CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
2.6 Teacher Leadership
2.6.4 Barriers to teacher leadership
The enactment of teacher leadership is not without problems and local and international literature provides evidence of this (see for example Harris and Muijs, 2005, Grant, 2006, Rajagopaul, 2007). Different authors identify different barriers to teacher leadership. This must not discourage teachers from assuming informal leadership roles but the school must learn from these barriers and come up with ways to overcome them. The barriers discussed in this section are mostly school based. As my research explores the barriers to lecturer leadership in the FET College, the value of comparing these barriers in the different education contexts is obvious, since it will provide future researchers in the FET sector with a base-line from which to work.
2.6.4.1 Hierarchical school structure and autocratic heads
The history of SA has led many schools to continue living in the past at many levels. Some South African schools are still bureaucratically managed and hierarchically organized with autocratic principals who show negativity towards teachers‟ attempts to take on leadership roles.
Grant (2006) writes about the problem of hierarchical organizational structures which restrict
leadership activities somewhat when those in higher authority feel they know better or do not support ideas of other teachers. She claims that this creates an unpleasant situation. In my opinion, this is one of the key barriers to teacher and lecturer leadership in South Africa.
Moreover, bureaucracy and hierarchy have contributed to the creation of structures in both schools and FET contexts that are narrow, and institutional cultures that are contrived, thus distributed leadership seldom occurs.
2.6.4.2 Teachers themselves as barriers
Another barrier for teacher leadership development is the unwillingness on the part of teachers themselves, to take up leadership roles (Harris and Muijs, 2005). These teachers prefer to teach and leave immediately as the bell rings which restricts their leadership to that of the classroom (Grant, 2008). In most cases the teachers that show unwillingness to lead, do not see themselves as leaders beyond the classroom. The reason could be that they are not challenged and encouraged to do so because the SMT is not willing to relinquish their powers. Furthermore, other teachers do not take up leadership roles because they are incapacitated and lack experience to do so (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001). If teachers lack experience in the field, they tend to be afraid and shy away from leadership roles. In the Harris and Muijs (2005) study, new teachers were quiet and afraid to speak while the seasoned teachers were vocal and more able to take up leadership roles. This gives an idea that experience plays a role in hindering or promoting teacher leadership. In the same study, the quiet teachers were viewed by other teachers and school management as apathetic and unwilling to take leadership roles, yet in reality they were actually afraid and inexperienced.
Some teachers feel uneasy to take up leadership roles because they believe that they need training. Pillay (2009) writes that “teacher leaders require more knowledge in the areas of finance, budget and time management to participate in decision-making processes” (p.38). I agree with Pillay that teachers and lecturers in the FET College context, need to undergo training to develop their leadership skills and to give them confidence to take up the roles as mentioned earlier in this chapter. A study conducted by Lieberman Saxl and Miles (1988) which involved 17 teachers, reveals that teachers needed to develop their leadership skills with regards to trust
and rapport building, organizational diagnosis, including that of developing the ability to improve the skills and confidence of others. In the case study FET college, lecturers feel that they cannot take on leadership roles without training because they lack the skills and the expertise to do so furthermore, those that have capacity doubt their abilities and believe that effective teaching in the classroom is not lecture leadership. Examples of these claims are discussed in Chapter Four.
The history of South Africa has made some teachers adapt to a hierarchical and bureaucratic manner of managing the classroom. Teachers with this mentality find it hard to collaborate and work in collegial way but these teachers need to change their mindset to think differently so that they see that leadership is not the duty of the principal - every body “can act as a leader”
(Goleman, 2002, p.14). Those who see the importance of collaborative work are also often hesitant to take on leadership roles because they do not want to be singled out by their colleagues (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2001). In line with this thinking Harris (2003) argues that the
„egalitarian ethics‟ (p.234) does not promote teacher leadership in schools. In addition, Leithwood et al (2000) establish that “culture of isolation, common in schools, inhibits the work of teacher leaders with their teaching colleagues, as do the associated norms of egalitarianism, privacy, politeness and contrived collegiality” (p.116).
2.6.4.3 Lack of time
Busy teacher schedules and lack of time to do extra work have also been identified as barriers to teacher leadership by Grant (2008). Similarly, Smylie and Denny‟s (1990) study of 13 teacher leaders concluded that lack of time to adequately perform leadership functions, made it difficult for teachers to perform new tasks assigned to them. In a local research project in South Africa, three Pietermaritzburg schools revealed teachers‟ disinclination to take up leadership roles because they felt it was time consuming (Rajagopaul, 2007) and impacted on their private lives.
Teachers felt that time should be set aside and built into the teaching timetable for them to collaborate on leadership initiatives. In other words, teaching time must be reduced to accommodate collaborative activities including staff meetings, planning and professional development. In Bartlet‟s study of teacher leaders in two reforming schools, cited in Lieberman and Miller (2004), it was found that in one school, teachers lost out on leadership because they
could not teach and lead at the same time. Doing both these task took its toll on their personal and professional lives.
To overcome time barriers, besides building the leadership activity time into the timetable, Crowther et al (2005) are of the view that teachers should be remunerated for the „extra work‟ so that they will be motivated to take on more roles. Similarly, Barth (1988) writes that “recognition replenishes a teacher, both professionally and personally” (p.641). He further argues that he has seen public recognition improve teachers‟ classroom performance, their morale, their commitment to teaching and their relations with colleagues. This is what is required to improve teacher leadership. I partially agree with Crowther et al (2005), that remuneration is needed but in the context of South Africa I argue that it need not always be a financial reward. It can be any form of reward that will yield motivation and recognize the teacher and also lead to personal growth. However, remunerating teachers for their initiatives can be perceived as contrived collegiality because some might do it for reward purposes only.
A further comment in relation to time as a barrier to teacher leadership is that it can be time consuming if education institutions are large with multiple sites, as in the case of the FET College in this study. Such a situation makes it hard to interact with other lecturers across campuses. It takes some time to bridge the literal space from one campus to the other. I align myself with Harris and Muijs (2005) who argues that geographical separation makes it difficult for teachers to connect. This is even more so at my FET College level because the college where I work has five campuses with staff that are expected to collaborate across sites. The latter creates a barrier to lecturer collaboration and shared decision-making because lecturers cannot often meet. In a school context, Grant and Jugmohan (2008) observe that the literal space, between home and school, in which teachers needed to commute daily, resulted in a loss of time due to traveling. I also argue that at the FET Colleges, the distance can result in a loss of time when lecturers need to commute to other campuses for meetings and collaborative activities.
However, Kraak and Hall (1999) point out that the alternative form of communication such as telephone, emails and transport can be used to bridge the distance but that these are sometimes expensive. Moreover, Smiley and Denny (1990) argue that time taken for working outside the
classroom which may be, in my study, at another campus, probably interferes with time needed for students in the classroom.