Decisions that are made as close to the classroom as possible are ones that are most aligned with creating great leadership within schools:
Although I am struggling a bit with all of the war/bomb-related metaphors here, I think your point is sound. We can empower teachers and create a chain reaction that leads to leaders in each of our classrooms. It does not require that a single school leader be a dictator in order to ensure that students succeed. Rather, the places that we see distributed leadership are the ones that we see better outcomes.
I think you are right to align this to project-based learning, but I would go further to ask the question of “who owns the learning” in the classroom? If it is the children, then the alignment is there and they are the ones leading the classroom. So too, we should ask “who owns the teaching” in the school? If it is the teachers, then we can all move together. If, on the other hand, that the learning is owned by the teacher and the teaching is owned by the school leader (or the district leadership) then we are misaligned and the classrooms and leadership will be ineffective.
I believe you are advocating for putting the teaching in the hands of teachers and the learning in the hands of students. This is spot on.
via The Paradox of Power: How empowering others increases a leader’s strength | The Underdog’s Advocate.
