All interviewees said that teachers could practise leadership in any aspect, inside or outside of schools. Some examples they mentioned were planning activities, training others, instilling values, helping novice teachers and conducting research. The following quotes describe ways interviewees saw teacher leaders practising leadership:
‘They always mention their opinion in every aspect and volunteer’. ‘Teacher leadership helps you in anything, even if it is unusual or odd’. ‘Those teachers spend more time with students’.
I found it interesting that they mentioned ‘instilling values’ as a leadership role. Some elaborated and described it as linking their values to every aspect of life, not only those on paper. Others mentioned being a role model.
It is noteworthy that all interviewees mentioned that teachers’ roles had changed over the previous decade due to the educational reform in Qatar. The systems applied by the SEC and MoE and the types of professional development and education available for teachers in Qatar had changed. Some of the interviewees’ comments were:
‘Teachers used to plan individually before the educational reform and only teach; now they plan together and do many other things like pastoral care, activities and administrative tasks’.
‘Teachers used to care only about students; now, they need to do lots of paperwork and share new ideas, especially about using new technologies’.
‘In the old days, during the MoE, before the educational reform, teachers used to have a smaller teaching load and only focus on teaching; we had to do nothing related to administrative work. The admin team used to run it all. Now we have committees led by teachers for activities, buying new equipment and resources, planning events and definitely for curriculum and assessment practices’.
Elaborating on their perspectives of paperwork and participating in committees, most reported that these were a waste of time and effort. One said,
‘No one ever reads these papers. Each year, new decisions are made, so we throw out the previous files’.
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All interviewees stated that teacher leaders could participate in all aspects of school life, including administrative tasks, professional development, improving teaching and learning, leading activities like national holiday events, dealing with parents, running competitions and most importantly, leading their classrooms. Twenty interviewees mentioned that the teachers’ role extends beyond the classroom and into the community.
Interviewees differentiated between teacher leadership roles and responsibilities at the beginning of the education reform and at the time of the interviews. At the start of the reform, teachers influenced school policies, curriculum development,
communication with parents and students, assessments, school strategic plans and articulation of the vision. In contrast, at the time of the interviews, these roles had become centralised, planned by the MoE, and teachers only executed them and helped with day-to-day work. This transformation was described in chapter 2 (especially Table 4). Most of the changes were due to the unexpected consequences of the reforms, as RAND’s famous report stated (Brewer et al., 2007).
Teachers who witnessed that period acknowledged that they faced many challenges and that there was a lack of resources during that phase of the reform. However, they missed having more autonomy and practising as they had before, e.g., curriculum planning. This raises the question of how teachers can have more autonomy, yet ensure quality education and be able to apply new ideas without having a centralised system. Moreover, most interviewees had leadership roles, but according to them, they were requested to implement pre-planned guidelines, not to lead.
In terms of professional development (PD), all interviewees mentioned that teacher leadership included educating and helping others to improve teaching and learning. Bearing in mind that the MoE evaluated teachers’ performance on items including educating (training) other teachers, I asked the interviewees what that meant, and they referred to types of professional development beyond the official workshops requested by the school leaders.
‘When they develop their skills, they train others by showing practical examples and by spreading best practices’.
‘In the old days, teachers used to do most of the tasks individually. Currently they need to plan together and work in teams and need teacher leaders’ support in different areas’.
‘The MoE requires utilising new educational technologies in daily practice. Not all of us are used to these applications and teacher leaders help us learn and use them in a better way’.
‘Those teacher leaders are like diamonds. They cannot hide their radiance, their knowledge, skills and daily practices’.
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Two mentioned that teachers could help everyone, including school guards and janitors, develop their work; a few mentioned that they could be involved in any aspect of education as long as their main goal was to increase student achievement. When I asked them how they would know a teacher’s goal, their responses included the following statement:
‘You will recognise them and know, they have a vision and clear goals’.
Although I understood what they were referring to, it might have been difficult for school leaders and other stakeholders to recognise every teacher’s contribution. I believe no one can judge intentions. However, this might differentiate teachers who practise leadership tasks and roles without intention or consistency from those who are consistent in their practices in most or all cases and have a clear vision/purpose. One interesting example was a teacher who did not participate in any committee. When I asked her why she was nominated, she said it was because she managed a financial12 support programme forteachers and was always the project manager for social events for the teachers in all departments. This is a clear example of how not all teacher leadership practices were linked to student achievement. However, it can be argued that the above example of a financial support activity facilitated better conditions for teachers, and this enabled them to spend more time with students. In general, there was confusion between middle school leaders’ (coordinators) roles and responsibilities and formal and informal teacher leadership roles. This might be due to the changes the MoE enforced. At the beginning of the school reform, subject coordinators were considered school leaders, but the changes to the NPSTL
categorised subject coordinators with teachers when they applied for licencing. However, all interviewees agreed that the main teacher leadership responsibilities were teaching and learning, and that aspects of teacher leadership extend beyond having formal authority.