By: Jennifer D. Klein
Excerpted from Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership
In preparation for my newest book, I began to interview educational leaders around the world in the fall of 2023. Sixty-seven stories later, the result is Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership: Doing Right by Learners Without Losing Your Job, which explores how educators around the world are managing unprecedented levels of resistance to practices they know are good for learners. Taming the Turbulence interweaves leaders’ experiences with my own to provide a narrative of solidarity, courage and actionable strategies for prioritizing what our learners need most. Recognizing that we work in the eye of the storm, and that increasingly polarized expectations shouldn’t keep us from fulfilling our purpose in schools, these sixty-seven leaders share a spectrum of initiatives and strategies, whether the pushback comes from inside their communities or from federal or local legislation, and they illuminate what education can be—could be, should be—even when the stakes and pressures are high.
For educators to take on work that feels risky or controversial, good leaders have to make sure their people feel prepared and protected throughout the process, and to put systems in place that help them be successful. People rarely take significant risks, especially in connection to their basic livelihood, unless they feel they have someone watching their backs and won’t suffer repercussions if things go south. In the current political climate, with so much legislation intended to restrict what educators can say, do, and teach, particularly when it comes to serving the needs of marginalized students, fear of those repercussions is salient and real. Especially when leaders hope educators will experiment with new pedagogical approaches or take on hard conversations about identity, we have to provide the tools and conditions for success and ensure teachers aren’t afraid of how caregivers or other constituents might respond. Even when the forces of resistance are beyond our control, change work requires that we engage from a place of courage, not of fear, so we can bring our whole selves to the work—and ensure our staff can do the same.
In a book she describes as a letter to her younger self, former school leader Iesha Small describes professional learning and preparation as the heart of good education (The Unexpected Leader, 2019). Describing education as “fundamentally a human endeavour,” Small emphasizes that education “is about more than exam results and data. It’s about people,” and she insists that this includes the teachers in our schools. Noting that educators focus on “identifying and cultivating the talents, character and unique attributes of the children and young people in our care and equipping them with the skills and knowledge they’ll need to thrive in the world,” Small questions whether we are doing the same for teachers. She writes, “I often fear that, under various pressures, the system is not allowing teachers to develop as happy and rounded people in the same way that we hope our students will.” I agree completely, and Small’s story of having to leave school leadership for her own well-being resonates with my own experience as a school leader in Latin America. As we think about what it means to prepare and protect our teachers and ourselves, and to create the conditions for success, it is useful to remember that the real soul of our work in educational leadership is human development—for the adults in our communities as much as the students.
According to Jill Ackers, Director of Education for VS America, preparation, system adaptation, and protection are deeply entwined and interdependent. When leaders don’t have enough preparation themselves, they can’t protect their teachers; but when preparation and the development of “human capital” happens across all levels of an organization, and systems are adapted to support new practices, classroom educators are better protected and willing to try new approaches. Using the example of schools where teachers understand project-based learning but leaders do not, Ackers noted how easily this creates a divisive situation in which teachers take the hit from detractors even though they understand the work better than their leaders do—or perhaps because they do. Systems don’t change organically, according to Ackers; systems like time and curriculum require intentional negotiation and renegotiation as
needs arise, even on a daily basis if that’s what the situation requires. And the better prepared a school is at all levels, from classroom teachers to instructional coaches, counselors, administrative leaders, school boards and founders (in private and charter schools), the more easily the adult community can work in alignment—and the more effectively leaders can ensure that teachers don’t come under attack. As Ackers put it, “How you protect your teachers is by preparing them and yourself.”
Provide Transformative Professional Learning for Teachers
Too much of the professional development we do in schools is ineffective at promoting deep change. Consultants have terms for forms of professional learning that don’t create change in actual practice:
- The “spray and pray” approach, wherein leaders bring multiple consultants in briefly and intensively, hoping something will stick and offering little or no follow-up after learning experiences.
- The “drive by PD” approach, usually done through conferences and short workshops, which is even more brief and fleeting—and rarely sticks at all.
Too much professional learning doesn’t reflect what we hope educators will do with students, either; we lecture teachers on why active student-centered learning is important instead of creating learner-centered experiences for them, to help them see and feel the value. I go to a lot of conferences, and at the end of most I can count on one hand the number of presenters who offered opportunities for interaction or reflection. If leaders can’t walk the walk when we’re asking educators to shift their approaches, there’s little chance we’ll reach them. So, how might we shift the way we think about professional learning to ensure that educators don’t just learn about a given approach, but have the opportunity to ideate what it might look like, to apply it, to experiment with the possibilities, and to evaluate the results?
Jill Ackers notes that teachers need a lot of support around how to do whatever they’re being asked to work toward, not just understand why it matters. She believes that leaders often spend too long on the why when what serves teachers most in their day-to-day work is the how. In truth, teachers are rarely trained as learning experience designers during their preparation for the classroom; especially in states that script every move, teachers may never have been asked to design curriculum at all. Even in less scripted settings, teachers often rely on curriculum directors to design learning experiences for them, or they work from textbooks or other preexisting curricula.
Equity goals also require professional learning that prepares teachers to support all students, including how to personalize learning pathways, how to confront moments of discord in the classroom, and how to champion all identities. When educators don’t step up to handle these challenges, it is rarely because they don’t want to or don’t care—it’s because they simply don’t know how to handle the situations that arise in their classrooms. None of this is the fault of educators; fault belongs with the systems of rigid, standardized curriculum that only require them to follow instructions, and with teacher preparation programs that skip over the how far too often, especially when a region is facing a teacher shortage and just needs warm bodies in classrooms. Ultimately, I believe a deep understanding of the why is essential to transforming educators’ thinking, and that understanding how to get there is the only way they’ll succeed in practice.
Adapt Systems to Support Innovation and Implementation
When I offer professional learning experiences in schools, educators make similar comments, regardless of context, about the need to change their school’s systems if we want new kinds of learning to succeed. And they’re right—leaders have to adapt any systems that hinder this work, whether it’s adapting the schedule to create more collaborative planning time, using mixed-age groupings to meet students’ actual learning levels and needs, hiring
more teachers who share our students’ backgrounds so we can be more identity-responsive, or other systemic changes that allow teachers to succeed.
For example, a public school principal I’m working with in Texas finds that his teachers can offer very little autonomy or protagonism inside the classroom because the state curriculum is scripted and mandated down to the minute. As a result, his teachers only offer choice and autonomy for students who finish quickly, or at the end of the week when everything academic has been completed. Unfortunately, this means that learners who struggle may never experience choice, which creates a glaring inequity that can be solved by weaving autonomy and choice into the curriculum itself. However, a scripted curriculum can make this challenging; it may support a common baseline across teachers and schools, but it also keeps our most creative teachers from making learning more meaningful and student-centered. Whatever the systems that impede transformation at a school, leaders can’t just brush this off or assume teachers will find a way; adapting systems is an essential step toward supporting the success of our teachers—and our initiatives.
Thought leader Arnie Langberg notes that leaders should develop what he calls “disposable structures,” a strategy he learned from author and leadership pioneer Warren Bennis, who was Langberg’s thesis advisor in college. Bennis’s idea was to build disposability into structures from the start, watch for the end of their efficacy, and recheck regularly to see if those structures are still working as intended. If they aren’t, Langberg believes we should replace them with new, equally disposable structures—and if they work, we allow them to continue until they stop being effective.
As we look at some of the systems that support innovation and equity, think about your own community. Are there systems that currently impede your progress or that teachers see as obstacles to what you’ve asked of them? Are there cumbersome systems that have been in place for years, even though they don’t support new work? Which preexisting systems already support your initiatives, and which will need to change? Every school has its own obstacles to innovative, inclusive work, but even small systemic changes can make a difference for teachers.
Protect Your People When Opposition Arises
Opposition almost always arises when the stakes are high, and there are no higher stakes than those involved in educating young people and launching them toward success in life. But opposition faced alone can devastate a teacher and end a career. Sadly, almost every educator I know has stories of facing opposition without support from their leaders or colleagues, from small moments to intense, traumatic experiences that continue to haunt them decades later. There are laws that protect teachers in most parts of the world, and knowing their own rights can help teachers protect themselves from attacks, but many educators work in regions where the law puts them directly at risk, as do the tides of social and political thought. Good leaders stand up for their teachers—especially when they’re being attacked for practices connected to initiatives we’re asking them to prioritize.
In an informal conversation I had with educational pioneer Arnie Langberg decades ago when I first went into education, I asked how he got away with running a grade-free public school in a grade-oriented state and district. Langberg told me that he protected his teachers from even having to think about traditional expectations or public school law—and he did so by taking all of their authentic data and translating it into what the district needed to see. Langberg described this as the role of a leader: to make sure educators and learners don’t feel any of the pressures of the system by handling those pressures himself, serving as a sort of buffer between the school community and the district or state. This strikes me as a brilliant solution; Langberg wasn’t being dishonest or making something up for the district, but was translating authentic and qualitative data into the more quantitative outcomes district leaders demanded. Not only did this practice allow Langberg to protect his teachers from external demands, but it allowed his teachers to work from a place of authenticity all of the time—and to achieve a change in mindset that’s difficult when educators are aware of the potential ramifications. By having Langberg put his focus on accountability systems and legal obligations, teachers were free to ideate and experiment, to really listen to students’ interests and needs, and to keep their focus on learning and learners.
During my years as a school leader in Colombia, I made sure teachers knew I had their backs consistently, that I would never throw them under the bus or assume the worst about them. Part of this meant taking the heat myself—from the caregivers who disagreed with the pedagogical shifts and from those who agreed so fully that they critiqued every error as teachers learned to manage project-based learning. I insisted on viewing the faculty and staff through an asset lens; it may have seemed naïve at times, but it demonstrated my belief that all educators are doing their best under whatever circumstances they’re facing and deserve leaders’ protection as they learn to approach education differently.
Just as educators have a responsibility to safeguard the learners in their care, leaders are responsible for protecting and safeguarding our staff so they can do the hard work we’ve asked of them. It’s our job to support their continued learning and growth, to adapt our systems to support their success, and to protect them when the attacks come. Especially in such polarized times, the future of education depends on it.
Jennifer D. Klein is a product of experiential project-based education herself, and she lives and breathes the student-centered pedagogies used to educate her. She became a teacher during graduate school in 1990, quickly finding the intersection between her passion for writing and her fascination with educational transformation and its potential impact on social change. A former head of school with extensive international experience and over 30 years in education—including 19 in the classroom—Jennifer strives to amplify student voice, to provide the tools for high-quality project-based learning in all cultural and socio-economic contexts, and to shift school culture to support such practices. Motivated by her belief that all children deserve a meaningful, relevant education like the one she experienced herself, and that giving them such an education will catalyze positive change in their communities and beyond, Jennifer strives to inspire educators to shift their practices in schools worldwide.
Jennifer’s books include Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership: Doing Right by Learners Without Losing Your Job (2026), The Landscape Model of Learning: Designing Student-Centered Experiences for Cognitive and Cultural Inclusion (2022, coauthored with Kapono Ciotti), and The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K-12 Classrooms Worldwide through Equitable Partnerships (2017).
This article is adapted from Jennifer’s newest book, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership: Doing Right by Learners Without Losing Your Job.
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