Understanding Schooling Through the Eyes of Students

Peer through the eyes of students. See school their way.

When we act on what students show us, valued outcomes follow. Students know best what engages and bores them and can offer dynamic insight into how to pique their best. When we know how to listen, we learn to increase interest, motivation, and overall achievement through academic press and a supportive culture.

This book shows readers how to tap into student insight and adjust thinking to see education and learning through their eyes. Experience new levels of engagement and growth as you learn to:

• Build a culture of support, safety, and membership through academic excellence
• Nurture the growth of engaged teaching

See things their way and transform your learning environment into a challenging, cohesive, and satisfying model for growth and outcome. 

"Missing far too long from the school improvement literature is the students’ perspective. Joe Murphy demands that leaders learn to look through students’ eyes to better understand the gaps and opportunities for school improvement and creating positive relationships in which students can flourish. This book lays out the theory and research that undergirds developing a student perspective, and provides strategies and approaches for leaders that should become essential to their preparation and practice."
Terry Orr, Director of Future School Leaders Academy
Bank Street College of Education

"For 40 years educators have sought answers to the question: how do school leaders ‘make a difference’? This quest has taken us in many directions, but few scholars thought to look through the ‘eyes of students’. In this book Murphy provides a missing piece to this important puzzle."
Philip Hallinger, Professor
Chulalongkorn University

Joseph F. Murphy is the Frank W. Mayborn Chair and associate dean at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He has also been a faculty member at the University of Illinois and The Ohio State University, where he was the William Ray Flesher Professor of Education. In the public schools, he has served as an administrator at the school, district, and state levels, including an appointment as the executive assistant to the chief deputy superintendent of public instruction in California. His most recent appointment was as the founding president of the Ohio Principals Leadership Academy. At the university level, he has served as department chair and associate dean. He is past vice president of the American Educational Research Association and was the founding chair of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC). He is co-editor of the AERA Handbook on Educational Administration (1999) and editor of the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) yearbook, The Educational Leadership Challenge (2002). His work is in the area of school improvement, with special emphasis on leadership and policy. He has authored or co-authored 18 books in this area and edited another 12. His most recent authored volumes include Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement (2002), Leadership for Literacy: Research-Based Practice, PreK-3 (2003), Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement (2005), Preparing School Leaders: Defining a Research and Action Agenda (2006), and Turning Around Failing Schools: Lessons From the Organizational Sciences.