292 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind
strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is building the
capacity of school personnel to function as a professional learning com-
munity” (DuFour & Eaker, 2004 p. xi). However, teachers often don’t feel
they see things change “for the better when they come together to work
with each other.” As a result, they become ever more cautious about step-
ping outside their classrooms yet again. Dennis Sparks (2005), the former
executive director of the National Staff Development Council, writes of
the “resignation and dependency” that teachers often feel in the face of
change. The pervasive feeling among many educators is that “nothing is
going to change” and that “the principal should do something” (p. ix)
instead of taking action themselves. Researchers from DuFour and Eaker
to Fullan and Schmoker say adults working with one another will make the
difference in student achievement. “The professional learning community
model is a powerful way of working together that profoundly affects the
practices of schooling. But initiating and sustaining the concept requires
hard work. It requires the school staff to... work collaboratively on mat-
ters related to learning” (DuFour, 2004, p. 11). And to do that hard work
we need to “begin the process of shifting from resignation to possibility
and from dependency to a sense of personal power” (Sparks, 2005, p. ix).
So what dispositions, skills, and knowledge must a teacher-leader have
to create that shift from resignation to possibility? What do we need to
learn in order to become effective collaborative colleagues and powerful
agents of change in schools? What do we need to know and be able to
do? One piece of essential learning on the way to becoming a systems-
savvy leader is to put the Habits of Mind into action in everyday adult-to-
adult interactions. Conscientiously cultivating and embodying the Habits
of Mind can help us to become the resourceful, adept, systems-savvy lead-
ers we need in our classrooms and in our schools.
The Meaning of “Systems Savvy”
What does it mean to be “systems savvy”? Let’s start with a description of
systems-savvy leaders. Systems-savvy leaders lead from a place that is not
solely self-referential or self-serving but is instead systems-aware and
service-oriented. They strive to make change from a student-focused and
other-focused center. They move through an aggressive learning agenda