Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Academic Exchange Quarterly

Student teachers as servant-leaders.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Robert Greenleaf's paradoxical philosophy of servant-leadership represents a unique perspective and a body of practical and pedagogical knowledge which can contribute distinctively to the development of caring, committed teaching. Servant-leadership offers student teachers a distinctive pathway to personal and professional growth--intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Dispositionally, the practice of servant-leadership goes on forever in one's professional and personal life.

Introduction

As student teachers bid farewell to the familiar trappings of university life to confront the unscripted complexities and occasional messiness of life in K-12 classrooms, they confront a compelling personal and professional issue: "Do I have the skills, motive patterns, and energy levels which are vital to a productive, committed career in teaching?" Conversely, if one discovers contextually that he or she does not possesses those skills, motive patterns, and energy levels, will a career in classroom teaching likely leave one bereft of spirit? (McLagan, 2004).

In a 1970 essay titled, "The Servant as Leader," Robert Greenleaf coined the term "servant-leadership Greenleaf, 2002, p. 17). Greenleaf's test of servant-leadership was framed cogently: "Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and more likely to become servants themselves?" (Greenleaf, 2002, p. 27). DePree (1992) has described leadership as "serious meddling in other peoples' lives" (p. 17). To the degree that classroom teachers are committed to meddling seriously in the lives of their students in a spirit of servant-leadership, it follows that one should do so with the conscious intent that those served become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous.

For the classroom teacher, the core element in Greenleaf's philosophy of servant leadership is the care taken to assure that students' highest priority needs are being served. In Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools, Zemelman, Daniels, Hyde (1998) discovered an unrecognized consensus regarding learners' highest priority needs: "Virtually all the authoritative voices in each field are calling for schools that are student-centered, active, experiential, democratic, collaborative, and yet rigorous and challenging" (p. viii).

The philosophy of servant-leadership in daily...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!