Critical Evaluation （1 ）
Fan, Yi Jun (Nance Fan) , 2003
Title: Inspiring the choices
Author: Michael Burke
Evaluator: Fan, Yi Jun
I was inspired by this article from Mr. Burke. Back to my previous Business Management course and working experience, I should say I learned a lot about how to behave and how to deal with environment. But, here is how to inspire ourselves or others for better performance as managerial roles in education.
Individual value is a focus now in China. Inspirational leadership, I think, is a good example for heads and managers to input diversity mainly through the “inside out” approach. “Inside out” approach is attractive in nature and it forms the style and ethos at schools. An inspirational head must be a cheerleader. A cheerleader, in my view, has already had the key about how to effectively manage people around him or her. Definitely, it ensures healthy team work environment.
However, successful Inspirational Leadership ought to be based on high qualifications from each head and manager. Without certain qualifications, schools will be under very poor performance which may even be worse than traditional methods of staff development. It could be a good reason to explain why I felt so uncomfortable and disappointed after a relatively poor-performed head starting in charge of the school where I was studying three years ago. The leadership of the head absolutely changed the atmosphere of the school. I even could “smell” the difference. And naturally, I looked forward to better inspirational leadership.
Those qualifications can be obtained possibly by training on policy and budgets, legal issues, personnel, curriculum and related matters as the author has mentioned at the beginning of the last paragraph. Meanwhile, the understanding and support from government are an external condition to reach inspirational leadership.
This article also led me to think about two balances in schools. One is the balance between paper work and real needs of pupils. The other is between “what heads and managers need” and “what children deserve” when we draft “target-setting”.
Heads and managers need to copy with many paper works both for internal administration and senior departments. This may make them fatigued to think about the needs of pupils. However, in fact, pupils are our core.
When setting targets for our schools, Chinese heads and managers really need to be careful. Government and senior department pay special attention to “figures” to evaluate their performance, such as how many students being graduated yearly / what about the average score of the school / how many students with high scores and how many students at the low levels. All those let school’s management team focus on book learning instead of considering what our children really deserve.
题目: 激 励 选 择
作者: Michael Burke
评论: 范 宜 君 （ 格拉斯哥 2003；译于 2019 ）
我的灵感来自伯克先生的这篇文章。回到我之前的商业管理课程和工作经验，我应该说：我学到了很多关于如何表现和如何应对环境。但是，以下是如何激励我们自己或他人在教育管理中发挥更好的作用。
个人价值是当前中国关注的焦点。我认为：鼓舞人心的领导力是一个很好的例子，可以让领导者和管理者主要通过“以内养外”的方式输入多样性。“以内养外”的教学方法在本质上是有吸引力的，它形成了学校的风格和风气。鼓舞人心的领导一定是啦啦队长。在我看来，一个啦啦队长已经掌握了如何有效管理身边人员的关键。毫无疑问，它确保了健康的团队工作环境。
然而，成功、鼓舞人心的领导力应该建立在每个领导和经理的高资历之上。如果没有特定的资格，学校的表现将非常差，甚至可能比传统的人力资源发展方法更差。这可能是一个很好的理由，来解释为什么在我三年前就读的学校，一个表现相对较差的校长上任后，我感到如此不安和失望。校长的领导完全改变了学校的气氛。我甚至能“嗅出”其中的差别。自然，我期待着更好的鼓舞人心的领导力。
如作者在最后一段开头所提到的：这些资格可以通过对政策和预算、法律问题、人员、课程和有关事项的培训来获得。同时，政府的理解和支持是实现激励型领导的外部条件。
这篇文章也让我想到了学校里的两种平衡。一是平衡学生的实际需求和文书工作。另一个是当我们起草“目标设定”时，在“领导者和管理者需要什么”和“孩子应该得到什么”之间。
主管和经理需要为内部行政和高级部门复印许多文件。这可能使他们在考虑学生的需求时感到疲劳。然而，事实上，学生是我们的核心。
在为我们的学校设定目标时，中国的校长和管理者真的需要小心。政府和高级部门特别注重“数字”来评估他们的表现，比如每年有多少学生毕业/学校的平均成绩如何/有多少学生得高分、多少学生得低分。所有这些都让学校的管理团队专注于书本学习，而不是考虑我们的孩子真正应该得到什么。