Few books make me salivate to read them, prior to publication. I’m usually the latecomer to some chart-topper that has already moved the world’s thinking, but the pre-publication campaign for Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan’s Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School had me hooked for months prior to its release. When Amazon finally put a copy in my hot little hands, it did not disappoint…but it did take me nearly a year to read!
Professional Capital is about internal collective responsibility as a means to raising the teaching profession. Hargreaves and Fullan create a context juxtaposed to a metaphor of economic capital as something accumulated, but define professional capital as the function and coordination of three existing capital sources in an organization: human capital, social capital, and decisional capital. While both authors are internationally renowned educators, using many examples and non-examples about teaching, their theory could apply to many organizationals.
The idea of “teaching like a pro” transcends role and leadership, by emphasizing how the attributes of a professional educator are what make the difference from academic outcomes, to evaluation systems, to the daily grind. At the same time, they explain the aspects of visionary leadership as a primary catalyst for creating a professional capital-rich environment. The authors analyze what has made this theory successful in different examples and why other contexts have struggled where this theory wasn’t applied, shamefully many in the US.
Still, the book doesn’t read like a typical theoretical text. It’s engaging and delightful, weaving from anecdotal stories to the research supporting or refuting them. That’s exactly why it took me close to a year to finish it. This is the only book I have reread immediately, sometimes not moving to the next chapter before rereading the prior once or twice, not because it’s difficult to comprehend, but because there are so many gems to consider and savor. This is the only book I own in which you cannot flip more than two pages without finding a nugget of brilliance highlighted with notes in the margin.
And so Professional Capital must receive 5 golden SutterStars and a soon-to-be-coveted “Book-of-the-Year” award from Sutterlearn.com, you pick which year. I’m sure Hargeaves and Fullan will be so proud. I’m immensely grateful to them for this contribution that has improved my own thinking and vernacular as an educational leader.