An autoethnographic study of the person in the principal's office.

Your belief in my ability to achieve, and your love and quiet strength have been a strong source of encouragement to me. You listened and believed in my ability to complete my PhD, sometimes more than I did.

Introduction

I interpreted the glass as an extended metaphor for times when the world gets weird, or when various often unpredictable forces turn events around. Autoethnography as a research method became the looking glass that reflected my principle and its acts within a certain sociocultural environment.

The rationale for my study

Experiencing leadership at a school for the Deaf

The fact that the school had to operate according to a Catholic ethos, as it was built on Catholic property, added to the complexities. I had to deal with issues arising from the fact that both the staff and the learners brought various ethnicities, cultures, religions, languages, histories and ways of thinking to the socio-cultural context of the school.

Being drawn to the study of the Self

Sparkes (2000) states that autoethnographies "are based on the experiences of the researcher/author for the purposes of expanding sociological understanding" (p. 21). They bring together autobiography and ethnography and highlight the researcher and his or her reflexivity as consistent sources of data in a given study (Cahnmann-Taylor, 2008).

Locating my study in current scholarship

Introduction

My interest was to determine what empirical studies had been carried out in the previous 10 years on principalships in schools. The literature review is presented in a paper entitled Researching the principalship in the African context: A critical literature review (Naidoo, 2012) (see Appendix 1).

Methodological issues

Furthermore, recent research in Africa, and South Africa in particular, can be seen to highlight the critical role of the school principal in creating effectively functioning schools. None of the researchers in the nine 'perception' studies took this critical sociological position in their analysis and interpretation of the findings.

Implications for future research

Another area that should be targeted for future research is the identity and subjectivities of the school leader. The school principal's leadership in connection with social justice issues is addressed to a limited extent in the studies reviewed.

My research aims and critical questions

From the analysis of the studies in this review, it is clear that there is a need for future researchers in the African context to explore other research paradigms and innovative research methodologies from the social sciences, for example biographical research (such as life histories). , self-study research, participatory research methodologies, narrative inquiry, ethnography, feminist research methodologies, visual methodologies and action research. Reflecting on the critical literature review I undertook, I envisioned that my proposed study would contribute to the current scholarship emanating from the African continent, and contribute to some of the questions neglected in research.

Structure of the thesis

What are my leadership practices, and how are they performed and experienced within the dynamic socio-cultural context in which I work and live. How can an autoethnographic exploration enable a deep understanding of Self and my headship within the dynamic socio-cultural context in which I work and live.

Concluding thoughts

My narrative presented in chapters 3, 4, and 5 hinges on my belief in the impossible, as illustrated in Through the Looking Glass. My look in the mirror made me discover that I had the ability to believe in impossible things.

Figure 1. Autoethnography: The Looking Glass and the Self

Introduction

In the context of the above debates, I chose as the focus of my study my personal narrative of the self as a school principal in a unique socio-cultural context: a school for the Deaf. How can an autoethnographic exploration enable a deep understanding of me as a person in the principal's office and my principalship at the school for the Deaf.

Research methodology

Autoethnography: a self-study?

McIlveen (2008) emphasizes that autoethnography is a method that enables the researcher and practitioner to operationalize the concept of critical consciousness. Scholars argue that autoethnography is not an innocent research practice, but performative, pedagogical, and political.

Self within a socio-cultural context

A further explanation of how culture works at different levels in an organization is Schein (1992). For me, an organization's culture plays a decisive role in the organization's day-to-day operations.

Autoethnography and/as narrative inquiry

From my reflection as a school leader and my study of the literature, I began to understand the concept of organizational culture as the identity of an institution. I found that it would be beneficial for me to use both autoethnography and narrative inquiry as methodological tools to come to a better understanding of my storied life as head of a school for the Deaf.

The issue of trustworthiness in autoethnography

It will add to the validity of the representation if readers have some knowledge or insight into the way in which the researcher transformed data into an artistic representation. It is claimed that the reader will be able to see the point of view of the research context (Manning, 2009; Richardson, 2000).

Theoretical framing

The question of a research paradigm: My dilemma

I must confess that from the beginning of my study I wanted to do more than understand myself as a person in the director's office in a certain socio-cultural context. I wanted my research to be transformative in nature and affect social change in the context of my school environment.

Identity formation

Introduction
Discourses that define the concept of ‘identity’
A poststructuralist perspective on identity

I believe that identity is an important factor in one's quest to make sense of the self. Postmodernist discourses resist the idea of the self-determining subject of modern discourses and the overemphasis of rationality and will.

Research design

Introduction
The research context

Catholic/Christian ethos
Deaf culture and its complexities
Zulu culture: a complicated issue at Hilltop School

Data-generation methods
Data analysis

One of the reasons is that the parents do not live near the school. The majority of the school population at Hilltop School are Deaf students and a significant number of Deaf staff (Fig. 6). It is in the school context that Deaf people are socialized into Deaf behavior patterns, values, norms and ways of communicating (Leigh, 2009; Ladd, 2003a).

School leadership and management need effort and commitment to manage diversity.

Summary

Introduction

My first impossible thing: being appointed deputy principal

The background to my decision was that I aspired to be involved in the organizational and administrative function of the school as an institution. My great surprise and amazement, however, was to see Archbishop Dennis Hurley (Fig. 9), who was not only chairman of the interview panel, but also chairman of the school board. The following are some of the questions that stand out: How will you fulfill the school's vision?

The results of the promotion of the posts of deputy director were announced in January 2000 by the provincial Ministry of Education (Fig. 12).

Figure 9. Archbishop Dennis Hurley with Pope John Paul II.

Early encounters with school leadership: the first two years

The second impossible thing: contesting language as a barrier
The third impossible thing: implementing change

Towards accountability in the school hostel
Engaging with the maintenance staff: What were the rules of the game?
From there on: The fund raiser, the public relations officer

My observations in the hostel kitchen showed that there was no order in the operational functioning of the kitchen. Interviews with two founders revealed that the management of the hostel kitchen had always been a controversial issue at the school. With this reassurance and despite the director's advice, I threw caution to the wind.

I interviewed one of the landowners who was present at the union meeting mentioned in the discussion above.

Reflections on my institutional change initiatives: What have I learned, what do I see?

I could see that you were not interested in making friends, but that the work had to be done. You tried to regulate things, but you made enemies, and although you made changes systematically and in an orderly manner, you stepped on people and 'stepped on toes'. You were only focused on getting going, not looking at the road you were traveling on, but only at the road ahead.

None of us felt brave enough to participate because we didn't think you could make it or survive more than a few months.

My fourth impossible thing!

A member of management expressed his concern and disapproval of my appointment directly to me. The confirmation of my employment in the position of acting rector at the Ministry of Education has been completed. It has come to my attention that certain employees are not completely satisfied with my employment.

Personal opinion about my appointment and empty rumors will also not be received kindly.

Concluding thoughts

This was the beginning of my leadership as head of Hilltop School for the Deaf. I have is that change is contextual and dependent on the dynamics of the socio-cultural context. In Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, I share other impossible dreams I had as the person in the principal's office, and how I navigated and negotiated them in the specific socio-cultural context of Hilltop School.

In the next chapter, I discuss my dream of raising the bar for literacy and language achievement at Hilltop School.

Introduction

International studies have shown that there is a strong relationship between instructional leadership and student achievement (Brewster & Klump, 2005; Walter, 2003; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005; Lunenburg, 2010). Leithwood and Jantzi (2005) explain that the goal of the instructional leadership model is to refocus the principal's attention from administrative tasks to issues of teaching and learning and student outcomes. I found that the question of the most appropriate language curriculum for deaf people and the question of the language of teaching and learning in school contexts has been hotly debated around the world for many decades (e.g.

I share my leadership achievements in relation to this facet of the school as well as the lives of the learners within the school.

Figure 26. Debating language issues for Deaf education.

Troubling language policy and curriculum practices at Hilltop School: Where did it all

Collaborating for change: A pilot project for the hard of hearing

The right to a language
Self-questioning our professional practices
Reactions to the proposed pilot

Mapping the pilot project

Our ‘working for change’ committee
Turning to stakeholders

Implementing the pilot project: A step closer to a dream
Some successes

After observing the responses from the teachers, I understood that there was clearly no uniformity in the language of instruction within the school. Bekker (2002) found that hearing-impaired students are often combined with deaf children in classrooms that are more adapted to the needs of the deaf. They quickly agreed that those students who possessed usable residual hearing were marginalized by a curriculum that did not address the language needs of the hearing-impaired student.

To this end, the language of the instructions in the assessments often had to be adapted.

Figure 29. A group of learners communicating.

The second innovation: The Natural Auditory Oral Approach (NAOA), Cued Speech and

Where to from the pilot approach?
Moving forward cautiously
My first encounter with the Natural Auditory Oral Approach (NAOA)
Would they take the risk?
Embarking on the second pilot: The first steps
Implementation of NAOA
Overcoming limitations: The adoption of cued speech as an educational tool
Enriching NAOA: The adoption of THRASS

Without a doubt, we were all impressed by the high language and literacy levels of the deaf students at this school. We were in awe of the program and its potential to improve language and literacy. My audiologist and I saw many barriers to implementing the NAOA at Hilltop School.

In terms of the Department of Education, we were categorized as a special school for the deaf.

Figure 54. Reading levels of twelve Grade 10 learners.

A glimpse of the complexities, struggles, tensions and feats

Adopt a Granny
Initiating parental involvement
An exclusively oral environment
Funding
Political agendas and criticisms
The emergence of a new Bilingual Approach
Success stories

Training the grandmothers for their role in the program was the task of the speech therapist and the audiologist. The lack of involvement of parents as partners in the program was an obstacle that proved difficult to overcome. We recognized the importance of working with families and remained steadfast in the belief that parents could not be excluded from the program despite.

We were keen for parents to interact and participate with students in the classroom as well as at home.