Leadership

Throughout the past year I've really been thinking about the idea of leadership.  How it works in schools on a staff level, but also within a classroom.  I came across a quote today in a leadership book I'm reading on iBooks called "The Leadership Challenge" by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.

'The best leaders are simply the best learners, and life is their laboratory' p 88

This fits well within a school setting, particularly one like ours, which is undergoing such change.  The leadership within the classroom relates to me as well as the children.  They have their own pockets of leadership, and I have a part in leading the class too.  So what makes great learners great leaders?  Probably the fact (as the book alluded to) that they 'learn from their errors and failures as they experiment, try new things, and incrementally move projects forward'.

So in order to be one of the most effective leaders in our class, where we are in the guinea-pig-phase of a new project, it's important that the kids can see me making mistakes and moving forward, having a goal I'm continually working toward.  And it's important for me to create opportunities for them to fail and then persevere, sharing those failings with others in a way that is proactive, positive and collaborative.  How to?  Hmm.

The goal is such a big one:
Create a classroom where students set their own goals based on their needs, work consciously and consistently towards these goals, driving their own learning and reflecting along the way, so that at the end of it, they are able to be in control of their own learning - engaged - and MOTIVATED to do so.

So where to from here?

It's important to break it down I think.... to make it into smaller goals where I actually feel I can be successful.
Goal setting
Tools
Habits
Reflections
Identification of needs
Goals

Well that's a start.
Now to attempt to lead the way ;)