Brittany, I really enjoyed hearing how your school is ran. I love that even though your principal is in "charge" that he/she does not dictate every little detail in how you teachers teach. I think it is very important for teachers to feel that they can teach and be confident in how they choose to instruct. I loved your statement that your principal gives you all the freedom and trust to make informed decisions. There are many places that do not have this type of freedom and I personally feel that belittles us as professionals when treated that way. Furthermore, it makes perfect sense that your school would least resemble authoritarian. I would not like to be in a school where I had no say so in how we taught. Teaching is professional, but it is also joyful and fun. However, an authoritarian style would take all joy from teaching for me. It makes me feel like the school would be grey clouds and rainy. Original Post: Brittany Holsigner The professional structure most closely resembles that of my school. Professional structure relies on highly trained professionals to carry out their own work. Although this professional structure has bureaucratic tendencies, in that large-scale decision making is typically centralized, the principal, it is not entirely bureaucratic. This professional structure is far less machine like in that professional ultimately have the ability to make informed decisions, because there is not complete centralized control. For example, at my school we have a lot of freedom when it comes to pacing our instruction. At the beginning of each school year our principal has us submit our pacing chart but does not dictate the outcome of the pacing chart so long as we have one. We are trained and knowledgeable professionals, and he believes we are capable of structure our own instruction. In that is just one example of many of how my school resembles professional structure. The authoritarian structure least resembles that of my school. In an authoritarian structure the leader dictates all the decisions and assumes complete control over all procedures. This type of structure does not allow for subordinates to make any decisions either for themselves or for the organization. This structure is not at all like my school, often my principal includes teachers in decision making, and never dictates what occurs in our classrooms, so long as we follow curriculum, maintain behavior, and carry out our basic duties. Like I previously stated, we are treated as professionals that are capable of making informed decisions. There are few organizations that the authoritarian structure would be beneficial, however a school is not one. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: < http://listserv.ohio.edu/pipermail/ous-lp-rp13/attachments/20180627/28d79145/attachment-0001.html >
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