0.4 The art of successful school-based management  (Page 4/36)

A similar dichotomy emerges regarding the nature of effective teaching. The debate over whether effectiveleadership is art or craft, or if effective teaching is technical in nature or aesthetic, is important and often lively. Indeed,there is growing research that supports the notion that teaching, when done well, is both art and craft, technical and aesthetic,personal and clinical (Lewis, 2004; Newmann et al., 1996; Blumberg, 1989; Eisner, 1983). When individuals begin coupling their thinkingthat teaching is both art and craft with a growing presence of arts-based research that seeks to extend the notion of what ismeaningful, then they can begin to see the value of“and”thinking. In fact, teacher effectiveness research findings support the notionthat students learn best from teachers who can be characterized as managing both the craft and the artistic dimensions of effectiveteaching. So as the reader engages in the journey of what makes for successful school based management, the author wants to implore himor her to engage in“and”thinking so that he or she can begin building power bridges for successful schooling and fewerwalls.

Toward defining, evaluating, and thus understanding the leadership function in the school building theauthor will ground the following discussion in an arts-based research theoretical approach (Eisner, 1998; Barone&Eisner, 1997). The arts-based research format seemed appropriate for thisinvestigation because as a form of qualitative research, arts-based investigations can more readily gain“a firm foothold”on the nature of human interactions embedded in school cultures (Eisner,1998). The function of successful leadership is characterized as practice that acknowledges, embraces, and develops the relationalnature of schooling. That relation may be student to student, student to teacher, student to subject, teacher to teacher, teacherto leader, leader to community, community to school, and on and on. At some level, all successful schooling is relational in nature. Inaddition, qualitative thought is always a component of interaction between individuals (Eisner, 1998) and coming to terms with thenature of relationships is central to the human experience. So, as readers come to terms with the fact that leadership encompassesboth technical and aesthetic dimensions, craft and art, then they can begin to understand that an arts-based approach is entirelyappropriate as one way to understand effective school leadership and management of schools.

As the author begins the work from a qualitative theory perspective (Eisner, 1998; Barone, 1998) thatleadership may be viewed as an art form and that it can be described as interactive and relational, a sort of choreography ofhuman understanding, then the reader might do well to develop a mechanism for“seeing”it as an artist might view a painting or a choreographer a dance (Kelehear, 2006). For the purposes of thisinvestigation, that mechanism comes in the form of the elements of art and it is the goal of this monograph to help the reader begindeveloping some facility with aesthetic dimensions of leadership inthe school building. Specifically, the author will use the elements of art to help frame the discussion of school-based leadership inthis monograph. Just as the elements of art can assist a viewer of art describe, analyze, interpret, or evaluate a work, those sameelements can help a viewer of leadership art describe, analyze, interpret, or evaluate the management of schools. When individualscontinue to view leadership narrowly, as a function of management and formula, then they narrow their view of leadership from an artof human experience and understanding to a strategy for control and manipulation of personnel. By applying the language of artindividuals can construct a lens through which the nature of one’s humanity begins to become clearer.