Learning Environment Requires a Consistent and Fair

¶ … learning environment requires a consistent and fair approrach to those learning. However, the exact relationship between learning and classroom leadership has not yet been defined. However, Drs. Brown (university of Saskatchewan) and Posner (Santa Clara University) investigate how the templates of learning and leadership interact and are related. Using a quantitative approach with learning tactics inventory and leadership practices inventory, they note that with a sample of 312 individuals the more active and versailte learners and both engaged in robust leadership behaviors and respond to leadership techniques. When one looks at the changes in contemporary culture (e.g. adult learning, life-long learning, change of career, educational budgets), this becomes even more imporant.

Ironically, in a speech John F. Kennedy was prepared to give on that fatefully Dallas day in 1963, he noted, "leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." As the goals of education are more articulated in vision and mission, the future generation of students require robust experiences from qualified leaders (pp. 276-7). In addition, within any organization, motiviations are critical for the health of the organization and the ability for those involved to actualize (e.g. students).

For students to be successful, the very focus of their environment must be pro-learning. Teachers cannot "learn" for the student, but as leaders they must provide the Vygotskian (constructivist) approach to a learning environment. We know that management (in this case classroom management) and leadership are not the same. Management is tactical, leadership strategic. A true educational leader looks to the future and adapts the learning goal and target to the need of the student, creating a synronicity that benefits both parties.

Authors of this study use their expertise in education and business to provide a thorough, well-documented study showing the critical interrelationship between appropriate leadership and classroom success. Their sample and techniques are appropriate, prose is understandable, literature review more than adequate, and conclusions easily impelmentable and certainly desirous in the modern classroom.

REFERENCE

Brown, L.M. And B.Z. Posner. (2001). "Exploring the Relationship Between Learning

And Leadership," Leadership and Organizational Development. May, 2001: 274-80.

To some, learning is a cognitive function -- a physical and biological function of dealing successfully with environmental stimuli. Piaget, for one, believed that it was organization and adaption that separated the human individual from other animals because humans could remember and learn - and hypothesize the future. Organization as Piaget saw it said that humans are designed to organize their observations and experiences into coherent sets of meanings. Adaptation is the tendency to adjust to the environment - a process by which we create matches between our original observations and new ones that might not seem logical at first, but provide new solutions to unique problems.