Page 30 - Mini-Module 7

Conclusions and Implications

This study investigated secondary school teachers’ perceptions about
teacher leadership and its role in promoting school revitalisation.
Teachers’ perceptions formed the basis of the study because these can
shed new light on teacher capacities to develop a new kind of
professionalism and collective leadership based on mutual trust,
recognition, empowerment, and support. Such capacities — namely
personal, interpersonal, and organisational capacities — are
interconnected with organisational learning conducive to a school
culture of professional learning communities. Only by attaining such
capacity can schools secure and sustain continuous improvement.

This study illuminated four issues about teacher leadership and school
revitalisation.

First, teacher leadership is a blend of personality and chemistry arising
from teachers’ responses to developments not only within, but also
outside the educational context. Whether teacher leadership can
contribute to secondary school revitalisation in Hong Kong depends on
a reciprocal process that builds capacity at the personal, interpersonal,
and organisational levels.
Second, teacher leadership can contribute to secondary school
revitalisation when both teacher leaders and their principal engage
together through parallel leadership for improved student learning.

Third, both school reculturing and school restructuring are
prerequisites of school revitalisation.

Fourth, the culture in which teachers find themselves has a strong
impact on the extent of leadership they exercise.
Given such findings, teacher leadership cannot be nurtured or
sustained in a system with different definitions of teachers’ roles in
terms of school development or improvement. A review of the current
teacher development programs as well as principal training courses in
Hong Kong is much needed, so that teacher leadership identity can be
constructed in an enabling culture at different levels.

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