Lead learner or head teacher? exploring connections between curriculum, leadership and evaluation in an ‘age of measurement’

Abstract

While ‘head teacher’ is still a prominent designation in many countries, there has been a tendency over the past two decades to refer to those ‘in charge’ of schools with a number of other words, most recently, that of lead learner. While one could say that these are ‘only words’ they nonetheless have a significant impact on how the position, role and responsibility of the head teacher is being understood. This chapter analyzes these conceptual shifts and the impact they have on perceptions, identities and relationship. For instance, the idea of lead learner fits within the ongoing ‘learnification’ (Biesta GJJ, Good education in an age of measurement: ethics, politics, democracy. Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, 2010a; Biesta GJJ, Stud Philos Educ 29(5), 491–503, Biesta 2010b) of educational thought and practice, that educational endeavours are increasingly being understood through a language of learning, learners – and now also lead learners. While the notion of the lead learner suggests democratic and empowering relationships, I will argue – mainly informed by a ‘Continental’ understanding of education (i.e. German ‘kritische Pädagogik’ and Philippe Meirieu’s French educational thought) – for the need to reclaim the idea of the head teacher, in order to highlight that the responsibility of the head teacher is fundamentally an educational one, one that can only be accessed and conceptualized in terms of an updated understanding of curriculum/teaching.