Defining the Teacherpreneur (excerpt from Teacherpreneurs)

7/27/2019 Defining the Teacherpreneur (excerpt from Teacherpreneurs)

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CHAPTER 2

Defining the Teacherpreneur

Teacher leadership is the present. Teacherpreneurism is the future.Jose Vilson

I f you Google the term teacherpreneur, youll get about 17,500 results. So the word,a combination of teacherand entrepreneur, has some lexiconic lift. For us, theword teacherpreneurrepresents the bold concept that teachers can continue to teach

while having time, space, and incentives to incubate big pedagogical and policy ideas

and execute them in the best interests of both their students and their teaching

colleagues. It is a word expressing our hope that teachers will no longer be isolated in

individual classrooms with the doors closed, a phenomenon often characterized by

sociologists as schools egg-crate organization. It is also a word communicating our

expectation that teachers will no longer be controlled by meddlesome advocates and

rigid bureaucrats.

For the last several years, our ever-expanding vision for teacherpreneurism has

been growing, in large part due to ideas from and increasing interest in our

previous book, Teaching 2030. The animated video linked in the following

paragraph highlights the big ideas of the book. Written by Barnett and twelve

expert teachers from the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) Collaboratory, the

book transcends the typical debates among todays school reformers, union

leaders, and politicians while carving out powerful solutions for how to best

organize teaching, learning, and schooling.

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TEACHERENTREPRENEURTEACHERPRENEUR

Deliberating in our conference room backin 2009, the word teacherpreneurcaptured

our imagination. It is a word that brings

together concepts from what are usually

entirely separate lines of thinkingthe

dedicated, student-focused teacher and

the innovative, ambitious entrepreneur.

We all were comfortable with the

word teacher. And why not? Among

the thirteen coauthors, only one of us(Barnett) had not taught for many dec-

ades. Everyone else was a practicing

teacher, and the combined pedagogical

experience in the room was well over two hundred

years. So what about the word entrepreneur, a term

foreign to many who teach and work in the public

sector? A common dictionary definition refers to

one who organizes, manages, and assumes the

risks of a business or enterprise.1

Most teachers readily proclaim that they teach

because of their commitment to students, not their

pay. As Teaching 2030 coauthor Jose Vilson wrote:

Right now, teachers across the nation are going above and beyond our respon-

sibilities to benefit our students: developing online professional learning com-

munities, fine-tuning our schools curricula, and connecting students families to

community resources. What if accomplished educators jobs could be restruc-

tured, enabling us to use and spread our expertise in innovative ways while also

keeping one foot in the classroom?2

We were quick to recognize that entrepreneurs take risks in making decisions

about what to do and how it is going to be done. They launch new initiatives and

accept full responsibility for the results. The coauthors all agreed, We do this all the

time. Entrepreneurs are self-reliant and highly optimistic. They are idea generators.

They work outside the lines. They are mobilizers.

Teaching 2030

http://bit.ly/Q2AM25

What if accomplished educators

jobs could be restructured, ena-

bling us to use and spread our

expertise in innovative ways while

also keeping one foot in the

classroom?Jose Vilson

Defining the Teacherpreneur 17


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Two famous entrepreneurs, living in two distinct eras, point to the heart of

entrepreneurism. Thomas Edison made the point that entrepreneurs focus on what

the world needs, then . . . [proceed] to invent it.3 Steve Jobss entrepreneurism has

Figure 2.1

In Teaching 2030, written by Barnett Berry and twelve teacher leaders,

teacherpreneurs are considered integral to the transformation of our

nations public schools.

Cover image Teachers College Press, 2011. Used with permission.

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been characterized by his ability to make connections as well as create insanely

different experiences and master the message.4 The creative process of entrepre-

neurism demands some definitive degree of rule breaking.

What if we took the best thinking and imagery of the two worlds and literally

illustrated what the teaching profession could be

and how we could get there, withteacherpreneurs as the centerpiece of the transformation? What if we, unlike the

2013 South by Southwest Education Conference, jettisoned the idea that the worlds

of teachers and entrepreneurs are distinctly divided?5

Much of what we discussed at our TEACHING 2030 retreat (from which the

graphic note taking shown here emerged) focused on shifting away from the current

one-way conversation in school reform between school reformers and those in the

classroom who must implement their mandates. With teacherpreneurs in the mix,

this no longer would be the case. They would finally disprove the myth that teachers

are born and not made

and lead a revolution in how America invests in those whoteach young people. We know of and work with many teacher leaders who use their

knowledge of students as well as teaching and learning to dream, think, plan, act, and

react like entrepreneursand turn the rigid, pyramid-like organizational structure of

schools upside down.

Rick Hess reminds us that the work of education entrepreneurism requires a mix

ofseasoning and experience on the one hand, and energy and a fresh perspective

on the other.6 But unlike education entrepreneurs so in vogue today, teacherpreneurs

still work with students on a regular basis, always drawing on their everyday

experiences with children and adolescents as they design and develop as well asmobilize and transform systems of teaching and learning. As we wrote in Teaching

2030:

We see teacherpreneurs, not primarily as marketers [of their own ideas], but as

expert practitioners who are paid to spread their ideas and approaches as virtual

mentors, teacher educators, community organizers, and policy as well as action

researchers. The purpose in creating teacherpreneurs is not to identify super

teacherswho will make a lot more money, but to empower expert teachers who

can elevate the entire profession by making sure that colleagues, policymakers,

and the public know what works best for students.7

Ultimately, teacherpreneurism is not so much about establishing a new income

stream for individuals as it is about promoting and spreading a new culture of

collective innovation and creativity in a sectoreducationthat has been woefully

lacking in one. What is more, it is about calling on a group of professionals who have

been vastly underusedteachersto establish that culture.



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Figure

2.

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mapsuggests,teacherpreneurswouldbethedesigner

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thinkers,

talentmaximizers,andb

ridgebuildersinthetransf

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We know very well that the history of the teaching occupation includes long-standing

control by laymen, a lack of clarity and rigor in the process of becoming a teacher, and

limited prestige and incomerestricting the professional possibilities for its members.8

When it comes to fostering teacherpreneurism, teachers should not have to face the

dilemma of choosing either to teach as hired hands or to lead as professionals.Over the last ten years, as our virtual community of teacher leaders in the

Collaboratory has grown (from forty in early 2003 to over two thousand in 2013), we

have come to know many who have the right stuff to be teacherpreneurs. What

follows are the faces of teacherpreneurism.

THE FACES OF TEACHERPRENEURISMWe could shine a spotlight on almost any of the thousands of teacher leaders who

have been engaged with CTQ over the years. This book focuses primarily on eight of

them (including two, Noah Zeichner and Jessica Keigan, whom we supported asteacherpreneurs in the 20112012 school year).

We chose these eight because they teach in some of the most challenging urban

and rural school systems in America (see Appendix A for a group resume). They are

terrific teachers and have results, measured in a variety of ways, to show it; they are

experienced, and have used that experience to deepen and widen their expertise. All

of them care deeply for their students and their profession. But above all, we chose

them because they are representative of so many other teacher leaders like them who

can and should be given more opportunities to lead.

These teachers have started their own teacher-ledschool; designed and fueled new performance pay

systems; hosted a public television show on math

and science; spread bold pedagogical and policy

ideas through award-winning blogs; led efforts to

globalize curricula for schools and districts; created

powerful peer review programs to revolutionize

teacher evaluation; founded grassroots youth devel-

opment initiatives; launched a vanguard effort to

sharedigitally recordedimages of teaching for others

to view online and critique; engaged in efforts to transcend cantankerous teacher

evaluation debates; and served as directors of boards of venerable nonprofits, such as

the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

They range in age from their early thirties to their early sixties. Collectively they

blow away so many of the myths that fill todays school reform space, such as the

thinking that older, more experienced and traditionally trained educators can neither

The purpose in creating teacher-

preneurs is not to identify super

teacherswho will make a lot more

money, but to empower expert

teachers who can . . . [make] sure

that colleagues, policymakers, and

the public know what works best

for students.


Documents

Defining the Teacherpreneur (excerpt from Teacherpreneurs)