Exploring Spirituality in the Teacher Leadership Role of Mentoring Through Collaborative Action Research

This paper reports on a collaborative action research project exploring spirituality in teacher leadership through the life world of a New Zealand Christian school principal. The participant focused on the teacher leadership role of mentoring colleagues towards more effective teaching practices and improvement in the Christian culture of the school community. The findings show that mentoring is a long term relational commitment that remains faithful to the Christian vision and values of the school. By modelling humility, compassion and a godly resolve to encourage quality Christian education, the principal witnessed transformation in teachers' practice and the culture of the learning community.  Spirituality in educational leadership has received renewed interest in New Zealand and internationally in the past decade (Wellman, Perkins Wellman, 2009; Gibson, 2014b; Ramirez, 2009) Tisdell (2001) an American professor of education and an educational researcher says, Spirituality is one of the ways people construct knowledge and meaning. It works in consort with the affective, the rational or cognitive, and the unconscious and symbolic domains. To ignore it, particularly in how it relates to teaching for personal and social transformation, is to ignore an important aspect of human experience and avenue of learning and meaning making.  The current New Zealand Curriculum document (Ministry of Education, 2007) continues this tradition by acknowledging the importance of spiritual wellbeing within the Health and Physical Education learning area. Specifically, it refers to a Maori term, 'taha wairua' literally meaning 'the spirit' within the concept of 'hauora' or holistic well being, which is said to lie "at the heart of this learning area" (p. 22) This curriculum document also emphasises values that are to be "encouraged, modelled and explored" (MOE, 2007, p. 10) The document states, "students will learn about different kinds of values, such as moral, social, cultural, aesthetic and economic values" (MOE, 2007, p. 10) Values are also widely acknowledged in literature as an integral aspect of people's meaning making of spirituality (Conrad Brown, 2006; Gibson, 2011a) It is also noteworthy that the Education Council New Zealand, Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers (2015, p. 1) states that teachers will among other things, "promote the physical, emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual well being of learners." These examples of state education literature take an inclusive view of what spirituality means, reflecting the pluralistic, religious and secular nature of New Zealand society. These background considerations support the presupposition that spirituality in teacher leadership remains a meaningful and relevant topic for today's schools. Spirituality in teacher leadership Following research into spirituality in principal leadership (Gibson, 2011c) spirituality in teacherleadership within Christian schools has emerged as an under researched topic within our national education system. Spirituality is a complex and controversial human phenomenon with widely differing philosophical, sacred and secular arguments being presented in the literature (Waaijman, 2002) From a theoretical perspective the author does not conflate religion with spirituality. However, for many people spirituality is juxtaposed with religious, ontological and epistemological meanings and in part, defined by their socialisation within religious organisations (Gibson, 2011c) This article takes an inclusive stance that spirituality can include theistic, supernatural and transcendent TEACHR TEACHjournal 10 1.indd 33 28/06/2016 9:50 am 34 TEACH v10 n1 v10 n1 TEACH 35 Educational Administration " "This paper asserts an important distinction between spirituality in leadership and spiritual leadership. understandings linked to religious beliefs and sacred text. This pre supposition is in contrast to a humanistic world view, which excludes the existence of theistic and supernatural reality (American Humanist Association, 2003) There is a growing body of literature which explores theoretical and experiential dimensions to spiritual leadership (Flintham, 2003;  2005;  2007; Walker McPhail, 2009) This paper asserts an important distinction between spirituality in leadership, and spiritual leadership. As such, spirituality in leadership invites teacher leaders to "integrate personal meanings of spirituality into their preferred leadership practice in appropriate ways for their own well being and the well being of everyone in their school community" (Gibson, 2011c, p. 39) This does not imply perfection and acknowledges that mistakes can be valuable contexts for spirituality in leadership to be developed and expressed (Gibson, 2014a) In terms of leadership, there are numerous types and styles that might characterise a teacherleader and these have been well documented in the literature for several decades. For example: servant leadership, moral and authentic leadership, relational and transformational leadership (Beattie, 2002; Branson, 2007; Burch, Swails Mills, 2015; Dyer, 2001; Quin, Deris, Bischoff Johnson, 2015) It is important to note that such leadership styles are not completely distinct, for they share common characteristics. They also inter connect with discourse on spirituality in leadership in their beliefs, values and intentions. Dent, Higgins and Wharff, (2005, p. 628) claim there are "many similarities between workplace spirituality theory and leadership theory" based on the fact that there are many "dynamic dimensions or contexts for describing and measuring the phenomenon that closely resemble one another." Furthermore, teacher leadership may be engaged through a number of strands. For example, through modelling the way in a curriculum area, managing student behaviour and restorative justice processes, mapping out the curriculum for a team, moulding the climate and culture of the school community, mediating between disaffected people, mentoring colleagues and students, building a sense of membership among teams and syndicates, and ministering to pastoral needs of people within the organisation (Gibson, 2011a) Through such strands teacherleadership contributes towards shaping and influencing teaching colleagues, school policies and programmes, student participation and performance, and the organisational culture and climate of the school community. Principals also engage in teacher leadership roles directly through mentoring and indirectly by providing effective leadership in administrative and management practices, provision of timely and appropriate professional development for teachers, and in building a cohesive successful school learning community (Gibson, 2011a) Spirituality in teacher leadership therefore, can have multiple, situated meanings interwoven through the personal and professional beliefs, values, attitudes and actions of participants as they enact and embody their praxis in the life of the school (Ramirez, 2009) Within Christian school contexts, spirituality in teacher leadership implies living the virtues and dispositions of a disciple of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 16:24; Acts 11:26) It also implies that Christian teacher leaders will authentically integrate into their practice biblical Christian teachings (Van Brummelen, 2009) These assumptions are supported within the biblical story. For example, Galatians 5:22 25 refers to walking in and bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and 2 Peter 1:5 8 emphasises seven characteristics followers of Christ are enjoined to diligently add to their faith. Furthermore, the desire to integrate Christian spirituality into teacher leadership would ideally be motivated by love and service to God (Matthew 22:37) to walk worthy of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 1:10) and to encourage others to be Christ minded (Philippians 2:1 16) Mentoring teachers Mentoring of teachers is understood in the research literature as a reciprocal, relational and reflective process which may be formal or informal, one onone, collaborative and even a community endeavour (Bynum, 2015; Newby Heide, 2013) Shillingstad, McGlamery, Davis and Gilles (2015, p. 2) write, "Teacher leaders who step into the role of mentor face significant responsibilities. Within these multifaceted roles, mentors encounter triumphs and challenges." Mentoring teachers is complex, as each teacher is unique with unique contextual variables in terms of their professional experiences, current teaching responsibilities, knowledge, skills and dispositions. The levels of support, guidance, and direction, as well as the ways in which mentoring might occur, will therefore need to be differentiated. Yet there will be times when mentors can model pedagogy or inquiry processes within a group setting. Mentoring teachers is different to teaching children and requires an awareness of the adult learning approaches. The value of mentoring of teachers on student learning outcomes is supported in the literature (e.g. Newby Heide, 2013) Power TEACHjournal 10 1.indd 34 28/06/2016 9:50 am 34 TEACH v10 n1 v10 n1 TEACH 35 Educational Administration " "asks participants to be intentional, systematic, ethical, vulnerable, and have a psychological and spiritual readiness for transformation relationships, motivational factors, and the mentor approach (whether authoritarian or democratic) will also impact on the engagement of the mentee (Wolfensperger, 2010) Research methodology and design Methodologically, this research project is understood within an interpretive, constructivist paradigm of how knowledge is derived. It includes aspects of phenomenology, in which Laverty (2003, p. 8) observes, "the biases and assumptions of the researcher are not bracketed or set aside, but rather are embedded as essential in the interpretive process." Interpretivism links well with the systematic, cyclic