Читать книгу Stories of Caring School Leadership - Mark A. Smylie - Страница 8

This book proceeds from our belief in the legitimacy and power of stories for the development and promotion of leadership practice. As writers from psychiatrist Robert Coles to organization and management scholar Henry Mintzberg observe, stories have a way of calling us to consider what is right and true. Stories play an increasingly important role in programs of educational leadership preparation and professional development. Teaching cases are widely promoted as an effective means of helping aspiring and practicing school leaders understand the nature of their work, examine their own practice, and develop new ways to exercise leadership.

Stories also play an important role in informal learning of practicing school leaders. Oral storytelling is a primary means of on-the-job information sharing and knowledge development. So too are stories of programs and practices told through the pages of professional magazines. Stories are an important means of vicarious learning for school leaders. Sometimes ignored by academic scholars who favor more systematically developed quantitative evidence to guide practice, such stories can be powerful sources of new knowledge, legitimation, and motivation among practicing school leaders.