School Based - Management... by Noralyn M. Mimbisa

My classmate Maribel Ybanez shared her expertise on the topic School Based – Management. Through her discussion she pointed out that it is an approach to redesign and gives the local school participants --- educators, parents, students and the community – at – large – the power to improve the school. With this new set up of our educational system, it decentralizes the control from the central office to individual school. It is an advantage for the school constituents to have more control over what is happening in school.

The teacher is the one who molds a child into what he will be on the future. When a student is ready to pursue for a higher degree of education and specialization, it is still the teacher who is guiding the child to attain his dreams and expectations. Teachers facilitate student learning and with School – Based Management, the new role of the principal is redirected as a facilitator or manager of change. He needs to motivate and inspire the entire people involve in the teaching – learning process.

I want to focus on how a teacher can make School – Based Management successful. I started going to school when I was five years old, I can’t remember the exact lessons that I had in the past nor how our principal disciplined us, but as far as I know it helped me with who I am right now. It’s a funny thing to share that I can still remember my favorite and worst teachers since they have a big impact in my life. I always hear everybody’s saying that teaching is a profession. What is a profession? It simply refers to an occupation. So why am I here?

I never dreamed to become a teacher but now I feel so blessed to be part of the Graduate Studies of Capitol University because I saw the beauty and essence of being a teacher. I believe that there is no other profession greater than teaching. Without teacher, there will be no engineers, doctors, lawyers, politicians and a lot of profession will not exist without the teacher and the teaching process. As an aspiring teacher I should be able to deal with students with different abilities and should also be able to deal with learning disabilities. The increasing use of technology, specifically the rise of the internet over the past decade has begun to shape the way teachers approach their role in the classroom. But I believe that the best technology is still the teacher alone. I was given a chance to interview teachers who are in the teaching profession for many years. I am inspired with their stories and that motivated me to really push through. Sometimes I feel like giving up because of the many requirements that I have but still at the end of the day I smile because I feel happy knowing that after all these hardships and sacrifices I’ll be a great teacher someday.

Right now, my mind is set to work hard for my future students that I’ll be molding to become a productive individual. As early as now I should instill in my mind that my main focus is to help the students understand concept and go beyond the knowledge level to higher levels of thinking. Helping students to learn is the challenge for all teachers. Identifying effective teaching strategies, therefore it is my challenge as I will assess in the future the effectiveness of my current teaching style and consider an innovative ways to improve my teaching to match my students’ learning styles. Whether you’re a principal or a teacher, you’re one of the main factors that can affect the teaching – learning process. We need to encourage ourselves to be involved and make professional development an ongoing school – wide activity.

The success of the students is also the success of the parents, principal as well as the teacher. The main stakeholder of the school is the student, as an educational leader we need to meet their expectations and let them explore the beauty of education.

Melchie Ignacio's Reflection on School Leadership

School leadership is the process of enlisting and guiding the talents and energies of teachers, pupils, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. We can have strong and successful school if we also obtain strong administrators. Generally, we associate school leadership with school administrators. People in these positions are in charge of making decisions, which run the school.

School leader are not merely focuses on the administrators. It is because leadership entails a number of different parts and can come from any position in the school. Teachers can also provide leadership in their classroom and through activities and other extracurricular activities. Even students can provide leadership in certain situations such as club’s president, a point guard for a basketball team, or a class officer. To have a good school leadership, all people need to be willing to share responsibility and power. There should always be a distribution of tasks and responsibilities among each members of a school organization. With this, we can discover hidden talents from our teachers and students as well as from the parents.

This distribution of power can lead to trust between staff and administration. This trust emerges when administrators and teachers work together to benefit the school. With the trust between leader and follower, good school leadership will also have excellent communication. Effective leaders need to communicate and problem-solve. Having good communication and social skills and having a good plan can make leadership easier and solving problems smoother. It is because all members of the school organization is considered very important and their ideas and opinion helps in solving problem that may arise in school.

The Making of strong and successful schools.... by Melchie Y. Ignacio

School leadership is the process of enlisting and guiding the talents and energies of teachers, pupils, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. We can have strong and successful school if we also obtain strong administrators. Generally, we associate school leadership with school administrators. People in these positions are in charge of making decisions, which run the school.

School leaders are not merely focuses on the administrators. It is because leadership entails a number of different parts and can come from any position in the school. Teachers can also provide leadership in their classroom and through activities and other extracurricular activities. Even students can provide leadership in certain situations such as club’s president, a point guard for a basketball team, or a class officer. To have a good school leadership, all people need to be willing to share responsibility and power. There should always be a distribution of tasks and responsibilities among each members of a school organization. With this, we can discover hidden talents from our teachers and students as well as from the parents.

This distribution of power can lead to trust between staff and administration. This trust emerges when administrators and teachers work together to benefit the school. With the trust between leader and follower, good school leadership will also have excellent communication. Effective leaders need to communicate and problem-solve. Having good communication and social skills and having a good plan can make leadership easier and solving problems smoother. It is because all members of the school organization is considered very important and their ideas and opinion helps in solving problem that may arise in school.

Models of Educational Leadership... by Melchie Y. Igancio

Among the many types of models in educational leadership, the transactional and political leadership caught my attention the most. According to Bush ( 2003 ) definition of transactional leadership is leadership in which relationships with teachers are based upon an exchange for some valued resource. While in the book of Miller ( 2001 ) he defines transactional leadership as an exchange process. This type of leadership is not just existing in the world of education but very visible in politics and in our individual lives or family.

In our daily lives in school, sometimes without knowing it we are already practicing this type of leadership model. One concrete example to this is that we are assigning our teachers to handle a certain department because we believe that he/she would excel and would bring his/her best on that department. It is because he/she is good in that department. We give teachers specific assignment because we are expecting something from them in return.

In our personal lives, this transactional leadership is also being practiced. When we are choosing our set of friends we are practicing this kind of leadership. It is because we want to be in a good circle of friends rather than to be bad citizens of the community if we mingle with people who bring problem to the community. In this way we are doing the exchange process.

In the political aspect, transactional leadership is very rampant. Election is the visible example of this kind of leadership. Its already a common fact that vote buying is always happening during elections. Politicians spending million amount of money to buy for a vote for them to win. When they are already in the position surely they would get the million worth of money they used during election from the government funds. Money that is intended for a certain project in the community will be converted as personal money.

Leadership & Management (Melchie Y. Ignacio)

According to study , educational system will not function effectively with weak school administration. In my own point of view the study is definitely correct because educational system would always be successful when effective administrators are working out for it. Before a certain goal would become successful leaders or managers must possesses not just the leadership skills but must also have a managerial skills. Both skills must always be present to attain specific goal.

Leadership is said to be the heart of every goal while management is said to the brain of every goal that is needed to be achieved. The essence of leadership means inspiring the group to come together for a common goal. Leaders would always motivate, console and work with people to keep them bonded and eager to move forward. It means setting a direction , communicating it to everyone who will listen and keeping people psyched when times get tough. On the other hand, managers considered to be the brain of a common goal. They established systems, create rules and operating procedures. They are the one responsible for putting into place incentives program and the like. Management however is about the business, not the people. The people only important in getting the job done.

In our education system, school administrators must have a mix leadership and management skills. Both skills sets are necessary to run a successful educational institution. It is because leadership skills provide the directions, while management skills provide a system that let the school or company grew with success. Setting directions is different is different from setting a goal. A goal is concrete and measurable while direction is broader. Leaders set directions with a vision, mission, and operating principles that embody the institution’s directions and values.

In leading, school administrators uses the heart while the head will be used in managing. In leading there is no assigned specific formula while managing there is specific formula to be followed as to the success of every goal.

40th Foundation Day

The gathering of CU Graduate Students last Sunday, February 13 during the 40th Foundation Day was worthwhile especially with the interesting topic shared by Dr. Tonton Penaso, one of the 10 Outstanding CU Alumni.Really its nice to listen to inspiring thoughts, even if it was considered "very elementary" by the speaker, but indeed, these are lessons for all ages, for all peoples, for all times. Positive ATTITUDE really counts to become effective leaders.

EDAD 204 Students' blogsites

For us all to visit the sites of your classmates:

http://theleaderiwanttobe.blogspot.com/2011/01/leadership-models.html (Grace D. Suminguit)

http://melrivas.blogspot.com/2011/01/distinguishing-leadership-and.html (Melissa Rivas)

http://www.facebook.com/l/266acWduIflPBUpX-TLfrZXnN7g;mariamercy84.blogspot.com (Maria Mercy N. Cero)