The Looking Glass world in Lewis Carroll’s book is a world where the impossible becomes possible. The story throughout raises the question of what is impossible, beginning at the moment when Alice exasperatedly states that “one can’t believe impossible things,” to which the Queen replies, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice.” The quote above concerning the exchange between Alice and the Door serves as a reiteration of the theme, what is impossible?
There is a pun on the word “impassible”, and Alice is once again reminded that “nothing is impossible!” It is at this moment in the book that the Door conveys something immensely valuable to Alice. Things may be ‘impassable’ but are never impossible. Things are only seen as impossible if one does not have the power to believe.
When challenged with the issues of Deaf education, like Alice I too have been inclined to respond, “That’s impossible!” Initially, I saw the struggle of language and literacy learning and teaching in my early years of leadership at Hilltop as complex, and the prospect of effecting change as impossible. However, just like the Queen in the previous chapter, I grew to believe in accomplishing the impossible.
Could my belief in impossible things trouble the entrenched patterns of thought held by many of my staff that the Deaf cannot achieve high levels of language and literacy, that is, reading and writing? I pondered many questions: What would it take to raise the bar in learner achievement in reading and writing, a crucial life skill? What leadership capabilities were necessary for me to accomplish the ‘impossible’ in a complex socio-cultural context? How can I engage with the intricate interface of raising the quality of teaching and learning on the one hand, and the
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professional development of my staff on the other, in the area of literacy, teaching and learning?
Would I be able to resolve this impossible thing before breakfast like Alice had in the story?
As indicated in my previous chapters, the notion of leadership in educational institutions has become increasingly complex and elaborate over the past few decades. In my previous studies I engaged in considerable depth with the work of international scholars within educational leadership. I was excited by the various models of leadership I was studying, including transactional leadership (Bass, 2005; Lai, 2011), transformational leadership (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005) as well as distributed leadership (Scribner, Sawyer, Watson & Myers, 2007). As I reflect on these models, I note that most of the focus is on generic management issues such as the organisational conditions of an institution; ensuring the sustained capacity of an organisation to adapt and improve; strategic planning in the organisation driven by a strong vision, and the articulation of a sound mission and school climate. This is without doubt an important focus. I realise, however, that these models hold a critical limitation in the lack of attention given to key outcomes and the ultimate goal of education: student learning. This concern was expressed by Hopkins (2003), who argued that transformational leadership targets the wrong variables and fails to direct attention to teaching and learning, as well as the outcomes of the student.
Another problem raised is that the decentralisation of responsibility in local management of schools has shifted the focus of the leadership in schools worldwide. Principals have become budget managers, administrators of systems and the leaders of their colleagues (Hopkins, 2003;
Bush, 2007). Their preoccupation with administrative matters leaves very little time for intellectual leadership, which is vital for the growth of the academic and intellectual component of the school. Principals tend to shift questions, instructions and professional development to others as their own knowledge becomes outdated.
When considering my own experiences as a teacher, I cannot recall the school principal providing any kind of intellectual leadership that had an impact on my development as a teacher or a curriculum developer. Leithwood, Louis, Anderson and Wahlstrom (2004) argue that not only is intellectual leadership imperative, but next to teaching, it is the second most important school-related factor that affects how the student learns. Significant scholarship considerations have recently emerged on what is considered the most suitable leadership capabilities and practices to enhance academic achievement (e.g. Bush et al., 2011; Bergeson, 2007; Bush, 2007).
This is how the concept of ‘instructional leadership’ came into focus.
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Instructional leadership focuses on the behaviour of teachers as they engage in activities that affect the academic growth of students and the level of student achievement. Managing instructional programmes in the school is therefore regarded as essential in leadership behaviour.
This means that the principal is directly involved in developing strategies for successful teaching and learning as well as creating conditions that support the implementation of staff development and planning (Lunenburg, 2010; Enuewe & Egwunyenge, 2008). Waters and Grubb (2004) argue that the basics of instructional leadership include, most importantly, setting a clear vision, supporting and developing a talented teaching core and building a solid organisational structure to ensure high-quality academic outcomes. Studies internationally have shown that there is a strong link between instructional leadership and the performance of the student (Brewster &
Klump, 2005; Walter, 2003; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005; Lunenburg, 2010).
Leithwood and Jantzi (2005) explain that an instructional leadership model aims to refocus the attention of the principal away from administrative duties and towards issues of teaching and learning, and student outcomes. Three main categories of practice are identified within this model: defining the school’s mission, managing the instructional programme and promoting a positive school learning climate. These main categories focus on controlling the development of specific academic goals, supervising and evaluating instruction, co-ordinating the curriculum, monitoring learner progress, protecting instructional time, promoting professional development, maintaining high visibility and providing incentives for teaching and learning. There are several common acts that exceptional instructional leaders engage in: shifting the focus to teaching and learning, building collaborative structures, using data to inform and improve learning and teaching, providing support and aligning the curriculum, instruction and assessment (Lunenburg, 2010).
When I entered my principalship at Hilltop School, I had no knowledge of the growing body of scholarship on instructional leadership. I soon came to realise that I had once more been thrown into an area of engagement that I then saw as impossible to achieve for the Deaf. Looking back now, I realise that particular contextual influences, events and the inherent tensions and dilemmas in my school played a role in influencing my changing professional identities and the diverse subject positions I took at different times. As a leader, your life is rarely predetermined. I believe that my personal ‘agency’ is cultivated from my day-to-day experiences, imperatives and social relations. Moral and ethical demands, socio-political influences and my interrogation of the multiple dynamics in my particular socio-cultural context played a role in fostering and
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cultivating my agency. I believe that my leadership enactments in my unique socio-cultural context illuminate the complex interplay between structure and agency.
In this chapter and the next I reflect on my enactments as an instructional leader and on how I was compelled to take complex subject positions with the aim of creating a synergy between a focus on teaching and learning on the one hand, and building support and capacity building on the other. When I think about the choices and decisions I made, I know that my agency was underpinned by a social-rights agenda. I wanted my learners to have equal access to the quality education that is promised to them in all South African policy documents as their social right as a South African citizen.
In this chapter I share and examine my instructional leadership stances with respect to the language and literacy curriculum taught at the school. In order to contextualise my performances as an instructional leader, I have had to engage with literature that has enabled me to understand reflexively the politics of language and communication for the Deaf, particularly the ongoing debates on issues of policy and methodology related to oral speech, manualism, bilingual- bicultural and the different paradigms that underpin them (see Appendix 2 for a detailed background on these issues).
This autoethnographic study is primarily what began my intense examination of international research on the politics and methodologies of teaching language and communication for the Deaf. I found that the issue of the most appropriate language curriculum for the Deaf and the issue of the language of teaching and learning in schooling contexts had been a hot debate worldwide for many decades (e.g. Mathews, 2011; Ladd, 2003a; Moores; 2001; Ram &
Muthukrishna, 2011). I grew to realise that the debates are rooted in the different constructions of deafness and the particular discourses influencing them (Botha, 2006; Lane, 2005; Solario, 2004). Solario (2004) argues that deafness is a social construction that is open to many interpretations. What I found to be important was that those social constructions and the underlying ideologies hold the power to label, define, control and marginalise particular groups of learners.
I came to realise that hearing people, including professionals, demonstrated divergent orientations to deafness. There are some whose ideas originate from a medical orientation and thus they seek to pursue a cure for deafness, believing deafness to be a personal tragedy.
Deafness is considered to be a barrier to the hearing world. This orientation is in line with the discourse of disablement (Solario, 2004). In this case, Deaf individuals are treated as inferior to
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their hearing peers (Andrews, Leigh, &Weiner, 2004). On the other hand, there are others who view deafness as a part of a cultural minority who possess a unique language and cultural identity.
From this perspective, deafness is a consequence of the deprivation of functional language (Ladd, 2003a; Akach, 2011).
The scholarship dedicated to this field enabled me to interrogate and deconstruct the challenging discourses within Deaf education. I immersed myself in examining the politics within the debates on language for the Deaf and their impact on Deaf education. Through this autoethnographic study, I grew to realise the importance of my engagement in critical ideological debates within Deaf education. I came to recognise the crucial importance of these understandings to my leadership as a school principal. I studied literature in the field of Deaf education and gained exposure to the debates in the various forums in which I participated and in informal debates between my peers and the staff at the school (Figs 26, 27 and 28).
Figure 26. Debating language issues for Deaf education.
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Figure 27. A strategic workshop conducted by Dr Martin from Gallaudet University.
Figure 28. South African National Association for Special Education conference.
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As a result, my interrogation of the literature and my immersion in critical debates on Deaf education served as an analytical tool for my reflections on my performances as an instructional leader. In the sections below, I shift my focus to the issue of language at Hilltop School. I share my leadership performances in relation to this facet of the school as well as to the lives of the learners within the school. My successes, struggles and tensions in my change endeavours are illuminated.
4.2 Troubling language policy and curriculum practices at Hilltop School: Where did it