What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing. I discovered there are no school principals or leaders, per se. Instead there are headmasters at each school. As I sat in the headmaster's office on the island of Santorini on a beautiful spring day in March, I recognized all of the similarities of schooling around the world - classrooms, books, teachers and students. But this visit provided one glaring difference between the United States and Greek educational system.
Greek headmasters are neither responsible nor focused on instruction.
The responsibility for 'instructional leadership' is assigned to a state-employed curriculum expert that visits schools only a few times a year. Clearly, their headmasters are not meant to be instructional leaders, but American principals are. The role of 'instructional leader' by school administrators in the United States is a relatively new one. It emerged in the early 1980's. And school leaders continue to struggle with this role, even today.