Robert J. Starratt – författare

Hur kan skolledaren utveckla sitt arbete till att gälla mer än de rent tekniska dimensionerna? Utbildningsledarskap medför ett ansvar att erbjuda alla elever en lärandemiljö av god kvalitet. I boken presenteras de tre grundläggande dygderna ansvar, autenticitet och närvaro samt en kreativ modell för det praktiska arbetet.

Författaren levandegör problematiken genom den fiktiva berättelsen om en rektor som kämpar för att på bästa sätt hantera den orimliga och ofta orättvisa press som lärare och elever utsätts för.

Sagt om bokenStarratts inflytande över kunskapsfältet etiskt ledarskap har gjort honom till en av de stora och betydelsefulla forskarna inom området. Han har påverkat teoriutvecklingen kring värderingars roll och etikens betydelse för ledarskap och även utvecklat tankar om hur dessa begrepp ska och kan användas i praktiskt ledarskap." Olof Johansson, professor, Umeå universitet

Om författarenRobert J. Starratt undervisar i pedagogik vid Boston College. Han har skrivit flera böcker och artiklar om betydelsen av etik och moral i undervisningen.

Starratt’s highly original book offers fresh insights into the nature of teaching, learning, schooling as a multi-cultural, social enterprise, and the importance of vision for that leadership—by using the analogy of drama. Schooling is a preparation to participate in the social drama, both as an individual and as a community. Beyond participation, schooling can enable youngsters to maintain and restore the human purposes of the social drama. This unique book accommodates present critics of schools from both the left and the right, but goes beyond them to offer a script for restoring the schools to their human and social purposes.

Starratt’s highly original book offers fresh insights into the nature of teaching, learning, schooling as a multi-cultural, social enterprise, and the importance of vision for that leadership—by using the analogy of drama. Schooling is a preparation to participate in the social drama, both as an individual and as a community. Beyond participation, schooling can enable youngsters to maintain and restore the human purposes of the social drama. This unique book accommodates present critics of schools from both the left and the right, but goes beyond them to offer a script for restoring the schools to their human and social purposes.

Refocusing School Leadership departs from the more traditional conceptualization of leadership, looking behind the daily routines of human resource leaders to highlight the assumptions and values and beliefs they bring to their work as well as the values and meanings embedded in the various contexts of school life. Starratt explores how educational leadership is grounded in one’s own humanity as well as in a deep appreciation of the richness, complexity, and enormous potential of people, and he attempts to restore the centrality of human development in the work of educating the young—education is not simply about educating minds, but about developing whole persons. Starratt argues for a refocusing of educational leadership on affirming and enabling those talents, dispositions, interests, life experiences, and cultural proficiencies that comprise their humanity to enrich the work of learning. The vision of the school should speak of the extraordinary possibilities for human achievement in our young people, as well as the talents of their teachers to nurture those possibilities. Starratt’s focus on leadership as human resource development will energize the efforts of faculty, staff, and students to improve the quality of learning—the primary work of schools. This book is a valuable resource to prepare aspiring leaders, whether administrators or teachers, to deal with the way schools are currently run and to imagine and create better ways to promote quality learning for all.

Refocusing School Leadership departs from the more traditional conceptualization of leadership, looking behind the daily routines of human resource leaders to highlight the assumptions and values and beliefs they bring to their work as well as the values and meanings embedded in the various contexts of school life. Starratt explores how educational leadership is grounded in one’s own humanity as well as in a deep appreciation of the richness, complexity, and enormous potential of people, and he attempts to restore the centrality of human development in the work of educating the young—education is not simply about educating minds, but about developing whole persons. Starratt argues for a refocusing of educational leadership on affirming and enabling those talents, dispositions, interests, life experiences, and cultural proficiencies that comprise their humanity to enrich the work of learning. The vision of the school should speak of the extraordinary possibilities for human achievement in our young people, as well as the talents of their teachers to nurture those possibilities. Starratt’s focus on leadership as human resource development will energize the efforts of faculty, staff, and students to improve the quality of learning—the primary work of schools. This book is a valuable resource to prepare aspiring leaders, whether administrators or teachers, to deal with the way schools are currently run and to imagine and create better ways to promote quality learning for all.

Often the school is left as an institution seemingly ethically neutral, leaving untouched questions about whether the school itself is a site of injustice toward both educators and children. Springing from his well-known Building an Ethical School, Robert J. Starratt now looks more closely at the educational leader’s responsibility to ensure that the whole fabric of the educational process reflects an ethical philosophy of education. Starratt argues that the work of educating young people is by its very nature an ethical work as well as an intellectual work, and that this work inescapably engages educators and their pupils with an academic curriculum, a social curriculum, and a civic curriculum. Cultivating an Ethical School lays a foundation for educators seeking to cultivate a comprehensive ethical educating environment. The second half of the book then takes up the more specific perspectives on teaching and learning that constitute the heart of cultivating an ethical school. Starratt provides examples of how an ethical school can expose students to a variety of perspectives on the challenges they will be called upon to face in the worlds of culture, nature, and society. This valuable book shows leaders and educators the importance of organizing a curriculum and a pedagogy that simultaneously respect and cultivate the intellectual, personal, and social qualities of being human.

Often the school is left as an institution seemingly ethically neutral, leaving untouched questions about whether the school itself is a site of injustice toward both educators and children. Springing from his well-known Building an Ethical School, Robert J. Starratt now looks more closely at the educational leader’s responsibility to ensure that the whole fabric of the educational process reflects an ethical philosophy of education. Starratt argues that the work of educating young people is by its very nature an ethical work as well as an intellectual work, and that this work inescapably engages educators and their pupils with an academic curriculum, a social curriculum, and a civic curriculum. Cultivating an Ethical School lays a foundation for educators seeking to cultivate a comprehensive ethical educating environment. The second half of the book then takes up the more specific perspectives on teaching and learning that constitute the heart of cultivating an ethical school. Starratt provides examples of how an ethical school can expose students to a variety of perspectives on the challenges they will be called upon to face in the worlds of culture, nature, and society. This valuable book shows leaders and educators the importance of organizing a curriculum and a pedagogy that simultaneously respect and cultivate the intellectual, personal, and social qualities of being human.

The author argues for much greater attention to ethical education and responds to sceptics who say that it can't be done in the face of a pluralistic secular society badly fragmented over values. Seeking always for themes and issues that unite rather than divide, the author provides a conceptual foundation for ethical education broad enough for building consensus among teachers and parents, yet focused enough to provide guidance for highly specific learning activities. The second half of the book takes the reader through a carefully devised series of steps by which a school community might proceed in building their ethical school. The final chapter reminds of the many difficulties to be met along the way, but offers encouragement to strengthen the resolve of the school community. The book concludes with two helpful appendices: the first provides detailed information on exiting initiatives already underway in ethical education, the second offers an annotated bibliography of books and essays which are available for those educators who need or want to read more on the topic of ethical education.

Robert Starratt, a teacher of people in leadership positions, presents the foundations for the theory of leadership. Based on a framework divided into building blocks, various concepts of leadership such as values, change, power and structure are explained and analyzed, and ways of incorporating them into school management are addressed. He presents a picture of leadership as a variety of disciplines - history, philosophy, psychology, politics, sociology, theology - amongst others, and with the idea that the student of leadership must be one of change.; This text is primarily intended for headmasters, education managers and administrators, students and lecturers in education and philosophers of education.

Robert Starratt, a teacher of people in leadership positions, presents the foundations for the theory of leadership. Based on a framework divided into building blocks, various concepts of leadership such as values, change, power and structure are explained and analyzed, and ways of incorporating them into school management are addressed. He presents a picture of leadership as a variety of disciplines - history, philosophy, psychology, politics, sociology, theology - amongst others, and with the idea that the student of leadership must be one of change.; This text is primarily intended for headmasters, education managers and administrators, students and lecturers in education and philosophers of education.

In Ethical Leadership, Robert Starratt—one of the leading thinkers on the topic of ethics and education—shows educational leaders how to move beyond mere technical efficiency in the delivery and performance of learning. He challenges educators to become ethical leaders who understand the learning process as a profoundly moral activity that engages the full humanity of the school community. Starratt explains that educational leadership requires a moral commitment to high quality learning for all students—a commitment based on three essential virtues: proactive responsibility; personal and professional authenticity; and an affirming, critical, and enabling presence to the workers and the work involved in teaching and learning. He clarifies how essential these virtues are for leadership in the pressure-cooker of high-stakes schooling.  He provides vivid illustration by beginning and ending the book with a "morality play," the narrative of a principal who struggles to do the right thing for his students and teachers, as they are pressured—and often punished—by state mandated tests.  Starratt concludes by offering practical suggestions for working leaders as well as preservice and inservice courses in educational leadership. This book is a volume in the Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in Education—a series designed to meet the demand for new ideas and insights about leadership in schools.

In this book, Starratt enters the national conversation among educational administration scholars and practitioners about what constitutes the core of their knowledge and practice. In Part I, he develops three main themes--cultivating meaning, community, and moral responsibility--which he then positions against national themes about the core of educational administration: school improvement, democratic community, and social justice. Rather than focusing on the routine managerial tasks normally associated with school administration (budgeting, personnel and legal problems, time and resource management, etc.), this text asks aspiring school leaders to reflect first on the underlying philosophical and sociological perspectives that constitute the substance of administrative work in education. Centering Educational Administration provides: *A Unique Perspective on Leadership--The author views leadership as organically related to teaching and learning, as concerned with internal capacity building in response to state-imposed accountability pressures, and as an existential process of writing one's autobiography through their day-to-day work.*An Interdisciplinary View of Educational Administration--Centering Educational Administration asks educational administrators to bring contemporary philosophical, ethical, and anthropological issues, as well as learning theory, social theory, and political theory into their thinking about the daily operation of the school.*A Unique Perspective on School Improvement--This text asserts that school improvement narrowly defined as improving results on high-stakes tests can likewise place the nation at risk. An equally important agenda is teaching the young the basic satisfactions, norms, and potential of using their knowledge in the service of the community and of a wider humanity.*Exercises in Reflective Practice--This book challenges the reader to use the ideas of each chapter to analyze the current practices in their school and to propose concrete changes to improve the teaching and learning environment of their school.