Looking for materials on educational leadership? OISE Library’s New Arrivals has an array of new materials on leading and leadership. Schools today operate in a complex environment and in order for teachers and administrators to effectively lead a classroom of students, having leadership skills to direct organizational change is an important quality.  These books may help educational professionals develop and inspire leadership skills within the classroom.

Leading in Early Childhood, written by Geraldine Davis and Gemma Ryder, provides insight into leading in early childhood. Whether you are needing support in leadership skills within early childhood education or studying to become an early years practitioner, this book aims to help improve leadership skills in a variety of settings. The book examines the various roles of early years practitioners and the everyday challenges and opportunities they face while providing common ground within validating, exploring and extending practices on the role of early year practitioners. The book considers who leaders are, what skills they require, and how to develop a culture of leadership by improving leading through reflective practice. The book also provides activities and reflection points.

Enacting Change from Within: Disability Studies Meets Teaching and Teacher Education, edited by Meghan Cosier and Christine Ashby, considers the ever-shifting educational landscape where students with disabilities continue to face marginalization and oppression. The book aims to provide a framework which analyzes and addresses policy and practice in education. It also aims to lead and frame social justice work in schools that considers day-to-day responsibilities of teachers. It asks how can DSE knowledge be applied to the daily issues and challenges faced by teachers working in public schools that are less than genuinely inclusive, and how can teachers apply what DSE scholars have learned to their daily practice even if they do not work in an inclusive school.

Optimists Die First by Susan Nielsen is a young adult novel about sixteen year old Petula de Wilde. Her life is anything but wild as she sees the danger in everything. After her sister’s tragic death, Petula begins attending a mandatory art therapy class with a group of teenage misfits. She recounts this as the worst part of her week until she meets Jacob, a teenage boy with a prosthetic arm. Petula wants nothing to do with him until they are paired to work on a group project. Jacob’s self-assured and confident personality ends up inspiring Petula to face her fears.

Leading Learning and Teaching, by Stephen Dinham, examines the importance and impact of instructional leadership. The book looks into current international contexts of education theory, policy, and practice and presents strategies, agendas, and direction for enhancing the capabilities of individual educators, schools, and systems.  The key themes of the book include successful change management, the effectiveness of teacher professional development, the importance of evidence and the use of data. Dinham believes the core purpose of schools and educators must be the successful facilitation of teaching and learning and to do this effectively, teachers must also be leaders. This book would be a helpful read for any teacher candidate.

Standards-Based Leadership: A Case Study Book For the Superintendency,  edited by Sandra Harris, Julia Ballenger, and Jason Mixon, is an updated version of the first edition published in 2003.  This second edition, however, is based on the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. This book is updated with revised brief literature reviews in order to be consistent with the new standards.  All case studies within this book are written by individuals with superintendent experience in the United States.  The editors of this book wish for readers to consider their own cases as they provide additional readings for discussion. They wish for currently active superintendents and superintendents in training to follow the 5R steps format: Read, Recognize, Relate, Resolve, and Respond.

For more new titles, please visit the OISE Library ground floor and look for the New Arrivals shelf, just by the Reference Desk!

The OISE library is constantly acquiring new items that help to enrich and inspire all types of learning environments. While this includes materials that are targeted towards expanding a student’s academic progress, it also extends to those materials that help to create a safe and inclusive learning environment. The items featured within this blog post help to do just that by acknowledging and discussing the different needs of students with diverse lived experiences. By addressing issues of bullying, gender identities, and mental health, this series highlights the various needs of students, and the ways that educators can formulate their classrooms to address those needs.

With its colourful and whimsical illustrations, Feather depicts the journey of a young, small girl who has a passion for playing the piano amongst a family who she describes as “rough and clumsy.” Although it is evident that Paulina wishes to spend her time playing the piano, she instead takes up an activity that is more in tune with the interests of her family—boxing—after she comes home from school one day with a black eye. This emotionally provocative story tells the story of a girl who struggles with her identity as being different, yet finds a place in her family by being true to herself. Feather is a great novel to inspire children to have pride in who they are, and to always follow their passions.

Edited by Walter Polka and John McKenna, Confronting Oppressive Assessments: How Parents, Educators, and Policymakers are Rethinking Current Educational Reforms is comprised of a collection of articles and essays that speak to the emotional hardships that students may experience at the hands of current educational policies governing the nation’s classrooms. This work speaks to the varying ways that students experience anxiety and emotional distress because of policies that fail to encourage the emotional and intellectual growth of their students in a healthy way. By analyzing the static and regimented ways that students have been expected to learn in the classroom, this book pushes administrators and teachers alike to rethink their classrooms and create anew a learning environment that is more conducive to the reality of a child’s unique learning processes.

Supporting Transgender and Gender Creative Youth, edited by Elizabeth Meyer and Annie Sansfaçon, is an excellent book that works to include and engage children who are transgender, genderqueer, or gender questioning. Compiled of many articles and essays that discuss the experience of transgender youth in the classroom, this work helps administrators to better understand the lived experiences of these students so as to ensure they can grow, prosper and learn in a safe and welcoming environment that is cognizant of their unique needs. By discussing the creation of such an environment through the perspective of teachers and parents alike, Supporting Transgender and Gender Creative Youth acts as an excellent source to help everyone involved in the educational process to understand and learn from one another as well as their students in a healthy and productive manner.

In addition to the exploration of gender identity, Sexual Cultures in Aotearoa New
Zealand Education also explores the experience of sexual identities in children and teens. This book works to highlight the features of LGBTQ+ culture and how that culture is experienced by LGBTQ+ students in the classroom. Through its various articles and essays, this item works to identify and actualize methods that would help LGBTQ+ students feel comfortable expressing their identity both in and outside the classroom. It also expresses the need to educate LGBTQ+ youth concerning topical areas such as sexual education and mental health. By helping educational administrators to understand the LGBTQ+ student experience, they are given the tools they need in order to build an inclusive and safe learning environment.

The importance of eliciting conversations concerning mental health not only concerns LGBTQ+ youth, but also concerns all students who make up a classroom. School Mental Health Services for Adolescents is an edited work that helps to formulate a foundational comprehension of mental health and the ways that it can affect youth and adolescents. By first juxtaposing mental health as it was perceived in the past to how it should be acknowledged presently and in the future, this collection helps educators imagine changes that can be implemented in the classroom in order to work towards creating spaces that are welcoming and inclusive. Broaching topics such as disruptive behavior, the regulation of emotions, drug abuse and health concerns amongst teens, this item helps to induce a progressive lens through which to view and handle mental health.

For these and more books on safe and inclusive spaces, visit the Lobby Display on the ground floor of the OISE building. Please feel free to take out the materials found in the lobby display—OISE staff would be happy to take these out for you.