Learning Is The Essence Of Education

Learning is the essence of education and serves as the catalyst in all decision-making for academic communities. School systems serve students, families, and the community and have the responsibility of providing learning opportunities that allow students to grow academically and socially as they prepare for adult life. Embedded in this undertaking is a responsibility for establishing the right “fit” between the school system’s goals and its people. Forming meaningful relationships and investing in deeper levels of understanding assist in providing a structure that embraces empowerment, support, open dialogue, and collaborative decision-making. Aligned with this structure is what Bolman and Deal (2013) referred to as the human resource frame that “centers on what organizations and people do to and for one another” (p.113). Grounded in this relationship between the organization and its people are core assumptions outlining that systems exist to serve people’s needs and that people and organizations need one another.
Understanding how interrelationships influence teaching and learning and honoring the complexities inherent in academic communities are critical for those serving at the division level. From the perspective of the human resource frame, three examples (division, school administration, and teacher/reading specialist) are provided within a balanced literacy scenario to capture the importance of shared leadership and decision-making in promoting employees’ professional growth in literacy instruction. People are the most important resources in a public school system, and as Hackman (2002) noted, one of the functions of leadership is setting direction for teams that is “challenging, energizes team members and generates ...

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...monthly professional learning for principals based on their needs assessments and group requests; and (b) monthly professional learning for reading specialists who devoted a year to the development of four literacy modules to be utilized county wide for job-embedded learning. As a result, stronger alignment existed between school improvement goals and division level goals based on collective understandings.
Conclusion
Forming meaningful relationships and investing in understanding perspectives are essential in the human resources frame. As provided in the scenario, strategically outlining processes for multiple groups through shared leadership and learning paved the way for intentional goal setting based on feedback from division leaders, school leaders, and teacher leaders. Continued efforts have resulted in tiered support systems based on individual needs.