Discussion+1

Our students were not a homogenous group, according to age, years as a principal, school type or size. In the group there were principals from big upper secondary schools who had been principals for many years, and new, rather young principals from small primary schools. Despite of this, the challenges were often the same. Most of them pointet out their ambition to be a more secure leader, both personally and professionally. The latter was in most cases connencted to a wish to develop a more collective school culture and dealing with school development in a more professinal way.

Not knowing if your school will be closed down or fusioned, was a challenge for part of the student group. Interestingly, they shared the earlier mentioned challenges, so the threat of beeing closed down, did not affect their wish to develop their schools. But they struggled more in getting the collective culture.

As we have seen, we have some more or less shared challenges in the student group when they started the education: 1. Their own principal role: consciousness of strengths and weaknesses, how to be more secure 2. Dealing with school development, i.e implement plans and programmes, instructional leadership 3. Building a collective school culture.

In the findings (case 1 & 2), we showed that most students highligheted challenge No 1 as a challenge which the programme has helped them to overcome.(?). They consider themselves as more conscious and secure leaders, both personally and when it comes to professional leadership. In their texts they focus on the JTI, the reflection, both in the groups and individually, and the experiencesharing. The experience of not beeing som special, not beeing alone, we share the same challenges, were described as vital to the students. "Without the programme and the seminars I would have quit my job as a principal by now", a young principal told us in the middle of the programme.

School development, or "how to lead development in a rather traditional school where the teachers want to do what they are used to", was in one way ore antoher a shared challenge (No2). The students described many of the teachers as traditional; reluctant to implement new plans from the local or the national authorities. Working with organizational theory, focusing on structure and culture, and conceptions as comfortable sones and learning sones, many of them changed their way of speeking about this challenge. As Hanna said: "I have learned that I can't blame others". Tools as "The five-step model for learning" (Irgens 2007) have been used by many of the students to deal with organizational challenges. Another perspecive of challenge No 2, is the principals leading style. This corresponds to challenge No 1, the principal role. How to lead in a way that works, not dictating, as Mintzberg (2009) claims. We have introduced a conception called //appreciative leadership// (Ghaye 2008, Skrøvset & Tiller 2011), which has a relational, positive and constructive basis. This conception is, together with the comfortable sone mentioned by most students as useful in their work.

Instructional leadership is a type of leadership which has potential for improvement in Norwegian schools, to put it gently. The report from the TALIS-study (Vibe et al 2009), shows that Norwegian teachers get little feed-back from their leaders, who are rarely present in the classrooms. Being an instrucional leader, implies relational competence, knowing i.e how to give feed-back in a way which is not interpreted as critic of the teachers competence. In Hargreaves (2002), competence betrayal (the opposite of trust) is reported as one of the strongest sources of negative emotions among teachers. Giving feed-back in a appropriate way includes and combines theory, concsiousnes, tools and experience. In the students texts we find many examples of more instructional leadership.

These examples of the links between the challenges, theories, conceptions and tools show us that it is all linked together. In this programme, we focused more on tools (craft) than we usually do in academic education. We also took advantage of tests more often used in other fields, like the JTI-test. Our experiences are good, the students liked the increased focus on themselves and the tools. Before we started this programme, we had experiences in building on students challenges and combining different learning areas (as campus seminars and own school practice) for our students, who are working as leaders while studying. The success so far, as we see it, has to do with the combination, or, as one of the students wrote: " In the first seminar we made a toolbox, which suited me well! Through the programme I have slowly realised that tools are allright, but that it takes theoretical competence to understand, choose and use the right tool".

In action research like this, the first question is: Does it work? Yes, as far as the students report, it does. The next question is more tricky: Which questions have we not yet asked? (Hermansen 2001). In this paper we have so far not asked ourselves questions about the art. We have dealt with science and craft. To defend ourselves, we can point on the detailed instructions from the Directorate, but this is not the whole truth. The fact is that we didn't build on Mintzbergs triangle at all in designing the programme, - the craft and science concepts suited our design, and not the other way around. So then, what about the art? Is is there at all? of course, but not as visible as the other two conceptions. The art concept includes imagining and ideas. It is construcitve and tries to imagine what ca be done. Mintzberg & Wesley (2001) claim that "seeing first" (art) is necessary when many elements have to be combined into creative solutions and when commitment to those solutions is key. Most challenges in schools are complex, and school leaders (and researchers) will probably tell that Mintzberg & Wesleys describe most of their challenges with these words. So, dealing with such challenges and experiences together through a more than one year programme, we and the students have surely dealt with art! We cannot avoid it. The next question will then be: do this turn us, or the students into //artist?// it is yet to be shown, or we will never know... (end of this part).

References: Ghaye, T.(2008). //Building the Reflective healthcare organisation.// Blackwell Publishing. Oxford.

Hargreaves, A. (2002: Teaching and Betrayal. I: //Teachers and eaching: theory and practice,// //Vol. 8, No.3/4 2002//. Carfax Publishing.  Hermansen, M. (2001): //Den fortællende skole. – om muligheder i skoleudviklingen. Bog 2//  //Cases og konklusion//. Århus: Klim Forlag.  Møller, J., Eggen, A., Fuglestad, O.L., Langfeldt, G., Presthus, A.M., Skrøvset, S.,  Stjernstrøm, E., and Vedøy, G.(2005): Successful School Leadership – The Norwegian Case. //Journal of Educational Administration//. Vol.43, No.6 (pp584-594).  Skrøvset, S. & Tiller, T. (2011): //Verdsettende ledelse//. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget.