Quotes from Andy Hargreaves

Change is easy to propose, hard to implement, and especially hard to sustain.

Education leaders must have the will at times to release leadership to the teachers the parents and the students.

Improvement is about doing something better; innovation is about doing something new.

Blame and betrayal are the emotional enemies of improvement.

High performance leaders capitalize on crises to galvanize the motivation and actions of people in the organization.

Teaching is an emotional practice: it activates, colors & expresses people's feelings.

Without optimism & self-belief among teachers, classrooms become wastelands of boredom & routine and schools deserts of lost opportunity.

We will not achieve high performance in education if we replace teachers with machines or turn teachers into machines.

Sustainable leadership does no harm to and actively improves the surrounding environment.

Adolescence is about digging out the iron inside irony.

Students are often the last to know about change that is occurring in their own school system.

Leadership is often the afterthought of educational change.

Schools cannot shut their gates and leave the outside world on the doorstep.

Sustainable leadership does not compromise the future by expanding and accelerating too quickly in the present.

High performance leaders know they have to breathe out when they are coming up for air.

On teacher education: induction into current mandates must not turn into seduction away from best practice.

Arrogance is the conjoined twin of ignorance.

On technology: The teacher is mightier than the mouse.

A first class system of early childhood education is the hallmark of a caring and civilized society.

We must use collegiality not to level people down but to bring together their strength and creativity.

One or two bad teachers is a problem with the teachers. A school with many bad teachers is a problem of leadership.

The quality & morale of teachers is absolutely central to the well being of students and their learning.

We need standards with flexibility, not standardization with force if we are to get the best from our teachers.

Teachers create and transform energy. They are the dynamos of educational change.