Making Learning Communities Work: The Critical Role of Leader as Learner: New Directions for School Leadership #7

The literature is replete with calls for schools to become learning communities. As leaders, we are charged with creating organizations that enhance adult as well as student growth. We are reminded often that learning communities offer us an opportunity to take the lead and reform our schools from within. This issue is written by members of a community of learners who are deeply involved in an ongoing struggle of close to two decades to create environments in which adult growth flourishes. The authors invite you into their community as they share their personal struggles and successes as school leaders, professors, and leaders of professional development centers. You hear about the genesis of their gatherings, the elements they have come to cherish in their relationships, and the impact the community has had on their own professional and personal learning. Throughout the journey of common searching, incessant questioning, and sharing of life's turns, they challenge their beliefs about teaching and learning and their ability to live by these beliefs in their respective settings. The authors share conversations that have proved to be at the heart of their gathering together to learn from one another. This is the 7th issue of New Directions for School Leadership.