academic success (Young et al., 2007). Yet, while principals play an indispensable role in students' academic success, the job has become considerably more stressful as the role of a school leader continues to evolve. Specifically, added responsibilities, increased work intensity, and the ever-present menace of high stakes accountability have intensified the stress levels encountered by today's school leaders (Carpenter & Brewer, 2012; Chaplain, 2001; Darmody & Smyth, 2016; Wang, et al., 2018). This intensification negatively impacts a school’s teaching staff and its students, as the overall quality of the school experience can deteriorate if principals are unable to meet their potential due to the burnout and fatigue associated with chronic stress (Darmody & Smyth, 2016; Devos, et al., 2007). For principals to fully realize their ability to serve as catalysts for school improvement, they should be allowed to prioritize physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional health. Desired levels of wellbeing occur in the absence of chronic physical, social, psychological, emotional, economic, and cognitive distress (La Placa, et al., 2013). As authors in this volume demonstrate, many school leaders have commenced specific practices targeting cognitive, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing to cope with occupational stress and flourishing- or, at the very least, surviving in such a challenging environment. Among coping strategies leaders have adopted include mindfulness and other wellbeing interventions/strategies intended to facilitate healthier lifestyles, relieve stress, and improve personal resilience (Aviles & Dent, 2015; Mahfouz, 2018; Wells, 2015). Recently, there has been a call to consider educational leadership through a positive human flourishing lens. Research in this area focuses on integrating wellbeing practices in professional development programs for teachers and school administrators to highlight the positive effects of personal and collective wellbeing in schools (Cherkowski & Walker, 2014). For example, empirical studies have examined how incorporating mindfulness practice promotes positive adaptive skills, stress resilience, and social and emotional skills needed in a school environment (Abenavoli, et al., 2013; Benn, et al., 2012; Dvor a kova et al., 2017; Jennings, 2015; Meiklejohn et al., 2012; Mahfouz et al., 2018). New understandings about the relationship between school administrators' wellbeing and school improvement efforts should ignite interest within the field. As such, this book’s chapters are organized into four distinct sections that provide: (a) an overview of the field (Section I), (b) an empirical argument for why such research is essential (Section II), (c) wellbeing models to be considered for use in the PK-12 setting (Section III), and, (d) specific wellbeing practices and frameworks currently being in PK-12 (Section IV).

Download or read book Cultivating Teacher Renewal written by Barbara Larrivee and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teachers today are more stressed than ever. It is crucial that teachers develop the tools necessary to keep from falling prey to the potentially destructive effects of stress and burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout offers the antidote by providing the knowledge, skills and practices that will keep teachers from surrendering to burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal is evidence-based presenting an extensive review of the abundant research on stress and burnout specifically applying it to the teaching profession. This book adopts a comprehensive approach spanning the fields of education, the social sciences, and the neurosciences. The array of strategiesoffered will help teachers become stress hardy to stay in a renewal cycle by, building up defenses against burnout, successfully negotiating the emotional terrain of teaching, instilling new ways of thinking and behaving to preserve well-being, and limiting stress exposure by exercising healthier choices. This book will also help you to maintain a work-life balance and develop practices to sustain resilience and optimism.