Assignment 2: Roles in leadership

I.                    Introduction.

Leading is a task that needs a leader to be a light of the community he/she leads. It is showing the right way towards the end point. A leader always needs to devise plans and strategies to insure good results. In this task, it is very important to know the led people in general and individuals in particular. This will help him or her involve the community using good strategic mechanism.  In matter of learning, the NCSL’s Strategy for Leadership Learning put it clear that “leaders need to have a deep, current and critical understanding of the learning process and what this means for enhancing learning and teaching in schools and ensuring that learning is personalized ” (p4). A leader must thus understand the load to be carried from a point A to a point B and how to carry this load. It is utmost important for any leader to know how to use the people he/she leads for a good success. Leaders are therefore to be in good terms and relationship with the community they lead. The NCSL has it that “leadership is about getting the best out of people” (Ibid p6). This applies for all leaders in all domains of leaderships.

In schools, the NCSL adds that “relationship underpin all interactions and good relationships create conditions that motivate pupils and staff and secure the support of parents and governors” (Ibid p6). Surely, a leader cannot get the best out of his/her people without good relationships with them.  In order to build positive relationships, leaders must know themselves and get acquainted of the impact they have on the people they lead, to use NCSL’s advice (Ibid p6).

Having established positive relationships with the led people, any school leader aims at engendering student motivation all the time as this is an ongoing process that requires creativity and energy. Leaders need to be creative and energetic to quote Grossnickle (1989). It is this leader’s creativity and energy that adds up to their success as successful leadership captures hearts and minds of the led community (NCSL P8).

Apart from the above, any leader worthy of the name must spearhead changes in his /her community. This is very critical and crucial as it engages having a good vision of the future, a vision that is shared with and supported by the community as a way of fully involving people participate and contribute to their own development. The NCSL asserts that “being a change leader is critical to 21^st century educational leadership and crucial to building system and school capacity. Successful leaders promote a shared vision of the future, underpinned by common purpose and values, which will secure the commitment of a wide range of stakeholders” (Ibid p8). Shortly, the role of leadership here is to be ‘a change leader’.

However, being a ‘change leader’ and having a shared vision only are not enough without a good, strong and efficient organizational system in which both staff and pupils feel confident  and that helps smoothly run things. According to the NCSL, for leaders to realize the shared vision it is necessary to build effective and efficient organizational systems and process as successful organizational management complements leadership in that it ensures that things get done. It moreover makes staff and pupils feel  confident that everything is running smoothly in their daily environment (Ibid p10). Otherwise, leaders need to establish collaboration within the community as a way to strengthen it. The NCSL held it that strengthening community through collaboration is crucial to capacity-building in schools. (Ibid p12). So-saying, another role in leadership is to ensure collaboration within schools as a way of bringing together all the stakeholders within the school community.

From the foregone introduction, a panorama of roles in leadership is brought forth, a picture of how to get the best out of the people foreground. The most important thing here is that leadership seems to be too demanding and compelling. It requires creativity, criticism, collaboration and strategies.  Over and above all, most and foremost, leaders need to establish a good and strong system bringing all the stakeholders together  in fully collaborative manner that will enable them “catch the hearts and minds” of the led people and hence successfully achieve their goals. The practical example from Baraa Secondary school below is showing the roles in leadership according to the different levels of leadership here.

II. Practical observation at Baraa Secondary School

II.1. School Administrative Structure

Baraa Secondary school administrative structure, like most of schools in the area is a mixture of teachers and pupils representatives or prefects.  It has a headmaster, a second master, an academic master and a discipline master as senior office bearers under whom all administrative issues of the school fall. This is for one side.  And for the other, the pupils’ representative committee is made up of the general prefect at its head and class prefects being members of this committee. Apart from the above, every class has a monitor keeping an eye on pupils in the class especially when teachers are not in the classroom.  At a simple glance, we here realize that the school system encompasses both teachers and pupils and therefore demonstrates a collaboration and cooperation between the former and the latter.

II.2. Observation, Findings and Comments

The observation was carried out on 3 form 2 classes. All the 3 teachers wanted to be anonymously presented in their interview quotations. This interview was also extended to all the 3 prefects of these classes. The general prefect of the school was also associated. This procedure aimed at showing the extent at which the leadership is established at this school. And much more, the target was to demonstrate how efficient and effective the administrative system is.

To begin with, I first of all put it clear that my observation targeted specifically English class hours. It was otherwise limited most of the time to students’ group exercise time whereby class prefects, monitors and teachers collaborate.  It was interesting to fin d that an English teacher could ask any teacher to help her or him supervise activities in her or his class when she or he was caught by other activities. This shows how teachers help and support each other in their daily activities. Besides that, teachers work together when analyzing pupils’ individual abilities and weaknesses in the spirit of devising strategies to identify what are these weaknesses and how to bridge the gaps.

In short, there was some sort of information sharing and exchange among teachers about their classes in general and individual pupils in particular. The results of supervised exercises are used as references during the teachers’ discussion. This matches the NCSL strategies which stipulate that “relationship underpin all interactions and good relationships create conditions that motivate pupils and staff (…) (Ibid p6). Teachers here aim at motivating weak pupils to work hard and those doing well to maintain their standards and even make a step forward.

As to what are teachers thoughts about their roles and responsibilities, all the three (3) teachers converged to what they think is their roles and responsibilities. That is to “instill knowledge and skills into their pupils and thus put educational success within their reach. It is a matter of shaping pupils so as to enable them fit in their society and develops it using the knowledge and skills acquired from school.” To the best of my understanding, this is clearly connected to the NCSL’s strategies according to which a leader is “a change-leader” (Ibid p8). Teachers are leading the change in providing the needed knowledge and skills to pupils to develop themselves and their societies. Teachers wanted themselves to be good models for their pupils every time.

Regarding leadership for adults and pupils, the school uses a system that highly involves pupils through their representatives on one side and teachers themselves, on the other.  Class prefects and monitors represent teachers when the latter are not in classrooms. The former oversee all pupils whereby cases of noise making and other undisciplined cases are reported to teachers for further decision and management. This already asserts a firm and close cooperation between pupils’ leaders and teachers. In group work, teachers designate a group leader for every group in the context of having both staff and pupils feel confident that everything is running smoothly in their daily environment, to quote the NCSL strategies. In this way, that school’s organizational system “complements leadership in that it ensures that things get done” even when teachers are not there (Ibid p10). (Italics mine).

I indubitably find the system successful because teachers can easily oversee all pupils at school using their representatives (prefects and monitors) as they (teachers) cannot be everywhere and do everything at a same time. Prefects and monitors are therefore the teachers’ eyes. That is for one.

And for two, this system helps the school leadership get the best out f its people; these are pupils themselves, to use the words of the NCSL strategies. It otherwise focuses on the pupils’ future in training them for further leadership stage and responsibilities. The NCSL held it that strengthening community through collaboration is crucial to capacity-building in schools (Ibid p12). This kind of capacity building for pupils’ leaders should be strengthened in order to shape good leaders since their early age.

Embarking on pupils learning, all the form two class prefects, speaking on behalf of the whole school held it that the main pupils responsibilities are to follow the advices and guidance of the school leaders. This will help them achieve higher. “Working hard, observing the school regulations, attending class sessions, carefully listening to teachers when teaching, asking questions when need be, being advisable” were the main issues raised by these pupils as a part of their responsibilities in their learning. They added that pupils have the main task in their own learning as teachers are there for guidance.

Lastly, it was interesting enough to find that all the teachers were seeking a quiet environment during their subjects. They controlled their classes and were making sure all pupils follow them carefully. Moreover, their use of a participatory method was very important especially when testing the knowledge acquisition towards the end of the session. This applied during teaching sessions.

I will begin with a brief introduction from my perspective.

A leader is someone who is able to help and guide- To take it further will be someone who is able to exploit through various innovative ways certain ideas to expand the knowledge base of others.
It is interesting to note that people often ascribe the term “leader” to a person based on their own personal perception of what a leader should be.

Someone that does not follow conventional ways might find it hard to be guided by a leader who does not follow the same ideology.

 There is one example to further explain this point that comes to mind. 

Mr. Marazik was my history teacher in high school. I had wondered why more students turned up for his class more than any other classes we had.

The bottom line was that students would skip or miss classes that they could not identify with, which they felt is irrelevant to what they are trying to accomplish. The teaching of history was not merely the reading of World history, chapters 1 to 5 on the topic of civil war, and writing a report on what had been read.
As I was among the students who could not sit still or read on 5 chapters on the civil war, the need to stir our interest in the subject was something that was very much needed.
During those times the students did not see the importance of learning the useful information because in a way, it did not appeal to us, so we felt it was not in our interest to follow. Why should we care about something that happened hundreds of years ago? 

A vast majority of students not interested in History will fail to see the historical importance of the civil war unless guided by the teacher who is able to recreate, in his own special way as related to by the students, for these students to say “EUREKA! I get it now”.

What I learnt from this excellent teacher was that History was not just about reading and memorizing dates but rather when innovatively approached and made fun and enjoyable to learn, we all suddenly share the same joy and passion for History. Amazing!

By taking on the characters we were learning about, in a way we were” walking in their shoes” to try to see why some of their actions resulted in the choices they made. This was a way for all students to participate, the ones who were able to follow by mere reading and memorizing, and the ones who were not able to do so.
Mr. Marazik was able to stir all the students’ interest in the subject at hand, by tackling the issue from another point of view that made the student pay more attention. It was the same information that was being read and memorized, nothing more.
But from that chosen angle, not only did the students pay attention, but we were even looking forward to what was to come forth in our next topic. It was even common to see students after class in other classes discussing what had taken place in our history class. You never saw a student sleep in that class!

When students are not able to relate or perhaps see the importance of what a teacher is trying to teach them they tend to rebel. This comes off as saying the teacher is mean and unapproachable, which might not be accurate. But it is also up to the teacher to make sure that all students are reached in the effort to teach them.

Although Mr. Maraziks method required more input, the output was also a lot more than the other method. In other words, if he taught History by the usual status quo of memorizing names and dates, student participation which ultimately reflects on the graded will not have been as high.
In an age where information is received in a matter of seconds, a teacher must be able to provide ideas and helpful input from all angles.

A teacher that is able to instigate students to learn in a fun environment is one that can affect change in the students, because the lesson does not stop at the classroom but is carried on to reflect upon in future.

 Teaching and learning is not just hearing and writing and memorizing but rather an attempt by the teacher to pass useful information to the student whereby the student is able to be a useful citizen in his or her community in the near future.  A teacher who fails to teach, does not fail just the student but fails the community as a whole.

(Only a part of the full answer is published here.)

From my primary school teacher, I am embarking on my secondary school experience as a teacher at Goldenrule Seminary Secondary School where the Managing Director, Mr. Benjamin Nkonya, assisted with his Senior Management Team (SMT) of which I became a member as a Discipline Master, Academic Master and lastly Second Master, devised a culture of rewarding the best achiever students in every class. All the first, second and third students per every class were being awarded in rewarding assemblies with an official letter to their parents. As a reward to these students, the school paid them the whole amount of school fees of the next term. This means that the concerned parents had the school fees load alleviated if not reduced to zero for the next term of the school year. And if these students kept their standards, their parents did not pay school fees for two (2) consecutive terms of the school year.

As per simple analysis, it is short and clear that the success of these students impacted the families in a way that the huge amount of money supposed to be paid for school fees were allotted to other activities. It was like a new family income.

On the side of students, this system stimulated emulation and competition among the whole school students as everybody became very busy with their studies targeting to be reward. It later improved and increased the levels of students’ success as everybody was striving to be the best achiever. That was for one.

And for two, the school introduced a reward to the most disciplined students. These did not pay half of the school fees amount. Their names were announced during the same rewarding assemblies and their parents received official letters as well. The family impact was the same as above. Its impact to the school was the reduction of crime and desertion at school. Students became highly disciplined. Those who could not get the academic rewards got the discipline rewards. There was competition in almost every aspect of the school life.

Lastly, SMT decided to reward the best achiever teachers. These were selected in December of every school year. Here teachers were highly competing to snatch these rewards. The school teachers’ performance was increased and maintained at least during the time I was there, to speak of what I saw and witnessed.

The above practical and illustrative examples show the extent at which school leaders, teachers included can stimulate and shape the students’ academic success from the classroom which, according to Renchler (1992), is the place “where the majority of learning takes place and where students are most likely to acquire a strong motivation to gain new knowledge.”

Renchler (Ibid) adds that “making the classroom a place that naturally motivates students to learn is much easier when students and teachers function in an atmosphere where academic success and the motivation to learn are expected and rewarded. Such an atmosphere, especially when motivation to learn evolves into academic achievement, is a chief characteristic of an effective school.” School leaders at Goldenrule Seminary Secondary School understood this and were successful.

leadership.

Personal experience.

1. 1. The Hall president;

One example of good leadership that has really influenced my live is that of the hall president when I was in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. In the university, workers are paid to clean the wash rooms. One time,  the workers went on demonstration. The wash rooms became so dirty because, the workers were not around to clean them. Students of the hall however continued to use the place, we all refused to take notice of the palling filth. One day when we woke up, the whole hall was shocked by what we saw. All the 15 washrooms were glistening clean! How did this happen?! Everyone knew of course that the workers were still on demonstration. As little questions about the situation increased, it quickly grew to become the question of the whole hall. To verify the various answers that were coming in, the whole hall marched to the hall president’s room.

The hall president then confessed what had happened. He could not stand the filth mounting and had mobilized his roommates the evening before to clean throughout the night! Everybody had thought it wasn’t their responsibility but this challenged all of us! Not just anybody did this but the hall president! From that time through the semester, it didn’t matter whether the workers were on demonstration or not. I learnt that leaders live by example, and sometimes without even speaking, as a leader, your  people will do what you do!

1. 2. Mother

Another example of good leadership is that of my mother; Esther. I started coloring and drawing at about 2 years I was told. When I was in kindergarten through primary school from age five , I remember how she would always praise my drawings and color works and hang some in the living-room. She always encouraged me and praised my works. When I look at those old works at primary one now, they are the worst works I can imagine! But are her praises the reason why I was third in Ashanti region in an art creativity competition in junior high school? The reason why I choose to study visual art in senior high school and became the best sculpture student for two years? And one of the best students in the visual art class? Could it also be the reason why I choose to study fine Art in the University and chosen to represent my class to be interviewed on national television about visual art in Ghana? I learnt that encouragement can be a great source of motivation that every leader can give!

Students opinion

When I talked to a cross section of students in Saint John Senior High School, they gave their views on whom a good leader /teacher is.

1. A science teacher was named, who is always experimental. He allowed students to have several experiments concerning what he has thought them and this they said enabled them to practically experience what they have learnt and made it easier for them to understand what they have been thought.
2. Another economics teacher was named who uses stories and articles in newspaper as examples to the topics he teaches, like inflation, demand, tax etc. this makes them easily relate to the topic being taught and makes understanding easy. To these students, telling them one thing and reading notes on it to them is another thing from showing them how it happens outside the classrooms, and then they can relate to it without the tension of the class room. They  believe that when they  can see and relate to what they are learning in their environment and daily lives, it becomes easier for them to remember and understand.

1. On the aspect of discipline too I wanted to inquire because in Ghanaian schools, caning is a common thing. Student who break any law or refuses to obey any instructions could be caned very well as a punishment. On this aspect however, students express their view that, they would prefer to be counseled than caned because sometimes, they do not intentionally disobey instructions. Some students right after school, have to walk for miles to the house and have to still help in the house before they can attend to their assignments, and so they are already tired by that time and are not able to complete their assignments, others in dormitories on the campus said they sometimes have to help their seniors, and they do all the minor works in the dormitory and this affect them etc. many excuses were given, however, I believe that when students are counseled rather than given some brutal punishment, they obey not because of a law enforcer but because they know and understand why they shouldn’t do this or that. Some student shared stories of how they felt so embarrassed in times they were counseled by anyone after disobeying. They also felt trusted and as a result resolved not to disobey at all cost.

1. Student also described a good teacher to be one who understands and know much of what he or she is teaching. They related some stories in which the teacher did not have adequate knowledge in the field he was teaching and sometime had to even be corrected by the students. I was not too surprised at this because in Ghana, sometimes, people in search of a job can just enroll as a teacher in a field they are not specialized in,  and if they are not hard working can be uncovered. In many rural places too, many teachers are not qualified. They completed Senior High School and didn’t qualify to the university and were employed to teacher because of lack of teachers. In my personal experience however, my school; Prempeh College is one of the best Senior High Schools in the country, and there was an occasion a national service personnel came there to teach for a short time and was always found wanting because he didn’t know that the students always learn ahead and asked questions about what he had not yet prepared or read before coming to class.

School leaders

1. According to these prefects, a good leader should live by example. They expressed that, when the people you are leading recognize that you believe In what you are asking them to do, they easily obey you but when you say one thing and does another, they thought your leadership.
2. Also, a good leader easily come to the help of followers when they are in need. Any good teacher is ready to help the student out when he has any problem in his academics and sometime even in other personal and social challenges. This makes the student feel important and trusted. The student can easily learn with confidence. A good teacher is accessible. Student can easily walk to them whenever they need help with fear of being turn off. When students feel they can easily relate to you, they are careful not to hurt you by disobeying you or failing your exams and thus become more productive.
3. According to these students, a good teacher also expresses confidence in his/her students. In class many students surfer from inferiority complex, especially those who perform poorly in class, come from very poor families or are not able to answer questions in class. Such students’ confidence can be boosted by a leader or teacher by expressing of confidence in him/her.

A teachers’ opinion

1. The teacher I talked to expressed his opinion that , to him, the leaders he can give an example of are school-head since it was only they that teachers reports to. He believes that a good head master should be able to take good care of his staff. Some teachers don’t stay on campus he said, other teaches for extra hours and allowances and other incentives should be considered to motivate them. He concluded.

By this time I recognized how interesting the ladder of leadership climbs! What if I interview the headmaster! Then the Ghana Education Directors! Then the Minister of education! Then the president!  I recognized that the attitude of a leader, has direct impact on the people he leads and sometime, even their leadership style! If this is true, then the cradle of leadership will not be the presidential palaces but the homes of us all!

Finland is and has been successful in the international PISA-research. This means that the quality of Finnish education is high. Mr. Jarno Paalasmaa, chairman of the Finnish Steiner-society, writes in his article in the Finnish national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on June 19th 2009 about the challenge of measuring the quality of Finnish education merely based on PISA-research methods. This research does not tell anything about people’s ability to grow and gain emotional wisdom.

The headline of Mr. Paalasmaa’s article summarizes the message clearly: “Children should learn sophistication of the heart in schools”. He does not minimize the importance of quantitative knowledge, but finds it equally important to be sophisticated emotionally. Mr. Paalasmaa’s article focuses on children and young people attending school, but the message applies to people in all age groups just as much. His question is: what is sophistication?

Philosopher Eero Ojanen states in his book Philosophy of Sophistication (2008) that sophistication is more than anything else the inner attitude one has about life and the world, not thus so much a certain level of education. Sophistication is growth towards humanity.

I could not agree more. It is an indisputable asset in life to own a high level of knowledge about a wide range of things, but any given knowledge nor degree in any given subject is only of little value, if one does not understand how to use this knowledge properly. Again one can ask, what is then a proper use of knowledge? A good starting point is to choose to expose the knowledge one possesses to serve good. The pursue for goodness and emotional wisdom is what I personally value very high.

Mrs. Helena Kekkonen, founder of the Peace Education Institute in Finland and the first person to receive the UNESCO Peace Education prize (1981) is originally a chemist. Her career started by teaching chemistry at university level. What separated her from most of her colleagues was the fact that she included teaching knowledge of morality and ethics to all her courses. For her it was important to not only teach the students the theory of chemical disciplines, but also equip the students with a common sense understanding about what to do with the knowledge.

MKFC is emphasizing these exact values in all our courses. Humanity can be learned with proper guidance in cases where one is not born with an understanding about it. With our methods and ideology we can bring both quantitative and emotional education to countless people.