Barnett Berry, Armand Doucet and Ben Owens
The Teacher Leadership That is Now Needed Granted, outside of a few top-performing nations and jurisdictions, teacher leadership is more of an exception than the norm. In the U.S., Barnett has documented how most teacher leadership programs have been designed for a few classroom experts to lead pedagogical reforms defined by others; teacherpreneurism — whereby any practitioner can incubate and execute their own ideas — are all too rare. In too many cases frontline teacher innovation has been disregarded, shunned and disapproved. There are powerful examples of concerted efforts to recognize and elevate teacher leaders, such as The Global Teacher Prize, an annual US $1 million awarded since 2015 by the Varkey Foundation to elevate the leadership of those who teach students every day. (For its inaugural award, the Foundation received over 5,000 nominations from 127 countries.) The Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN), an initiative of the Organization of American States, networks teacher leaders who are interested in sharing knowledge, experiences and good practices in the teaching profession. COVID-19 has ripped off the band-aid of top-down reforms of the past, and made more clear about the kind of teacher leadership that is needed, now and in the future. Teacher leadership can no longer be about a few classroom experts who can climb up a few rungs on yet another hierarchical career ladder. All teachers need to lead one way or another. For years non-profits like EdCamp have supported informal teacher leadership and so have the unions. Education International has advanced non-positional teacher leadership that cultivates opportunities to lead without leaving the classroom. It has worked closely with a network of teachers in Hertfordshire in the UK called HertsCam who have created the world’s first teacher-moderated Master’s Degree. The National Education Association has created its Teacher Leadership Institute 18
