Description
How teachers teach depends on their motivations, capacities, and the conditions under which they work. If the conditions in which they work are not supportive and caring, teachers have less incentive to teach at peak levels. As such, students who do not have supportive and caring classrooms have less incentive to perform and learn at levels at which they might be capable. Based on a groundbreaking study of “soft conditions” (i.e. supportive relationships; school climate) and their effects on teachers’ work, well-known author, Kenneth Leithwood, offers for school leaders a path toward building this important and often hidden infrastructure of quality teaching. School leaders will learn how to craft the conditions that support all their teachers so that teaching and learning, the work of schooling, can be conducted at maximum levels. Dr. Leithwood is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at OISE/University of Toronto. His research and writing concerns school leadership, educational policy and organizational change. Dr. Leithwood has published more than 70 referred journal articles, and authored or edited more than thirty books. For example, he is the senior editor of both the first and second International Handbooks on Educational Leadership and Administration (Kluwer Publishers, 1996, 2003). His most recent books (all with Corwin Press) include Leadership With Teachers’ Emotions In Mind (in press), Making Schools Smarter (3rd edition, 2006) and Teaching for Deep Understanding (2006). Among his current research projects is a large, five-year, Wallace Foundation study, with colleagues, aimed at determining how state, district and school-level leadership influences student learning. Dr. Leithwood is the recent recipient of the University of Toronto’s Impact on Public Policy award.
