Transforming the Urban Educator: The Power of Reflection and Its Effect on Teacher Perception, Essential Teaching Dispositions, and Teacher Leadership

To establish the grounds for successful cultural change, within a large urban middle school, members of a school elected Teacher Leadership Team (TLT) engaged in the collaborative sharing and analysis of personal cultural perceptions and essential teaching dispositions. Through the TLT inquiry support team, and their participation in perception interviews and personal narrative reflections, teacher leaders identified and prioritized the successes, challenges, and essential dispositions that are needed to begin the cultural change of Redwood Middle School. Through the implementation of a distributive leadership model, an increase in staff collaboration and support has already begun to plant the seed of positive change. This study proposes the further development of a school-wide distributive leadership model to guide and support the journey of cultural change. This collaborative ethnographic case study honors the educator as researcher, and it is through the sharing of perceptions and narratives that significant insight is gained to begin the process of a true school transformation.