Maximising School and System Leadership: A Conversation with Professor Michael Fullan

Maximising School and System Leadership: A Conversation with Professor Michael Fullan

by | Feb 28, 2015 | Leadership, Student Voice, Teacher Effectiveness

We need leaderpreneurs and teacherpreneurs who innovate learning in partnership with students. – Manoj Chandra Handa Michael Fullan is Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Professor Fullan is recognised as a worldwide authority on educational reform. During his Australia tour conducting a series of workshops on “Maximising Leadership for Change”, Professor Fullan generously conversed with me (formerly, I served as Chief Education Officer, New South Wales Department of Education and Communities) about maximising school and system leadership. Engaging with the thought leader was a great learning experience for me. Here are some excerpts with Professor Fullan’s insights:    Key drivers of system reform               MCH: Based on your rich experience with successful systems around the world, what do you believe are the key drivers of meaningful whole system reform?               Fullan: The work we’ve been doing around the world with different systems is all embedded in the system trying to improve itself. It’s not us just observing it. It’s us participating in the improvement process and the key drivers. When you put them together as a cluster, in addition to focusing on a small number of ambitious goals, the drivers themselves are capacity building, i.e., how you build up the skills and competencies of teachers and principals. A second driver is social capital. We call it so because you don’t just depend on individuals being strong. You want the entire group to be strong. Pedagogy, as the third driver in deep and structural practice, is tied to assessment of learning and improvement of learning. And the fourth driver is something we call “systemness”....