Principal Leadership in Taiwan Schools

Principal Leadership in Taiwan Schools

Principal Leadership in Taiwan Schools Roger C. Shouse and Kuan-Pei Lin

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shouse, Roger C., 1954– Principal leadership in Taiwan schools / Roger C. Shouse and Kuan-Pei Lin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4422-0616-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0618-2 (electronic) 1. School principals—Taiwan. 2. Educational leadership—Taiwan. 3. Educational change—Taiwan. 4. Education and state—Taiwan. I. Lin, Kuan-Pei, 1976– II. Title. LB2831.926.T28S46 2010 371.2'0120951249—dc21 2010014892

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To our parents: George and Eva Shouse Shean-Huei Lin and Pao-Hsu Wang

Contents

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xiii

1

Introduction and Rationale

1

2

Western Concepts and Chinese Contrasts

15

3

Taiwan’s Education System and Its Recent Reforms

35

4

Voices of Taiwan School Principals

53

5

Discussion and Implications

87

Notes

103

References

107

Index

113

About the Authors

117

vii

Preface

The story this book tells is compelling. It features abundant insights into two profoundly distinct cultures (Taiwan and the United States) that, at the same time, are moving in somewhat similar directions in the governance of their educational institutions. It is a perspective-changing book, nudging us away from provincial ways of thinking and leading us to new and less culturebound ways of seeing schools. I will make a few additional comments about these outstanding qualities of the book. The compelling story is about a major effort by a country to make basic changes in its educational system. The Taiwanese, as part of the larger movement toward increased democracy and national autonomy that emerged in the last two decades of the twentieth century, began to think about and initiate change in their educational institutions. Decades of tradition were challenged in dramatic ways as powerful voices called for major reforms in the schools. There was talk about “creativity” and “whole-child instruction,” organizational flexibility with more local decision making, the desirability of parental participation in school affairs, and redefining the principal as instructional head. The nation began to move away from a highly centralized system where the Ministry of Education established the policies, structures, and curricula that governed the schools of the nation, a system previously accepted by principals, teachers, and parents as the right and natural ways of doing things. Some of the new ideas have turned into actual practice as two successive governments, headed by different political parties, passed laws incorporating them in the first decade of the current century. The authors point to international influences as part of the story; for example, many of the new ideas were similar to American thought and action during the latter part of the last century. ix

x

Preface

Insights into Taiwanese and American culture are presented as the authors examine what has resulted from this large-scale effort at change. It is not for the preface to give away the plot—read on and enjoy the rich descriptions of the changes and the results, all in the context of sharp comparisons of Taiwanese and American ways of educating the young. We learn about themes such as collectivism, saving face, and the continuing potency of Confucian thought. We become aware of provocative differences and similarities in how centralization works in the two societies. For example, change in national examinations is opposed by less-favored Taiwanese who fear the social-class favoritism they believe will emerge under less-standardized arrangements. To what extent will federal policies in the United States, including heavy emphasis on testing, be shaped by a similar or different set of interests? Cultural themes and personal concerns associated with the changes in Taiwan come to life in the informative interviews the authors conducted with principals. The authors examine how the meanings of organizational concepts (e.g., leadership) are particular to given cultures, a discussion that helps us think about how they can be refined and used in more cosmopolitan ways. One comes away from the reading more aware than ever of the human costs that accompany the gains when we undertake serious change in our institutions. “DAVIS GRABS GOLD” shrieked the two-inch headline in a Chicago tabloid during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The background to the story is that Davis, a resident of Chicago, is a local boy who made good. It is easy to overlook the effects of the incessant emphasis on localism that pervades our media and society in general, a localism also found, I regret to admit, among many of us who study educational organizations and their administration. We are all too prone to examine our schools as if they existed in a vacuum of national isolation, overlooking the ways in which we can learn from the experience and creativity of people in other societies. Please permit a personal example. Before reading this book, I had not thought about how the presence of district board members and superintendents in American schools has acted to buffer principals, to an appreciable extent, from higher authority at state and federal levels. That became evident as I read how principals in Taiwan, standing alone and highly visible without intervening authority between them and the central government, must cope with the full force of new and more complex demands. The diffusion of power that scholars have noted in American public education may have reduced its ability to be more productive and to perceive that corrective action should be taken. One wonders, however, whether recent trends in a few large cities toward decentralizing accountability to the school and principal level may produce unanticipated problems that will require attention. For example, should increased responsibilities and vulnerabilities result in marked turnover

Preface

xi

among principals, might it not exacerbate difficulties in recruiting talented persons to the position? One possibility is that American school districts, for so many decades more similar than different in their organization, will develop urban subtypes (including greater incentives for principals), while suburban and rural districts, and those in smaller cities and towns, will undergo less structural change Reading about societies that initially look so different from ours reduces the sense of distance ill suited to life in a global world; it also stimulates new questions and fresh ways to understand our own. Shouse and Lin, in a brilliant combination of American and Taiwanese personal experience and scholarship, demonstrate the incomparable value of sophisticated comparison and the intellectual freshness it can—and does—produce when so ably conducted. Dan C. Lortie Professor Emeritus University of Chicago

Acknowledgments

Numerous individuals on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have encouraged and assisted us in creating this book. Our Pennsylvania State University colleagues Jacqueline Stefkovich, Edgar Yoder, and the late William Boyd provided sound guidance at early stages and encouraged us to develop our research study into a book. Other Penn State colleagues, notably Paul Begley, Katherine Gutierrez, and Gerald LeTendre, also offered encouragement, particularly at times when the going seemed as rough as the seas off the Taitung coast. We will be ever grateful for the support, guidance, and assistance of many colleagues, friends, and students at National Pingtung University of Education in Pingtung, Taiwan. These include Shean-Huei Lin, Ching-Chung Liu, Ching-Shiun Chang, Ren-Fu Chen, and Ching-I Lin. The citizens of the beautiful Pingtung-Kaohsiung region have been very friendly and hospitable to us over the years. In particular, we thank Jason Lee and his family as well as the many principals and teachers who opened their schools and classrooms to us and took the time to give us their honest views. Having suffered a good deal of frustration with some previous curt dismissals of our ideas and arguments, we wish to express our extreme gratitude to two anonymous reviewers who offered numerous helpful critical comments and suggestions for improving our manuscript. We hope they realize that serving as a thoughtful reviewer is not always a thankless task. Finally, for always believing in our eventual success even when we weren’t so confident, we thank our families—in particular, our spouses, Shiang-Jeou Shyu (who read and edited many early drafts) and Min-Ho Yeh.

xiii

Chapter One

Introduction and Rationale

A few years ago, while teaching at Taiwan’s National Pingtung University of Education (NPUE), one of us asked a group of teachers and school administrators in his educational-supervision class an important question: “How many leaders would you like to have in your school?” Before revealing the answers students gave, we ask readers to speculate about how that question might be answered in an American university classroom. We suspect that you suspect that American teachers and administrators in such a class would respond in ways reflecting the idea that leadership can be shared or distributed throughout the school; that leadership can flow outward and upward from the ranks of teachers and not just downward from principals and district administrators. Over the past couple of decades (and perhaps until very recently), such views flourished in the United States and parts of Europe. They represent not just the influence of popular leadership theory, but an egalitarian spirit as well: the idea that even “foot soldiers” in organizations have the capability and the right to initiate change or to influence or even challenge directives made from the top of the administrative ladder. This “Western” view frames leadership as a trait that can emerge at multiple points and flow in different directions within an organization. Yukl (1998) suggests, for example, that leadership is a social process through which all group members may influence and reshape goals, processes, outcomes, and power relationships within the organization. Other Western theorists speak of leaders as those who facilitate other organizational stakeholders’ creation of a shared mission or vision. Yet these and similar constructions of leadership seem incongruent with highly centralized or hierarchical organizational structures. The U.S. Army or Marine Corps, for example, though big on the idea of creating leaders, may not completely buy 1

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Chapter One

into the idea that leadership, authority, or vision should flow upward or outward in any informal or unconstrained fashion from the bottom of the ranks. Traditionally, educational systems in East Asia and other parts of the world reflect a similarly constrained view of organizational leadership. Formal decisions and policies tend to be made at the top and are expected to be carried out down the line. As a former colleague who taught school in Sicily once put it, “If the date was March 5, then every seventh-grade math teacher in Italy would be on page 206!” In contrast, particular characteristics of America’s educational environment have contributed to allowing teachers a good deal of autonomy and informal authority. For example, the diffuseness and uncertainty of educational goals and techniques, along with the absence of strong standardized entrance exams for high schools or universities, tended to create a loosely coupled system that enabled teachers to resist, modify, or sometimes entirely reshape formal goals and procedures.1 Despite recent efforts to standardize and centralize American public schooling (via the so-called No Child Left Behind [NCLB] Act of 2002), arguments for strengthening teacher empowerment, collegiality, and distributed leadership continue to run through Western education literature. But let’s return now to considering what occurred back on that warm winter’s evening in that southern Taiwan classroom, when we asked our group of students and professional educators, “How many leaders would you like to have in your school?” A middle-aged junior-high-school principal answered first. He did so quickly by simply raising his hand and pointing his index finger up sharply into the air. Other students nodded in agreement. His succinct response prompts us to consider some important questions about the meaning of “leadership” in hierarchical systems of education such as those found in Taiwan. As suggested above, while educational leadership and policy in the United States have traditionally been viewed as local matters, in Taiwan they are typically viewed as matters of higher authority. The Ministry of Education establishes policy, structure, and curriculum for the entire nation. Principals, teachers, and parents have tended to accept these policies and practices and to be satisfied exercising control over their own spheres of influence: the school, the classroom, or the home. Since the end of martial law in 1987, however, Taiwan has become a more dynamic and changing society, as indicated by the growth of its economy and expansion of its democratic processes. The changes have been sparked by and have prompted growing public demand for Taiwanese autonomy,2 decentralized governance, public political participation, and increased educational opportunity (Yuan 2004). By the mid-1990s, voices called upon the nation to “liberalize education,” through diversity in teacher training, textbooks, curriculum, and teaching methods (Taiwan Ministry of Education 1996). One of

Introduction and Rationale

3

those voices, Taiwanese Nobel Prize–winning chemist Yuan Tseh Lee, went on record as follows in 1996: When the information network is able to connect the world in a very short time; When the increase and renewal of knowledge exceeds the human capacity to pursue and absorb it; We have to reconsider the function of education. . . . We need to cultivate our human resources with creativity, care, and insight. (Lee 1996, 1, as quoted in translation in Yuan 2004, 45)

As governor of Taiwan’s Council on Education Reform, Lee further advocated a restructuring, expansion, and decentralization of the nation’s public education system for the purpose of increasing instructional creativity. Included here were recommendations for “whole child” education, organizational flexibility, site-based school governance, and de-emphasizing the importance of entrance-exam scores as the primary pathway to highereducational opportunity and primary indicator of school overall quality. Of special note, however, was the council’s call to shift the position of principal from one of manager and symbolic figurehead to that of “head teacher” and instructional leader (Yuan 2004). In response to the council, as well as to widening concerns over the narrow, test-driven, and (to some) elitist focus of Taiwan education, the Kuomintang3 (KMT) administration began a series of incremental reforms intended to “liberalize,” “democratize,” and “modernize” education (Yuan 2004). These reforms were later continued and expanded by the succeeding Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration. Many of these reforms (e.g., whole-child instruction, shared decision making, parent involvement, integrated classroom instruction, principal as instructional leader) appear similar to the school restructuring measures advocated and implemented to varying degrees in the United States over the last two or three decades of the twentieth century. Today, however, despite modest changes, the broad structure of Taiwan’s system of public education, still driven largely by hierarchical authority and high-stakes testing, remains relatively resistant to these various Westernstyle reforms. A number of cultural factors help explain this resistance. First, Taiwan society is embedded with strong tendencies toward collectivism (individuals placing group needs above individual needs) and power distance (individuals’ sense of social separation from the levers of power or authority; Bush and Qiang 2002; Hofstede 1991). A second factor involves the tendency of Chinese and Taiwanese citizens to place great importance on social status and mein-zi, or “face” (a sense of “personal pride” and a desire to avoid shame). Thus, for practical and social-psychological reasons, Taiwan parents

4

Chapter One

tend to invest heavily in their children’s school success, believing that their future occupational and social statuses depend greatly on how well they score on standardized exams. Traditionally, parents expected teachers to prepare their children to attain high scores, but also granted them great respect and trust regarding instructional decisions. Teachers, in turn, granted that same trust and respect to their principals, and principals acted likewise toward higher officials. While there might always be some exceptions to this pattern, educators tend to be extremely hesitant to criticize their superiors or to even offer unsolicited suggestions for improvement. A third source of resistance to Western educational ideas involves the tremendous influence of Confucianism upon the deeply engrained educational beliefs of citizens throughout East Asia. Among the key tenets of Confucianism is the understanding that the path toward learning is open to all who wish to follow it, and that doing so offers followers the capacity to “be a moral exemplar,” “provide leadership in society,” and “manifest [their] virtue” (Seth 2002, 144–45). For Chinese and Taiwanese youth, formal education and learning serve as the primary means of attaining higher social status. To put a sharper point on it, it is commonly perceived throughout East Asia that whatever wealth they may possess, those who work with their hands will not attain the social status of those who work with their minds (Lett 1998). The Confucian idea also, however, requires students to maintain respect for authority, diligent practice and repetition, and “above all else, hard work and effort” (Postiglione and Tan 2007, 4–5). Such beliefs account for Stevenson and Stigler’s (1992) claim that “most Asian children appear to see school as central to their lives; most American children do not. As a result, Asian children spend vastly more time at home on schoolwork than do American children. Asian parents support their children’s efforts by organizing the home environment to make it conducive to studying” (54). Such Confucian “habits of the heart” (Gold 1996) thus emphasize the authority of the school and of teachers, the high value of education, and the great responsibility families and students must shoulder for its attainment. These beliefs combine to nest the Taiwan school organization within an environment far different from its American counterpart. The contrast is further heightened by an additional key distinction between Confucian/East Asian and progressive/Western views of schooling. As Stevenson and Stigler (1992) point out, “Educators in the United States, reflecting the values of American society, seek to meet the special needs of every child. Asians make few concessions to individual differences among children, but devote their energies to raising the general level of achievement” (152). Earlier in their book, these authors suggest that Asian schools consider individual differences not as characteristics worthy of celebration, but as problems to be overcome. As a Japanese education official told them, the official goal of

Introduction and Rationale

5

education is the “reduction of individual differences among children,” a view they claim to be rejected by most American educators (135). It is a view well illustrated, however, in the following quote attributed to Confucius: Chiang is hard working and never fails to complete his texts and assignments, yet he fails to see beauty in nature. He must be sent to the country to walk about. Li is always late because he so likes to watch the sun rise and moon set. He must be reproached to study more purposefully. (quoted in Smith 1997, 57)

The social understandings described here clash not only with Western ideas about teaching and learning, but with those of leadership as well. They contribute to an organizational context in which authority tends to flow in one downward direction; where a high probability of follower compliance exists; and where status and effective use of symbol and ceremony may serve a principal more effectively than technical expertise. We are thus led to examine the meaning of “leadership” in administratively driven educational systems like Taiwan’s. If leadership (as distinct from “management”) truly exists, then what does it look like? And to what extent, if any, can Western leadership theory, with its emphasis on soft persuasion, professional collegiality, vision building, human relations, and organizational change help us understand it? These questions have implications for educational practice and reform in Taiwan and in other nations with similarly structured educational systems, and for leadership theory generally. Of course, we are not the first researchers seeking cross-cultural understanding about the meaning of “educational leadership.” But as one pair of scholars writes, the field has been “constrained by an over reliance on theories and practices predominantly developed by a relatively culturally homogeneous cadre of scholars from English-speaking backgrounds” (Walker and Dimmock 2002, 167). In addition, as we’ll highlight in the next chapter, a trend has emerged in recent years (intensified since the dawn of NCLB) to view “leadership” not as a phenomenon to be understood, but as a tool for enforcing compliance with a particular (arguably test-score driven) vision of schooling. It would appear that the “cadre” of Western scholars has yet to reach a sturdy and portable conceptual definition of “educational leadership,” one that is independent of passing fads, that separates the process of leadership from specific educational goals and techniques, and that can be usefully applied to different cultural and organizational settings. The framing of school leadership and school improvement along Western lines has become even more curious and problematic due to the increasingly globalized environment in which national systems of education must function. Specifically, educational globalism affects nations like Taiwan in at least two ways. First, more and more of Taiwan’s educational officials and

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Chapter One

scholars are earning their degrees in American colleges of education and returning with theory-practice “toolkits” that may be used for tinkering at various levels with their nation’s educational system. Second, and concurrently, developing nations come to view Western-style reform practices as the means (1) to compete more effectively and (2) to demonstrate institutional legitimacy in a global environment. But as Taiwan is pulled in a global direction, as its highly centralized ministry of education prescribes more progressive curricular, instructional, and organizational practices in local schools, principals face a daunting situation. Expected to serve as frontline leaders in Taiwan’s national system, they are held responsible for implementation, but must also share their power and authority with often skeptical stakeholders. They must persuade these stakeholders to accept a new—more flexible, democratic, and studentcentered—educational vision, while still operating within a firm structure of public-supported high-stakes testing. As Western reform templates become superimposed over Taiwanese organizational settings, what new pressures will principals experience? How will they respond? How will they “lead”?

THE GLOBAL CONTEXT OF TAIWAN SCHOOL REFORM To summarize, since the mid-1990s, efforts of varying success have been made to reduce the emphasis on high-school entrance exams, transform curricular and instructional practices within schools, promote shared decision making and professional collegiality among principals and teachers, and build new and broader avenues for local community involvement and control within schools. In other words, Taiwan appears to be attempting to restructure the local levels of its educational system along lines more congruent to Western ideals and practices. Strangely, however, a similar drift seems apparent in recent American reforms emphasizing the use of high-stakes testing and invoking tighter controls over instructional practices (Zhao 2009). It’s as if American schools were trying to become a little more “Asian.” Why educational organizations on both sides of the Pacific try to adopt and adapt each other’s principles and practices is partially explained by Friedman’s (2005) “flat world” thesis. Friedman argues that our growing ability to cheaply and quickly communicate over vast expanses of the planet has catalytically combined with an increasingly competitive world market of information and products. The process not only shrinks the space and time in which we all live and work, but also creates a more diffuse distribution of ideas and technology. As Paul Simon describes so artfully and sensually in his song “The Boy in the Bubble,” our days are marked

Introduction and Rationale

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by miracle, wonder, pulsating information, and a ubiquitous capacity to see everyone everywhere.4 Briefly mentioned earlier, the “globalization” argument helps explain Taiwan’s school-reform movement in a number of distinctive ways. From a functionalist perspective, school reform represents an effort to optimize the nation’s human capital and increase its economic competitiveness. This effort (which, of course, is ongoing in many countries around the world) is both paralleled and influenced by the expansion of corporate and individual efforts to improve competitiveness by attaining higher levels of education, training, and efficiency, often outside the boundaries of the home nation. In the late 1970s, for instance, American auto companies began sending employees across the Pacific to study Japanese production teams. Similarly, since the mid-1980s, growing numbers of Asian educators have earned advanced degrees at American and European colleges of education. Functional globalism thus accounts for growing international commonality in educational practice and reform by suggesting that over time, sparked by economic incentives, individuals, organizations, and nations adopt similar patterns of behavior, technology, and pedagogy aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of their local and national instructional systems (Walker and Dimmock 2002). This functional-competitive perspective goes some of the way toward understanding trans-Pacific educational isomorphism. Indeed, it helps explain some recent American policy initiatives such as NCLB, which relies on highstakes testing in an effort to increase global competitiveness by raising levels of student achievement and narrowing achievement gaps across categories of student race and socioeconomic status. One is left to explain, however, why already competitive and educationally successful countries like Taiwan or South Korea would seek to restructure their educational systems along the lines of those in the United States or other Western nations, especially as the latter tend to score in the mediocre range on international measures of student achievement. That educational systems may come to mimic one another over time, even when there appears to be no clear payoff in terms of global efficiency or competitiveness, is partially explained by institutional perspectives, which highlight the influence of emerging social realities—“powerful myths” of practice within the global environment—to which organizations must conform to maintain institutional legitimacy. Note that these are not “myths” in the sense of being necessarily untrue, but in the more Platonic sense, that social or organizational cohesion demands that they be believed. Though in the field of education myths tend to rise and fall over time, we might consider such examples as the concepts of “whole-child education,” “distributed authority,” or “principal as instructional leader.” A key, fascinating feature

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Chapter One

of institutional myths is that people may continue to believe in them strongly even when they seem to conflict with the need for organizational efficiency or effectiveness (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Conflict may also arise as global and local myths compete and clash. Globally, for example, the popular idea may gradually emerge that schools must produce creative thinkers and that this requires significant departure from the teacher-centered lecture-recitation model used in the classrooms of many developing nations. For similar reasons, governments and ministries of education may seek to implement “alternative access” to higher education (based on students’ qualitative characteristics rather than solely on their test scores) or look for ways to limit “shadow education” (the so-called cram schools). At the local level, however, beliefs as to what constitutes a legitimate system of schooling may be quite different. Parents, especially from less affluent families, may view entrance exams as vitally important to their children’s social mobility and critical to maintaining fairness within the educational system (Broaded 1997). In addition, parents may harbor suspicions about the fairness of alternative college-entrance procedures and thus continue to pour family resources into shadow education (Lee and Shouse 2008). Such factors help account for local resistance to national school reform on both sides of the Pacific.

THE IMPACT AND MEANING OF REFORM Beyond the fact that Taiwan’s school-reform effort represents a stark challenge to centuries of Asian ideas about educational practice, the ongoing change process impresses us as remarkable, problematic, and worthy of study for several additional reasons: • The tremendous new pressures these reforms place on school principals, the organizational officers who are, on one hand, held most responsible for implementing these reforms yet, on the other, appear to have lost a good deal of their formal power and authority because of the reforms. • The potential impact of the reforms, not just in terms of achieving formal goals, but in terms of the way they have influenced the meanings principals attach to their work and the strategies they develop to lead—and to survive—within the organization. • The way in which the “school-reform movement” in Taiwan both reflects and conflicts with newly emerging national political movements. • The extent to which Taiwan’s reform offers a platform for various forms of “organizational learning” (Weick and Westley 1996).

Introduction and Rationale

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• The meaning of “school reform” from both functional and institutional perspectives. Is the reform process seen as a means of rationally improving the functional quality and product of Taiwan public schooling, or more as a matter of strengthening institutional legitimacy within an increasingly global environment? This last item is of great interest in understanding how Taiwan school reform conflicts and interacts with traditional normative structures to reshape the way leadership is understood and practiced. If reform is viewed primarily in rational and functional terms (as a series of steps aimed at process and product improvement), then one might expect principals to experience high levels of stress and uncertainty as they struggle to implement Western ideas against the grain of a rigid, hierarchical, and test-driven system, all the while hampered further by declining formal authority. If, however, reform serves primarily symbolic ends (a way to demonstrate membership in a modern global environment), then one might expect principals to find comfort in the trappings and language of reform, creating at best small incremental changes that serve to buffer their schools from the substantive technical demands of educational reform. Whether rationally or symbolically driven, Taiwan’s reform agenda poses a challenge to long-standing educational practices and deeply embedded cultural characteristics and dispositions. To some extent, Taiwan’s recent experience mirrors that of the United States, where recent NCLB reforms often conflict with key beliefs about “the way schools ought to be” (Lee and Shouse 2007). Many of the demands placed upon schools by NCLB have met resistance in recent years, as if a wall of social reality surrounding public belief about what makes American schools legitimate public institutions has been hit. In similar fashion, some very recent school-leadership studies by Western scholars appear to narrow the very role of “school leader” to one who facilitates the hierarchical flow of authority and promotes the attainment of externally derived content standards, usually in the form of raising students’ standardized-test scores. (See, for example, Murphy et al. 2006.) Such conceptions would appear to rub against some well-established and deeply held American beliefs about the concept of “leadership” and the purposes and realities of schooling. If one appreciates this conflict in the West, one can certainly appreciate the daunting problem facing Taiwanese school-reform efforts. As Taiwan education officials mandate less local bureaucracy and more local democracy, principals are pulled in multiple directions, and their schools have become places of uncertainty and incongruity. In very concrete fashion, their schools have become excellent landscapes for studying organizational

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learning: spaces where long-established assumptions and routines clash with new social demands; spaces characterized by what Weick and Westley (1996) call “juxtaposed order and disorder.” But what will these local school organizations actually learn? The answer to that question could range from little or nothing (with our middle-school principal’s single-digit response carrying the day) to a very great deal (with the establishment of new routines of shared leadership and school improvement). Within the middle territory, principals and schools might learn to balance old and new routines; or, on a more complex level, perhaps find ways to engage school reform on a symbolic level while evading its more difficult technical demands.

OUR STUDY OF PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP To address these issues and questions, over a one-year period beginning in the spring of 2003 we conducted a series of school visits and interviews with a sample of Taiwan elementary and middle-school principals. Our interviews covered a variety of questions aimed at teasing out the meanings these principals attached to the concept of leadership, how these meanings influenced their daily work, and how their daily work had been influenced by Taiwan school-reform mandates. In addition, we toured each school and observed a number of formal meetings in order to gain a sense of overall school climate. Our results suggest that Taiwan principals have a foot in two worlds and are struggling for balance. Though they are open to Western models of school reform and leadership, and are often eager to apply them, they tend to do so in ways that are filtered through a lens of Chinese social norms and beliefs. It’s a lens that influences their behavior as well as that of the teachers they are expected to lead. For example, the principals with whom we spoke perceive “teacher leadership” in a much more formal and status-oriented way than we might expect from their American counterparts. They also express concerns that their teachers are not so eager to accept shared authority and leadership. Perhaps most problematically, these principals seem to view themselves as facing a highly precarious situation with respect to school leadership, one largely the result of national school-reform policies. Specifically, while expected to implement curricular and instructional change within their schools, they must not only share more of their authority with teachers, but also meet the expectations of the new local school-community committees established under national school-reform legislation. In other words, as speculated previously, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education has handed these principals the primary responsibility for the success of reform at the same time it has taken away a good deal of the power and authority upon which they have traditionally relied.

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With respect to these Taiwanese principals, our data reflect a picture often described by sociologist Dan Lortie with respect to American principals: that they must work in an environment of declining formal authority coupled with increasing responsibility, expectation, uncertainty, and vulnerability. If an American school fails to produce satisfactory levels of student achievement, the school may be held responsible. But the responsibility is diffused throughout the school and often throughout the community; seldom is anyone’s job “on the line.” Taiwan school-reform legislation, however, has removed a portion of the job security principals once enjoyed. They are subject to regular reassessment by their administrative supervisors, as well as by local political boards. A school’s poor performance, its failure to satisfy parents’ expectations, a principal’s inability to implement reform, and even local political pressures may lead to reassignment or even dismissal. Taiwan principals thus appear to operate in a precarious setting, one in which they must struggle to find the combination of symbol and substance with respect to reform that will promote their status and stability within the organization.

IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP THEORY Perhaps too often, the term “leadership” is used as what Carlson (2003) and others (notably Claude Lévi-Strauss) would call a “floating signifier.” That is, it is open to diverse, contradictory, and contested meanings and is regularly used as a rhetorical or political device rather than as a concept aimed at promoting description or understanding. For example, we may hear it said that principals “need to show leadership” or “need to create leadership.” Often, however, the meaning behind such phrases is that principals need to take successful action and make something happen—for instance, to implement curricular or instructional change that improves students’ academic performance (i.e., test scores). Similarly, the term “leader” often serves as a reward—a label applied in retrospect to those organizational actors assumed to be responsible for successful change. “Leader” may also be applied to those who have shown dynamic compliance to directives issued from higher authorities within or outside the organization; while, in contrast, those who resist those directives may be accused of “failing to demonstrate leadership.” Though such meanings can be legitimate in popular usage or across cultural contexts, from a social-science perspective, a concept is useful only to the extent it allows us to describe, understand, predict, or recreate interesting, troublesome, or important human phenomena. To that end, both implicitly and explicitly, this book seeks to call greater attention to the proposition that Western conceptions of school leadership have over the years become much

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more prescriptive than descriptive. That is, we suggest that current literature on leadership tends to focus more on the way things ought to work than on the way they actually do work. To illustrate, consider the irony of the many articles and books offering “school leaders” (usually “administrators”) advice on how to share or redistribute leadership to implement a predetermined vision or template for school improvement. In fact, teachers often hold varying ideas on how schools can be improved, many of which often run at odds with the visions of their administrators. To fully—and descriptively—discuss distributive leadership, one must take into account examples of leadership on the part of teachers, parents, or even principals that conflict with formal policies or goals established at higher organizational levels. When Western researchers and policy makers call for “shared leadership,” do they often really mean “shared obedience” to the aims of a particular school-reform agenda? Though researchers may view concepts like shared, distributive, or transformational leadership as potential tools for solving problems or overcoming resistance to change, they also need to acknowledge that if the tools produce results they did not desire or anticipate, it is still possible for “leadership” to have occurred—if not on the part of one particular actor or group, then on that of another. (The concept of leadership will be more carefully discussed in chapter 2.) It is thus perhaps necessary to state up front our general sense of concern with the near-mythical status of the “effective leadership produces effective schools” idea. On one hand, it would seem important for principals or other potential school leaders to believe that their efforts aimed at collective improvement are effective and valuable. On the other hand, the aims of such efforts may vary dramatically from actor to actor or from group to group. While it’s safe to assume that most potential school leaders desire to create a “good” school and to increase student engagement and learning, more caution is needed when determining what those goals actually mean. Moreover, studies that seek to establish correlations between leadership characteristics and students’ standardized-test scores are often plagued by problems involving causality: for example, do good leaders create good schools, or is it the other way around? These concerns are not intended to diminish the importance or usefulness of leadership in certain sets of circumstances or to discount the efforts of those engaged in applied leadership research aimed at school improvement. We do, however, question the growing tendency of some scholars to frame leadership primarily in terms of purposes (e.g., Furman 2003) or to identify “leadership” in terms of or as part of some specific repertoire of (typically Western) practices tied to particular notions of school quality or effectiveness. In light, therefore, of the need to understand (as opposed to sell) the phenomenon of leadership, we are fascinated by our Taiwanese principal’s

Introduction and Rationale

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one-fingered response to the question, “How many leaders would you like to have in your school?” Indeed, we believe it represents an understanding of leadership worthy of respect, one that both challenges and meshes with Western ideas. Perhaps above all, it suggests the practical, social, and symbolic importance he perceives to be attached to his position. Yet at the same time, despite his “one leader per school” belief, isn’t it likely that he also hoped for and depended upon his teachers to share his vision, carry out his directives, and help him lead the school to success? Principals in the West and East alike rely heavily on formal and informal power and authority. It appears that in recent times, American principals have struggled to gain these resources, while Taiwan’s principals have struggled not to lose them. In addition to offering theoretical and empirical insights about how Taiwanese social, cultural, and organizational realities pose challenges to local principals, national reform efforts, and the way we think about school leadership, we hope that this book will serve for many readers as an introduction to Taiwan’s education system and its fascinating recent experience and struggles with school reform. As indicated above, our discussions and analyses aim at description and understanding, and we make no apologies for raising more questions than we answer. A brief anecdote may help illustrate the need for such descriptive leadership studies. During our experience as teachers at NPUE, it was quite common for doctoral students in educational administration to focus their dissertation ideas on solving systemic problems within their local schools. Examples would include things like “How can we get principals to effectively implement school reform policies?” or “How can we get teachers to reform their classroom teaching methods?” The advice we offer these and every student of past, present, and future is that before solving a problem, one must first understand why it exists. This is the spirit in which we offer this book.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK Chapter 2, “Western Concepts and Chinese Contrasts,” summarizes basic notions of leadership and how theorists have tended to inflate the concept with normative baggage (i.e., values and ideas tied to a particular set of social or political views). We’ll suggest that these inflated views of leadership often fail to fit with Chinese and Taiwanese cultural traditions and understandings. Offering a stripped-down definition of leadership, the chapter will then present a portrait of how the concept is understood from an Asian perspective and the potential for conflict with Western views of school reform.

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Chapter 3, “Taiwan’s Education System and Its Recent Reforms,” describes Taiwan’s educational system and charts its recent turbulent history of school reform. We also discuss the difficulties reform mandates have posed for principals and teachers and their implications for local school leadership. At issue here as well is the overarching problem of how the reform motives of education officials and influential elites fail to dovetail with the culture, tradition, organizational structure, and politics of Taiwan’s social and educational systems. The data gathered from our school observations and principal interviews are presented and discussed in chapter 4, “Voices of Taiwan School Principals.” In addition to highlighting the emerging themes, we’ll also expand on our data so as to offer readers a richer understanding of daily life within these schools. Finally, chapter 5, “Discussion and Implications,” draws conclusions regarding the obstacles and opportunities surrounding principal leadership in Taiwan and other similar settings. The chapter also summarizes how institutional, cultural, and organizational learning theory help us understand the apparent tensions and contradictions associated with innovation and leadership behavior in hierarchical, administratively driven organizations. In reading these chapter descriptions, one may suggest that we use the terms “Western,” “Eastern,” and “Asian” too casually—that there may be as much cultural variation within the West or within Asia as there is between these two world regions. Though the latter assertion may be true, it is also true that general notions of “East-West” contrast have become common topics in ongoing popular and scholarly discussions of schools and school leadership. As we proceed in the book to clarify these contrasts, we ask readers for a little leeway in using these terms.

Chapter Two

Western Concepts and Chinese Contrasts

For most Americans, especially those who read or listen to the daily news, follow sports or politics, or work in professional or academic settings, seldom does a day pass without some mention of or reference to the word “leadership.” Our politicians are expected to show it. Ball players are expected to show it. Our bosses at work may applaud us for showing it or ask us to show more of it. Wherever a problem arises and whenever a problem appears to be solved, it is usually linked in people’s minds to the absence or presence of “leadership.” In America and most of the so-called Western world, nowhere is this more the case than in systems of public education. “Effective leadership” is said to be a prerequisite for school improvement, for improving student learning, and for creating new citizens who are prepared to become productively engaged in democratic society. In part due to the increasing globalization of the institutional environment surrounding educational systems (Begley 2002; Dimmock 2002), the leadership message is growing into Asia and other parts of the world as well. Like their American counterparts, colleges and universities throughout Taiwan, South Korea, China, and other Asian nations have changed the name of what were once called “departments of educational administration” to “departments of educational leadership.” As suggested in the previous chapter, the demand for educational leadership has taken on attributes of what Meyer and Rowan (1977) would call a “myth,” that is, a powerful, rationalized concept of organizational work within the global institutionalized environment of educational practice. That is to say, for a growing number of educational systems around the world, leadership is viewed as an important tool or ingredient for increasing school-system effectiveness and legitimacy within local, national, and global environments. 15

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Often lost in this global groundswell, however, is any appreciation that “leadership” represents as much a question about schools as it does an answer to the problems of schooling. That is, the rush to use leadership as a tool for improving school effectiveness has tended to narrow or even foreclose discussions as to its meaning and the various ways it is exercised and revealed in schools and across different organizational and cultural settings. Recently in the United States, for example, as the idea of school effectiveness became linked to the goal of raising standardized-test scores, scholarly literature on school leadership also began to link the concept to specific purposes, practices, and results related to test scores or other operational measures of student or teacher behavior. For instance, the opening chapter to a recent scholarly book titled A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership (with emphasis on the word “new”) defines “school leadership” as “the work of mobilizing and influencing others to articulate and achieve the school’s shared intentions and goals” and also approvingly asserts that “increasingly, educational leadership that purports to serve any end other than student learning is viewed as illegitimate and ineffectual” (Leithwood and Riehl 2005, 13–14). “Student learning,” however, has essentially become a code phrase for “raising math and reading test scores,” and the unfortunate implication here is that the prime leadership task for principals and teachers is not to critically examine the meaning of “student learning,” nor to explore different visions of what constitutes “the good school,” but rather to accept responsibility and accountability for the goals and visions mandated by higher organizational authorities (i.e., to raise test scores in line with state, federal, and global demands). Also unfortunate here is the explicit delegitimizing of leadership acts perceived as out of sync with the accepted vision. Though “student learning” may be a worthy leadership goal, it is a multifaceted concept that encompasses far more than standardized performance in particular content areas. To problematize the matter even further, numerous examples come to mind of school leadership not directly connected to “student learning.” Consider a union representative encouraging teachers to file grievances against an intrusive or abusive principal or policy; a teacher speaking up at a faculty meeting about the need for students to assume more of their learning responsibilities; or a group of students organizing a lunch room sit-in to protest the elimination of recess. For some, such acts may seem outside the current or even contrary to “student learning” goals. For others, however, they may seem like essential features of “learning” within a good, “democratically spirited” school (Shouse 2004). The recent redefining of “school leadership” within narrow political lines is further evident in the following, taken from a recent executive report:

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[Leaders] make certain that goals are focused on students, feature student learning and achievement, and are clearly defined. They ensure that responsibility for achieving targets is made explicit and that timelines for achieving objectives are specified. In short, they make sure that school vision is translated into specific and measurable end results. (Murphy et al. 2006, 9, emphasis added)

This highly rationalist, top-down, and positivist vision of leadership conjures up images of the film Twelve O’Clock High, in which a strict and stern General Savage is called in to sharpen up a unit of World War II bomber pilots who have been ostensibly rendered inefficient by their previous commander’s human-relations approach to military leadership. Though this vision represents one particular mode of leadership, perhaps legitimate in some contexts and circumstances (e.g., a unit of pilots called upon to carry out risky daylight bombing runs or, perhaps, a school in manifest desperate need of physical, social, or pedagogical renovation), it emphatically excludes possibilities that are more subjective, organic, or informal, or whose goals are outcomes that are more subtle, subjective, long-term, affectively toned, or difficult to measure. Ironically, while some American policy makers and academics applaud the authoritative style of leadership as a way to tighten the connections between organizational goals, teacher practices, and student test scores, it is also an approach that Taiwan’s reform initiative seems to be asking its principals and schools to learn to move beyond. Later on in this chapter and in subsequent chapters, we’ll discuss the ways in which Taiwan reform might challenge traditional understandings and expressions of school leadership, and how these challenges reflect tensions between Western and Eastern ideas. To begin, however, it is necessary to offer a broad Western understanding of “leadership,” stripped of any recent normative baggage regarding its purpose and practice within schools. This should enable a discussion that frames leadership as a pervasive phenomenon within organized schooling, and not simply as a rhetorical device for promoting compliance with particular agendas of educational meaning and activity. BASIC “WESTERN” IDEAS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP In Western literature and parlance, both popular and scholarly, the word “leadership” denotes a complex and fascinating range of ideas. Sociologist Philip Selznick (1957) called it a “slippery phenomenon,” elusive to both common sense and social science. Over the decades and across the miles, leadership has been viewed as a result of individual skill and character, an acutely challenging situation, or some combination of the two. Leadership, in

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fact, has long been presented as a problem of applying some proper balance of often conflicting approaches or dimensions to create change, overcome resistance, or draw awareness to new possibilities. For example, leadership may emerge out of formal rank, knowledge or skill, powerful beliefs, clever or sincere persuasion, coercion, reward, or some combination of all of these. The aims of leadership may be rational, humanistic, or symbolic, and while these aims may parallel or complement each other, they are often likely to intersect or conflict. Hoy and Miskel (2001) go some way in summarizing the Western leadership idea, defining leadership broadly, as a social process in which a member of a group or organization influences the interpretation of internal and external events, the choice of goals or desired outcomes, organization of work activities, individual motivation and abilities, power relations, and shared orientations. Moreover, as a specialized role and social influence process, leadership is comprised of both rational and emotional elements with no assumptions about the purpose or outcome of the influence efforts. (394)

These words convey the looseness and edginess of the Western leadership idea. Leadership is about influence, but in multiple directions and contexts. It may often emerge as a function of formal organizational roles and goals, but is not inherently tied to these. Leadership may operate at any point within an organization as individuals or groups intervene to reshape procedures, understandings, and beliefs. Pushing this idea further, we suggest that leadership is a social process that moves members of a group toward (at least) suspending their own judgments in favor of those of another or others within that group. The word “moves” is important here because of its dual meaning. It not only implies a change to new behaviors, and goals, but also the sense of gradually changing people’s hearts and minds. As suggested earlier, this can be done in a variety of ways, from soft persuasion to hard coercion. Yet even as acts of leadership seem rigid or authoritative, the essence of leadership lies in voluntary change, in the “influential increment over and above mechanical compliance” (Katz and Kahn 1978, 528). This voluntary dimension of leadership is what allows us to distinguish between a leader and a dictator, even though both may occasionally use similar tactics aimed at similar results. For example, on one extreme, soldiers may risk their lives to follow an order during battle mostly due to coercion—their fear of the formal consequences associated with failing to obey. At the other extreme, they may follow the order mainly in response to a set of more internalized incentives: their rigorous prior training or a sense of responsibility to a greater good. Leadership is the oil that frees those officers

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giving the orders from the often high costs associated with coercion (e.g., heavily coerced soldiers may flee or revolt), and allows them to rely more on subordinates’ voluntary compliance. The process by which this type of leadership is created involves expanding subordinates’ “zone of indifference” (Barnard 1938) or “zone of acceptance” (Simon 1957) and is, perhaps, the fundamental characteristic of the Western concept of leadership, differentiating it from related concepts such as management, power, or rank. One should not infer from the above example, however, that leadership is primarily about maintaining “obedience,” or even about increasing the likelihood of voluntary compliance by subordinates. In fact, the opposite is often true, as indicated in the work of groups or individuals ranging from civil-rights activists marching against a police barricade to students staging a cafeteria sit-down strike to protest some school policy perceived as excessive or unjust. Through ideas, words, and actions both rational and symbolic, the leaders of such movements strive to delegitimize prevailing laws, rules, or norms by moving potential followers to suspend their acquiescence in favor of alternative possibilities—in effect, to wage a battle for control over the shape and boundaries of the zone of acceptance. A teacher who rises at a faculty meeting to challenge a principal’s authority to impose some new directive is engaging in, or at least grappling with, leadership to the extent his or her colleagues begin to agree. At the same time, leadership is not necessarily only concerned with explicit results. Hemphill’s (1949) three-category framework is of interest here. Attempted leadership, he theorizes, consists of actions intended to reduce resistance and promote acceptance among potential followers. Successful leadership occurs as followers’ thinking, attitudes, and practices begin to change (e.g., when teachers try new instructional methods or work to resist those imposed upon them). Effective leadership exists when goals begin to be achieved (e.g., when students begin to learn more or old policies and structures begin to change). But things are not as simple as they seem. For principals, “attempted leadership” is probably the most common activity, comprising a great many everyday actions, from subtle to decisive, aimed at managing collective meaning within the school and creating a “sense of what is important around here” (Bryman 1986; Pfeffer 1982; Smircich and Morgan 1982). The goals of such actions are often vague or loosely defined and their success or effectiveness difficult to observe or assess. Collectively, nevertheless, these actions influence attitudes, morale, and cooperative spirit within the school. Complicating matters even further, however, is the fact that principals often are uncertain as to whether their everyday acts of attempted leadership are actually “working,” promoting follower cooperation—or, in Barnard’s (1938) words, whether such acts are “efficient.” Depending on the

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school’s social context, providing support or supervision, encouragement, admonishment, sanction, or ceremony—all the common formal and informal activities in which principals engage—may or may not increase cooperative spirit. Regardless of their explicit impact, however, principals may be expected to perform such activities, because this repertoire of efforts serves as a mantle of leadership regardless of whether they are simply attempted, marginally successful, or ultimately effective. Summarizing this discussion, we suggest that the Western essence of school leadership rests in a process of changing the collective mind: of creating new meaning, compliance, approval, or action among some group of actors within a school or its greater environment. Research on “educational leadership” has tended to differentiate (or, some might suggest, oversimplify) this process in a number of familiar ways: as “transformational,” “moral,” “instructional,” “distributive,” “task” and “relationship” oriented, and so on. Such markers may be useful in considering the leadership understandings of Taiwan principals, and we shall return to these respective themes in chapters 4 and 5. Besides these general categories, however, we now point to four characteristic implications of the Western leadership idea, to which Chinese/ Taiwanese understandings can also be compared. Western School Leadership Is Loosely Connected with Explicit Goals As discussed above, though leadership is frequently directed at specific technical or symbolic goals, its practice and impact may remain relatively independent from them. Individuals may display leader behavior out of a general desire for credibility or influence, or out of a belief that it is simply the right thing to do. When leadership does target explicit goals, its actions may not be consistently successful, effective, or efficient. In fact, successful and effective acts of leadership may often be inefficient, that is, if behaviors change and goals are met at the cost of followers’ morale or future cooperation. Conversely, efficient leadership may boost morale and the likelihood of future effort and cooperation, even while failing to achieve previously targeted goals. In this regard, one also notes the duality and tension between expressions and effects of leadership at the rational and institutional levels of the organization. For example, educational leadership may bring about technical reforms (i.e., “meet goals”) that damage public confidence in the schooling process (e.g., concerns are raised over whether No Child Left Behind legislation causes “teaching to the test” or whether Taiwan school reforms might lead to lower scores on high-school entrance exams). Alternatively, leadership that strengthens a school’s public legitimacy may also allow it avoid, evade, or

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reshape demands for technical change (e.g., parents may forgive a weak curriculum if the school can build a terrific basketball team or do other things that make them proud of their school). Western School Leadership Is Multidirectional and Independent of Formal Rank or Authority Despite recent efforts to frame it in narrow, formal terms, Western perceptions of “educational leadership” have traditionally not been confined to those in positions of formal authority nor limited to purposes of their choosing. In addition, though leadership may aim at organizational transformation, it also has been recognized in the efforts of school members to oppose, obstruct, or significantly alter transformational efforts. Note also that both transformational and oppositional leadership may be expressed by any school member, regardless of formal position; for example, principals as well as teachers may challenge or resist higher-level directives or initiatives. Those in formal positions may, of course, seek to delegitimize subordinates’ leadership efforts (e.g., a student or teacher who actively obeys is a “leader,” while one who actively resists is a “ringleader”). Nevertheless, the normal interplay of downward and upward leadership appears to exemplify the kind of “juxtaposed order and disorder” some view as a necessary context for organizational learning and innovative change (Weick and Westley 1996, 441). This vertical interplay and tension between various attempts at leadership behavior can occur even in rigid, authoritatively driven organizations. Officer-training programs in American military academies, for example, have used the term “dynamic subordinancy” to represent how lower-ranking officers can influence or “lead” their superiors (Crockett 1981) by sharing responsibility for their actions and success. Specifically, in a context of trust and loyalty, lower-ranking officers may call upon superiors to expand their zone of acceptance, suspend their judgment, and consider alternative perspectives. The importance of such upward leadership and the harmful consequence of its absence are illustrated in the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny. Widely used as a leadership case study, the film presents a series of fictional events appearing to show the angry, paranoiac bungling of the captain of the U.S. Navy minesweeper Caine during World War II. Egged on by his fellow officers, the ship’s executive officer eventually relieves the captain of his command due to his ineptitude and panic during a catastrophic typhoon. Court-martialed for mutiny, the executive officer and the junior officer who aided him escape conviction when the skillful judge advocate’s tough questioning reveals the captain’s paranoiac mental state. In the aftermath, however, the advocate sharply admonishes his clients that the Caine’s most

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serious problem was their own failure to offer their captain “constructive loyalty.” In the advocate’s words, you don’t work with a captain because of how he “parts his hair.” You work with him because he’s got the job, or “you’re no good.”1 The key point here is that notwithstanding the rigidity of organizational hierarchy, sailors, soldiers, and teachers have some obligation to respectfully challenge or remonstrate to their superiors—that is, to engage in attempted leadership upward through the chain of command. Western School Leadership Is Fueled and Problematized by Uncertainty, Democracy, and Social Change Leadership (in the sense presented here), though barely noticeable during times of stability and placidity, becomes more visible, salient, difficult, demanded, and contentious during times of rising technical, social, or political change. In the United States, for instance, the demand for and incidence of leadership activity and effort are intensified by strong democratic traditions and a culture that emphasizes individualism and political self-efficacy. Moreover, America’s education system is historically characterized by local control, diffuse goals, an uncertain technical core, and relatively soft lines of authority at the local school level (Lortie 1975). All these factors increase the likelihood for debate and struggle over educational ideas, goals, and approaches in local schools and districts, state and national politics, and the pages of popular and scholarly books and journals. American schooling has long been a contested space with ample air for the spread of educational-leadership efforts. Western Understandings of School Leadership Emphasize Visionary Transformation The complex climate described above promotes a tendency for leadership to be practiced and perceived in terms of bold organizational change. Pointing out how scholarship on educational leadership has shifted from a functional to normative view (from examining how leadership works to emphasizing what it should do), Starratt (1995) highlights leadership as a process of moral fulfillment requiring cultural transformation toward “the dream of creating an exciting and satisfying school” (44). Wiseman (2005), however, takes issue with this point with respect to American principal leadership: There are right attitudes and wrong attitudes. . . . A right attitude is one that is change oriented, prominent, and focused on progress of some sort. A wrong attitude is one that is not change oriented, not prominent, and not focused on progress. Where are all of the good principals, who maintain the good that goes on in their schools, going to fall in this right and wrong dichotomy? If there is nothing

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broken, does it need to be fixed? If there is something that needs to be fixed in a school, is prominent, progress-minded change the only way to fix it? (42)

To put it bluntly, school “managers” become perceived as dreary symbols of the past, school “leaders” as heroic builders of the future, and the changing perception contributes to the narrowing of the leadership lexicon. That is, though often critically important to school effectiveness, morale, or public support, actions aimed at preserving, maintaining, legitimizing, or marginally improving ongoing technical and institutional routines might not by themselves be interpreted as leadership by stakeholders or other observers. We readily concede, of course, the inherent contradiction in the characteristics offered above. For instance, how can leadership be transformational, but not necessarily tied to explicit goals? One answer to this lies in the previously mentioned distinction between leadership as a social phenomenon or process worthy of study, and leadership as a particular set of practices or skills deemed necessary for the attainment of specific aims. In either sense, the concept’s very meaning is contested and struggled over, in much the same way as related concepts such as “education” or “achievement.” A second, perhaps more intriguing answer to the contradiction lies in the possibility that “leaders” may point to and emphasize great transformative visions not for the purpose of actually attaining them, but for other reasons, such as motivating teachers or increasing institutional legitimacy.

THE CONTEXT OF TAIWANESE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP Our experience with and knowledge of Taiwan, its culture, and its system of schooling lead us to expect marked differences in the way leadership is understood and practiced. Though many Taiwan principals might agree that leadership involves creating collective meaning, compliance, and approval within their schools, they might also offer additional leadership understandings that rub against some of the Western ideas presented earlier in the chapter. In discussing these frictions, we will argue that leadership has traditionally been understood in far more constrained terms in Taiwan (and most of East Asia) than in the West. Until fairly recently, in fact, the case could be made that the leadership required in most Taiwan schools was simply the presence of a reasonably competent and respectable manager and symbol: a principal who was thereby deemed the “leader” of the school. As will be discussed, this constrained vision of leadership resulted from deeply ingrained social and organizational structures common to many East Asian countries, which worked to promote functional and institutional stability and to limit

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and reduce the need for the emergence of Western models of leadership. Over the past twenty to thirty years, however, the end of martial law, the expansion of democracy, and the recent push toward school reform have created for Taiwan the kind of social turbulence that is likely to give rise to more dynamic leadership approaches and understandings. Conspicuous among the key traditional stabilizing features of Taiwan society are the social dispositions already discussed in chapter 1: Confucianism, collectivism, and power distance. These combine to produce a social current encouraging people to work for the good of the larger social units or organizations to which they belong, and to accept or at least tolerate the decisions of those in positions of higher authority. In addition, a tendency exists to grant greater authority to those deemed to be more learned, more skilled, or more experienced. The formal pursuit of scholarly or applied knowledge is thus rewarded with the acquisition of higher status and authority. At the same time, however, a distinction is held between working with one’s hands (in the “concrete”) and working with one’s mind (in the “abstract”), with the latter associated with still higher status. Such dispositions work to control access to social mobility, restricting social status, authority, and leadership status to those willing to play by the established social rules. Collectively, these understandings would be expected to have two interesting effects with respect to schools or other organizations. For one thing, they shift the meaning of “leader” from “someone who does something” to “someone who is something.” For another, they substantially restrict the idea of “grassroots leadership,” thereby shifting the meaning of “social change” from “something that people create” to “something that leaders will allow.” Of course, there are exceptions to this: grassroots leaders may yet emerge and social change may be forced upon unwilling authorities. But it is not merely a linguistic convention that there is no such concept as “the loyal opposition” in Taiwan or China. By definition, the opposition cannot be “loyal.” Some of the understandings presented above are reflected in Chinese language. Ling-dao and guan-li are the Mandarin Chinese words for “leadership” and “management.” Ling-dao is understood to mean “to guide and govern,” guan-li as “to be responsible for an operation or task.” “Leaders” thus tend to be perceived as those with some formal authority over a group of people or within an organization or government, and “managers” as those who direct or control some business or activity. This implicit association between ling-dao and formal rank helps us understand our principal’s one-finger response in chapter 1; for while teachers may do many things inside a Taiwanese school that a Westerner might view as “teacher leadership,” without formal position, our principal friend might tend to view them as curricular or instructional “managers,” possibly as “experts,” but not as “leaders.” Though a leader may

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also be a manager, guan-li holds primarily technical connotations, while the meaning of ling-dao spans technical, symbolic, and institutional understandings. As in common Western understandings, a “leader” is one who guides or shows the way; but in contrast, the followers of Chinese or Taiwanese leaders are almost always assumed to be subordinates. Moreover, in traditional contexts, the Chinese/Taiwanese leader was not expected to be transformational or visionary. A leader might show the way, but, unless one served at the highest political or organizational level, the mission and the map tended to be fairly stable and certain, designed and sketched by leaders of higher rank. It can thus be said that ling-dao emanates from a framework of formal authority and legitimized power. But because it means “guide” as well as “govern,” and not simply to use “force” (li-liang), ling-dao also requires wisdom, strength, integrity, and respect. For centuries in China, a key leadership challenge therefore was to use these qualities to achieve an effective balance or synthesis of authoritarian and humanistic forms of social control. Writing on the subject of Chinese culture and leadership, Wong (2001) suggests that in contrast to the ancient Greeks, who sought the elimination of contradiction through logical reasoning, Chinese philosophers recognized and accepted contradiction as a “driving force”—a source of harmony and opportunity for action. Continuing these ideas of balance, synthesis, and contradiction, in his book The Chinese Art of Leadership, Sia (1997) frames the leadership idea using illustrated ancient Chinese parables labeled with chapter titles such as “Lawed vs. Laxed,” “Autonomy vs. Control,” “Democratic vs. Ranked,” “Humane vs. Harsh,” and “Inclusive vs. Exclusive.”2 In this latter chapter, a sage tells three contrasting stories conveying, respectively, that leaders must maintain proper social separation from followers, but avoid total social detachment, and know when to break down social walls entirely. Similarly, the chapter “Democratic vs. Ranked” contains the following three contrasting passages. First, the author introduces the tension by asserting that “leaders need power to delegate job responsibilities and function efficiently. However, ranking can also become an obstacle to the essential bonding between superiors and subordinates” (55). This is followed by two parables about carriage driving, at the end of which a sage concludes, “Democracy cannot survive without an over-arching authority to direct the decisions made. In whatever setting, a leader must be given authority, respect, and the resources to motivate through reward and punishment” (61). The final parable in this chapter, however, compares leader “coercion” with leader “virtue,” with the sage concluding that “leaders given their appointments are not truly leaders until they win the respect of their subordinates. Qualities like care and concern, sincerity and integrity are surefire ways of winning anyone’s admiration” (64).

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The messages in The Chinese Art of Leadership are rich with Taoist “yin and yang”: appreciating and finding opportunity in seemingly contradictory ideas (Wong 2001). Leadership is presented as the art of managing people, effectively and creatively gathering compliance and approval, while maintaining a reasoned balance between actions that are overly harsh or custodial on one hand, and overly lenient or democratic on the other. Also embedded in these stories is the assumption that subordinates demonstrate leadership through obedience, through responsibility, and by gradually rising through formal position or rank. Established ideas and norms may be questioned, but with great subtlety and only at the narrow margins of political or organizational life. Disciplined work and education are the keys to self-development, social advancement, good citizenship, and, above all, service to one’s nation. Against this backdrop, it is not difficult to understand the great importance Taiwan places on its system of standardized high-school and college entrance exams. In addition to their explicit function of sorting students into distinctive paths of educational, occupational, and social status, they serve two additional key purposes. First, they provide a structured way for Taiwan’s young people to demonstrate the worthy behaviors mentioned above: disciplined learning, self-development, educational advancement, and the promotion of honor and prestige for themselves, their families, and their schools. Note that a good portion of such behavior occurs in the context of the supplemental “cram schooling” that many Taiwanese young people attend, which is essentially spawned by the desire to score high on entrance exams. Note also that to describe the function of this structural arrangement is not necessarily to endorse it; there may be a variety of other arrangements offering young people the same kinds of opportunities. In the United States, for example, these include school extracurricular activities or formal activities completely separate from the school (e.g., piano lessons, Scouting, volunteer work). It is safe to say, however, that Taiwan’s entrance exams work to centralize and coordinate youth activity both in and out of school. A second key result of Taiwan’s entrance-exam system is that it provides a structure of certainty in what in the West has tended to be a highly uncertain enterprise, the process of educating young people. Much of America’s educational history, for example, concerns questions about the purpose of schooling, the nature of the “good school,” and finding the most effective or efficient instructional methods. Despite recent efforts to redefine education in terms of scores on standardized tests, American schooling has traditionally been seen as an uncertain enterprise with diffuse goals and a relatively weak technical core (Lortie 1975). In Taiwan, however, while there has been some effort in recent years to broaden and diversify the aims of schooling, it has

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long operated as a clearly structured process involving the explicit transfer from teacher to student of knowledge needed to perform well on standardized entrance exams. This is to say that the process is marked by relatively high certainty, narrow goals, and a distinctive technical core. The Taiwanese social and organizational characteristics described thus far will distinctly shape the meaning and practice of educational leadership, molding the concept into something quite different from its Western counterpart. In a previous section, we offered four key characteristics of the Western school leadership idea, and we can now do the same for the Eastern idea, at least as it is manifest in China or Taiwan. While on both sides of the Pacific leadership has generally been understood as the creation of collective meaning, approval, and compliance, the characteristics to be subsequently introduced appear to distinguish the Eastern school leadership idea from its Western counterpart. Later, in chapter 4, we’ll examine the extent to which the distinctions we suggest here are borne out by actual evidence, as well as how they have been influenced by the impact of Taiwan school reform. Taiwan School Leadership Flows Downward through the Organization as a Function of Formal Rank Though a traditional Taiwan principal (like the one described in chapter 1) will likely hope to have a school full of skilled and dedicated teachers, he (traditionally a “he”) is unlikely to view their contributions as “showing leadership.” Though he may view some of these teachers as having the potential to rise up through the ranks, the title of “leader” is reserved for those with formal authority. And while Taiwan teachers do serve in formal positions beneath the rank of principal (e.g., school curriculum director, director of student affairs), their principals are likely to view them more as subordinate line officers, thus preserving the title of “leader” for themselves. Such a perception would not diminish the importance of these roles within the school, but would simply reflect the general social tendency to view leadership as emanating from positions of higher authority and to view “leaders” as those who gain authority by rising to higher levels of formal status. Note that this does not rule out the possibility of “dynamic subordinancy,” as discussed earlier in this chapter. It does, however, place upon it a much higher price or investment. Gold (1996) points out the importance of remonstrance within the Confucian tradition—that is, the duty of loyal officers to criticize the emperor, even at the risk of their own lives. Gold suggests that while organizational critics in today’s Taiwan may not be risking their lives, they must strive to become viewed as loyal “insiders” in order to influence officials toward effective change.

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Distinctive Taiwanese Cultural Dispositions and Social Structures Lessen the Perceived Need for Change-Oriented School Leadership Traditionally, the combination of collectivism, power distance, deference to those of higher status or position, and the use of high-stakes testing worked to imbue the Taiwanese schooling process with high clarity of purpose and a strong technical core. This in turn allowed principals a larger zone of acceptance from which to work than is typical for their Western counterparts. In addition, these structures helped reduce the need as well as the opportunity for principals to engage in activity aimed at structural or cultural change— that is, “transformational leadership”—at least at the organization’s rational/ technical level. Principal leadership thus tended to be revealed through the promotion of compliance, cohesion, harmony, morale, and good relations with parents. Principals might still be “problem solvers,” but whatever problems arose tended to be handled incrementally and on a case-by-case basis. Compared to the United States, where school policy changes have over the years often been prompted by civil litigation and judicial rulings aimed at promoting educational equality and students’ legal rights, the relative absence of such litigative activity in Taiwan has promoted environmental stability and principals’ use of ad hoc decision making. Taiwanese School Leadership Relies Heavily on Symbol and Ceremony In a stable and compliant school environment, where instructional purposes and procedures were well understood and where there existed a dearth of demand for systemic organizational change, it seems reasonable to suspect that “good principal leadership” would emerge more visibly at the social/ institutional level than the rational/functional level of the organization. In other words, principals would be more likely to be viewed as effective leaders to the extent their behavior served to consistently generate school morale and harmony; student and teacher effort, identity, and pride; and positive public perceptions of school legitimacy and status. As is the case in the nation as a whole, formal symbol and ceremony thus take on great importance in Taiwan schools, mainly in the sense that they become highly conspicuous in their absence. Principals, for instance, are expected to formally honor their teachers at times throughout the year, particularly around Teachers Day and the Lunar New Year. Banquets are held, toasts are offered, and small gifts may be presented. School opening and closing ceremonies and weekly flag-raising assemblies are regular features of Taiwan school life. Such formal activity may be taken for granted, but the principal who fails to tackle these responsibilities visibly and seriously may be viewed unfavorably by his or her teaching staff.

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This emphasis toward ceremony likely calls upon Taiwan principals to become skilled in the use of public rhetoric, that is, in the ability to forge attractive words of motivation or inspiration, to create a powerful school narrative or vision. Note, however, that such words may serve a function that is more symbolic than rational. For example, a principal may remind teachers of the need for students to become more creative thinkers, not necessarily for the purpose of substantially changing instructional routines, but rather to validate the idea of creative thinking and to increase its legitimacy (and that of the school) among certain segments of the school’s institutional environment. The three leadership characteristics described above work together in Taiwanese schools to firmly root educational leadership in the traditional, in the acceptance of an established social order, and in the attainment of goals established in earlier times and/or at higher levels of the organization. They may also work to discourage the initiation of innovation. To illustrate, we can offer a factual account of a discussion that took place in a class of Taiwanese doctoral candidates, a group of elementary and junior-high-school teachers. The discussion occurred in 2002 (a time when Taiwan school reform was emerging as a serious challenge for schools), in the context of sharing ideas about introducing greater creativity into their schools’ instructional routines. We asked the teachers if they ever took their students outside of the classroom to conduct academic lessons. Our intent was to gauge their ability or willingness to shift away from lecture- and memorization-focused to project-based instructional activity. Before describing their responses, however, we need to explain a bit about the physical structure of most Taiwanese schools. For Westerners, a Taiwanese school, surrounded by fences, walls, and gates, may bring to mind the image of a fortress. There is usually a security station at the front gate, though it is rare for any “normal looking” adult visitor to be stopped. Past the gate lies the building itself, almost always U-shaped, and one or two stories high. There is no front “door,” but usually just a wide, tunnel-like opening leading to the campus. Passing through, straight ahead one may see gardens, a playfield, or a statue of Sun Yat-sen or Chiang Kaichek. To the right or the left are open-air walkways with ceilings that vary in size and strength depending on whether or not another story lies above. Thus, as one walks down the “hallway,” classrooms lie on one side, a courtyard and open space on the other. Classrooms are separated from the walkway not so much by walls as by windows and doors, and thus have windows running along both sides, one set facing inward toward the courtyard, the other facing outward toward a greenbelt, parking area, or street. The gardens and playfields tend to be large, often elaborate, and beautifully decorated. There may be small ponds, perhaps a fountain or pool with fish, guppies, or small frogs. Elementary schools usually have attractive playground equipment, a

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running track, and even wading pools for use on hot days. In other words, ample and attractive open space exists for students to move about, the kind that many American teachers might feel encouraged to use for class projects or problem-solving activities. So when we asked these doctoral students/teachers, “Do you ever take your classes outside for learning activities?” their responses surprised us. After a sort of puzzled silence, an elementary-school teacher replied that, of course, the elementary children went outside for recess.3 We sought to clarify, explaining that we meant, for example, having students do “authentic” math problems involving measurement, or science or art projects—that kind of thing. The silence became a little less comfortable, until a middle-school teacher, said, “That would not be allowed.” “Why?” we asked. There was a pause. “There would be concerns about student safety,” he replied. Trying to conceal our befuddlement, we suggested, “But your schools are surrounded by fences. Each day your students go out for recess with little or no supervision. How can safety be any concern?” After an even longer pause he replied, “Parents would think it was strange.” Another student added, “The principal would probably not allow it.” Reality thus emerged. Even within an environment of growing curiosity with and demand for curricular and instructional innovation and reform, academic activity outside of the classroom appeared to be incompatible with the social and institutional realities of Taiwan schooling. Teachers, principals, and parents understood “teaching” to be something that takes place inside the classroom, largely in the form of lecture, recitation, or seatwork. Though Taiwan teachers may be less experienced in conducting alternative types of learning experiences (especially those taking place outside their classrooms), they also perceive themselves as lacking the authority or freedom to do so. Principals may not only be unfamiliar with such instructional practices, but may also be concerned about the message such activity would send to parents, who, in turn, are highly concerned about their children’s performance on future entrance exams. Thus, while everyone in the class seemed to enjoy broad theoretical discussions about creative teaching, distributive leadership, and school reform in general, these discussions often revealed a disconnect between the general rhetoric and specific reality of schooling, one we suspect was reflected in other discussions, in other settings, by other Taiwan educators. Though this story might not reflect all teachers’ experiences and attitudes throughout Taiwan, it does illustrate how powerful social structures and cultural dispositions work to promote homogeneous certainty and clarity of educational goals and instructional methods, and to narrow the parameters of school leadership. Taiwan’s school-reform movement, however, appears to

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push the system in the opposite direction, toward a wider range of goals and methods and greater emphasis on the principal’s role as a transformational leader. Unlike their American counterparts, who over time become exposed to and familiar with uncertainty, variation, and innovation, Taiwan principals seeking to demonstrate leadership commensurate with the demands of reform may need to tread some unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable territory. At the same time, demands for school reform represent as much a symptom as a cause of social and educational uncertainty. Taiwan has experienced substantial political change over the past three decades, evidenced not only by efforts to reform the nation’s schools, but also by the rising influence of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) at both local and national levels. While school reform pressures principals toward shared leadership, curricular innovation, and enhanced student outcomes, political changes have made them more susceptible to pressures from interest groups outside the school. For example, questions emerge as to what languages to teach at the elementary school level. Should it be the traditional Mandarin and English? Or should native languages such as Taiwanese or Hakka be taught? If so, starting at what grade level? Increasingly, Taiwan school principals face multiple and conflicting expectations from the Ministry of Education, local political groups, parents, and the nation’s educational scholars. A key question thus becomes whether and to what extent this increased complexity has altered the meaning of leadership. Though the title of “leader” may remain a function of formal rank, it seems likely it will also increasingly hinge on one’s ability to transform organizational routines while continuing to satisfy the expectations of often conflicting constituencies.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP IN THE CONTEXT OF TAIWAN SCHOOL REFORM One way of summarizing the expected impact of Taiwan school reform on principal leadership is to invoke a “path-goal” theory perspective, which posits that leaders are more effective when their behavior provides the guidance necessary for follower acceptance, satisfaction, and performance (House 1971). For example, as Hoy and Miskel (1987) suggest, “highly directive” leader behavior should serve well in situations involving high ambiguity by “clarifying the path to the goal.” On the other hand, for clearly structured tasks, directive leader behavior may lead to tension and irritation among subordinates. This explanation fits with the traditional Taiwanese image of a good principal: when teachers all understand the nature of their mission and the skills needed to fulfill it, the “good principal” is one who approaches his

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or her responsibility from a more symbolic, moral, or human-relations basis. There is less need, and less desire among teachers, for the principal to take a task-oriented approach or to function as an “instructional leader” in anything other than a very general way. Looking in from the outside, however, Taiwan reform would seem to be a game changer. As key elements of reform press schools toward unfamiliar and relatively unstructured tasks and situations (e.g., shared decision making, integrated curricula, alternative forms of instruction and evaluation), teachers may expect their principals to provide a more direct and task-oriented form of leadership. But is this a reasonable expectation? Perhaps not, for it is questionable whether most principals possess sufficiently high levels of the complex knowledge necessary to solve the demands of school reform or to free their schools from the structural and cultural constraints that render these demands so difficult. Looking in once again from the outside, the situation suggests a number of possible principal approaches. Among these are the following: • Lacking knowledge, training, or capability, principals press teachers to

devise ways of complying with reform policies. (Authoritative, but nondirective.) • Principals become more knowledgeable, better trained, and more capable of transforming their schools through improved instructional leadership. (Directive task orientation.) • Principals tout the importance of school reform and encourage teachers to devise new routines, but exert little pressure to go beyond modest incremental change. (Symbolic collegiality.) One could venture that the first of these is very difficult; the second is laden with potential for frustration and dissatisfaction; while the third appears to dovetail with the traditional Taiwanese principal leader role. Moreover, given that under Taiwan school reform principals now must gain local-board tenure approval every five years, the last of these three approaches may pose the least risk, to the extent that local school boards’ views and dispositions diverge from the specific policy requirements of school reform. The key point here is that Taiwan principals might not necessarily enhance their status, authority, and power within the local environment by seeking to advance the specific dictates of national school reform. Instead, what may be required is a sort of delicate dance involving the adroit use of symbolic, moral, and political leadership, the collective importance of which may actually outweigh that of instructional leadership aimed at organizational change. In fact, we are tempted to speculate that the ongoing Taiwan school-reform

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initiatives may hold meanings and intents that are less concerned with explicit compliance than with contradiction and synthesis. Overall, our experiences within Taiwanese schools lead us to suspect that for most Taiwanese teachers and principals, the idea of educational quality remains rooted in the attainment of goals established in earlier times, which have become embedded in and preserved by traditional social and organizational structures. The value of Taiwan school reform, however, may follow not from strict compliance, but from the traditional idea of “opportunity in contradiction.” That is, while local teachers and school officials lean toward traditional practices, the nation’s Ministry of Education, staffed with and influenced by many scholars who have studied in American schools of education, has since the early 1990s developed a conceptual agenda reflecting many of the progressive ideas of current Western educational thought. This agenda aims at expanding educational opportunity, making better use of the variety of interests and abilities of Taiwan’s students, reshaping teaching to become more creative and collegial, and instilling greater teacher and community participation in school decision making. In clashing with tradition, these changes may constitute part of a complex balancing act. Rather than restructuring Taiwan’s system of schooling, their aim is to incrementally rededicate and revitalize its traditional underpinnings. At the same time, through words, symbols, and a modicum of actual change, “reform” serves the purpose of promoting global legitimacy for Taiwan’s education system, while remaining faithful to more traditional local demands. But regardless of the purpose of reform, we are left with questions such as the following: Where does it leave Taiwan’s school principals? What will it demand of them? How will it change the way they view and exercise power, authority, and leadership in their schools? Will the reform effort place them in a much more uncertain and vulnerable position than was the case in previous eras? Alternatively, might the reform effort offer them an opportunity to reinvigorate their leadership and authority? These are questions to which we shall return later in the book. In the next chapter, however, we focus on the history and characteristics of Taiwan’s school system and of the current reform movement.

Chapter Three

Taiwan’s Education System and Its Recent Reforms

Taiwan’s system of public education has its roots in the Ching Dynasty (1644–1911), a period marked by a number of systematic national efforts to modernize Taiwanese society. Education was viewed as essential to that goal and was largely understood in the Confucian tradition. To Confucius, education was a means of raising the human spirit and the quality of human life within the context of service to the state. Nobility was attained in learning, and learning required discipline, diligence, and hard work. Learning also brought honor to one’s family. Those who “labored with their mind” were to be the rulers, while those who labored manually would be the ruled (Taiwan Government Information Office n.d.). Accordingly, the Chinese-oriented school system that developed early on in Taiwan was aimed mainly at training students for government positions (Smith 1997). This led to the development and use of the rigid system of highly competitive exams, which in spite of content changes over the years remains a driving force in Taiwanese education today. The first Western-style schools were introduced to the island in 1887. They could be called “Western” in the sense that they utilized a faculty of teachers and were situated in regular school buildings (as opposed to tutoring in private homes). Though the curriculum in these schools was for many years heavily focused on the task of memorizing great quantities of material, this changed dramatically starting in 1895 (during the Sino-Japanese War) and over the following fifty years of Taiwan’s Japanese occupation. The Japanese instituted a dual system of schooling, one set of schools for the Taiwanese and another for Japanese students. At first, Taiwanese students were given instruction primarily aimed at instilling Japanese culture and values. Over time, however, the Taiwanese schools shifted toward a more practical curriculum. Though few Taiwanese students were allowed access to the advanced education available to 35

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Japanese students on the island, they were gradually allowed to pursue schooling beyond the elementary level (Smith 1997). At the end of World War II, under the government of the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan’s schools were reconstructed to reflect Chinese philosophy and structure. In particular, these newly emerging schools were influenced by Sun Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People” (i.e., Chinese nationalism, democracy, and the public good). For schools, the Three Principles represented somewhat of a departure from earlier Confucian understandings. Learning was still a noble pursuit, one that brought honor and status to families and individuals, but it began to be viewed less as a means of serving the state, and more in the practical terms of developing human potential, cultivating creativity, and promoting social and economic development. In particular, the ROC Constitution of 1947 states that “education and culture shall aim at the development . . . of the national spirit, the spirit of self-government, national morality, good physique, scientific knowledge, and the ability to earn a living” (Taiwan Government Information Office n.d.). The importance of social, economic, and nationalist goals became more critical after the ROC’s relocation to Taiwan in 1949. Over the years that followed, Taiwan’s schools became keenly oriented toward instruction in math, science, language, and the liberal arts, with these subjects serving as the basis for the nation’s modern-day high-school and university entrance exams.

CURRENT STRUCTURES AND RECENT REFORMS Taiwan’s system of public and private schooling is based mainly around a “6-3-3” structure. That is, students typically attend six years of elementary school, three years of junior high school, and three years of high school. The first nine of these years are compulsory, and there have been legislative efforts in recent years to require a full twelve years of schooling.1 Many public and private preschools and kindergartens exist, and most parents take full advantage of these. Approaching graduation from junior high school, all students are required to take the high-school entrance exam. Based on their scores, students will have the option of attending an academic senior high school, a vocational high school, a “bilateral” school (offering a combination of academic and vocational instruction), or a five-year junior college.2 Entrance to academic high schools in Taiwan is competitive, and these schools serve relatively heterogeneous populations of students. In other words, good scores on the high-school entrance exam earn students the opportunity to enroll in a good-quality high school anywhere on the island (with the best schools being located in the Taipei metropolitan area and in Taiwan’s other large cities, such as Kaohsiung and

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Taichung). Students with lower scores will be limited in their choices and may even fail to qualify for any academic public high school. These students will choose one of the other options mentioned above, or, in some cases, they may be able to find a suitable private school. Upon graduation from high school the examination process is repeated, with students earning placement to a university, college, or institute of technology commensurate with test score. Since the mid-1990s, as part of ongoing school reform, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education has explored ways of changing how students are sorted into high schools and higher education. For example, the exams may be offered more than once a year, rather than only on an annual basis (as was the case in prior decades). In addition, the Taiwan government is now experimenting with a “diversified plan” or “multiple entrance scheme” for high-school and college admission, which may include recommendation based on students’ grades, outstanding achievements, extracurricular activity, or other similarly qualitative or subjective criteria (Taiwan Government Information Office n.d.). It is far from clear at this point, however, whether such reform will be welcomed by a substantial majority of Taiwan parents and citizens. Over the years, the exam system, as arduous as it is, has gained respect as an objective, meritbased way of distributing scarce educational resources in this small, densely populated nation with its array of political, social, and ethnic complexities. Among the lower socioeconomic classes in Taiwan, in particular, the exam system has been viewed as a ladder for social mobility and equality. Parents may not be wealthy, be highly educated, or have powerful connections, but they can improve the standing of their children and their descendents by focusing their energies toward education. The concern thus exists among some Taiwan parents that moving away from the entrance-exam system invites the possibility of favoritism based on wealth or family connections (Broaded 1997). In addition, some educators and other professionals have recently raised the criticism that de-emphasizing the importance of entrance exams has ironically placed increased pressure on students to attend cram schools or other forms of shadow education, due to the fact that parents are no longer certain that their children are being adequately taught in the regular public school.3 Some areas of the country have also witnessed the growth of nonacademic forms of shadow education aimed at developing students’ talent in sports or music, based on parents’ beliefs that it will improve their children’s chances for university acceptance under the new diversified-acceptance plan. Educational Governance at National and Local Levels As described in chapter 2, and as is true in many nations throughout the world, Taiwan’s system of education is highly centralized. At the national

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level lies the Ministry of Education, which operates under the authority of the Executive Yuan, or cabinet. The minister of education, appointed by Taiwan’s president, assumes control over the system in general accord with the political principals of the president’s political party.4 Below the ministry lie the various provincial and municipal departments of education.5 At the county and smaller-city level lie various bureaus of education. Up until 1964, principals were assigned to schools by each separate city or county bureau of education. On one hand, this meant that principals were likely to have a good understanding of local sentiments, cultures, and politics; but on the other, it sometimes led to selections based on favoritism or graft. Until 1998, principals were selected at the national level based on a written and oral exam. Those who passed these exams, as well as a subsequent training course, were then assigned to schools. After being assigned, principals were virtually free from any systematic evaluation and could essentially serve for life (Wu 2003). In his study of Taiwan junior high schools, Smith (1997) lists the main duties of a principal: 1. Representing the school with visitors, parents, and educational superiors. 2. Dealing with teachers and administrators in regard to personnel matters, such as grievances, in-service release time, class location, and scheduling concerns. 3. Working with parent groups and other civic organizations for the benefit of the school. 4. Assuring a safe, disciplined environment for learning. 5. Planning capital improvements in the school. 6. Opening the school day with speeches. 7. Overseeing the internal operations of the school, such as equipment orders and textbook dispersal. 8. Acting as advocate for the school with the governing bodies in the public or private sector. (110)

Smith’s list conveys the sense that although the principal’s responsibilities are quite broad, they are mostly organizational, managerial, and symbolic, with little or no direct relation to classroom practice. As Smith writes further, In essence, the principal represents the link between the various constituents of society interested in the school, the educational hierarchy, and the school and its personnel and charges. He is responsible for the regularity of the school’s educational work, its order, and everything that happens within the school building. . . . The role is that of a symbolic parental figure for students, teachers, and parents, and the position is held in great respect in Chinese society in Taiwan. (110–11)

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In 1999, however, an evaluation component was added to the process when the legislature amended the nation’s Compulsory Education Law. As this currently stands, in addition to the exams and training, principal candidates must also be regularly evaluated by a local county or city committee consisting of some combination of bureau of education personnel, parents (at least one-fifth of the membership), teachers, education experts, and community representatives. Principals are evaluated every four years based on their knowledge, leadership skill, job performance, personality, and moral standing. Principals receiving satisfactory ratings are reassigned for another four-year term.6 Those principals who receive unsatisfactory evaluations must return to teaching positions (Chin 2002; Wu 2003). Although the changes in the principal selection and evaluation process were ostensibly designed to make the system more open and democratic, they also have helped create a more politically turbulent local environment. Principals are more vulnerable to local political influence, as well as to national political forces acting at the local level. At the same time, principals must now truly strive to act more as “leaders” in both the professional and political senses of the word. Their work is cut out for them, as they must serve the demands of local stakeholders as well as those of the various national school-reform initiatives. If bureaucratic demands emanating from the top of the Ministry of Education conflict dramatically with local needs and political demands, the atmosphere within which principals must work is likely to become more intense, and principals may find themselves working in a climate of high vulnerability and uncertainty. Recent changes in the teacher selection and assignment process at the national level also work to heighten the potential for political turbulence at the local school level. In 1995, seeking to increase the nation’s teaching capacity, democratize entry into the profession, and build a less conservative teaching force, the legislature enacted policies allowing teacher-training programs outside the traditional “normal universities” and “teacher colleges.”7 They also ended the traditional practice under which teacher candidates were assigned to schools by the national government based on their grades, with higher-performing students having greater choice in where they would teach. Henceforth, prospective teachers would need to first pass a national test followed by a local exam administered by the school, city, and/or county where they wished to work. These new policies have raised new issues of concern for local stakeholders and school councils. First, parents are now more inclined to question the knowledge and ability of new teachers, especially those trained outside of normal universities and teacher colleges. Second, handing the task of teacher selection to local school councils (who are now required by law to create “teacher selection committees”)

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adds not just another managerial burden, but also another opportunity for political debate and contention. While such changes are rooted in a desire for greater local school empowerment, they also appear to have had the effect of intensifying the clash among bureaucratic, political, and professional elements over control of the local school organization. For example, what happens when parents or other stakeholders raise questions (as will be subsequently described) about the suitability of new math or language curricula or about the rigor of the overall schooling process? Principals are almost certain to find themselves in the middle of such conflicts. And although conflict nips at the heels of school-reform efforts in London or Chicago perhaps as much as in Taipei or Kaohsiung, in the socially and politically charged nation of Taiwan, the bite may be a little bit deeper. The Social and Political Contexts of Reform The idea of “school reform” can often be difficult to define or pin down. “Reform” can alter the organizational landscape of schooling as much if not more when it occurs in the minds of educators as when it becomes written down in the acts of legislators and officials. For example, one teacher’s decision to vary, innovate, or improve upon his or her own instructional technique in the hope of reaching more students can be viewed as a seed of school reform, especially when other teachers notice, observe, and follow suit. In contrast, a bureaucrat’s memo announcing some new formal policy may have little or no influence within a school. The roots of school “reform” are thus as much social-psychological as they are administrative, very much akin to what Kerlinger (1986) describes as the roots of scientific research. As with research, reform may be triggered by “obstacles to understanding” or a “vague unrest” that “something just isn’t right” (11). To the extent that reform is comparable to “inquiry,” additional relevance is found in Dewey’s (1933) suggestion that people are driven to the process as they experience situations that are troubling, perplexing, trying, and emotional. In a real sense, Dewey’s (1933) words might describe a national feeling that has swollen throughout Taiwan since the end of its postwar period of martial law in 1987. Since that time, the country has grappled with the problem of building a democratic republic in a land traversed by diverse ethnic, linguistic, and political crosscurrents. Taiwan has struggled over recent years with a number of problems unique to this situation. First, there is the problem of how to unite a nation consisting of native Taiwanese, whose roots on the island go back centuries, and Han Chinese who largely migrated after World War II. The two peoples speak different languages (Taiwanese and Manda-

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rin), and the issue of language equality in the schools has become yet another perplexing, often politically charged one for education officials. Specifically, not only do questions and debates arise about which languages to teach, but these tend to be colored by the fact that only in recent years has it become acceptable for native Taiwanese to speak their native language informally within school buildings. Related to the language issue, of course, is that of Taiwan’s political position vis-à-vis mainland China. Should there be a push for true independence in the form of some sort of “Republic of Taiwan”? Or should the goal be a quasi-independence aimed at preserving the Republic of China, in the hope of some eventual democratic reunification with the mainland? Though ethnic lines are not entirely politically diametric, native Taiwanese, represented by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), tend to favor independence. In contrast, Han Chinese, represented by the Kuomintang (KMT), are more likely to envision a Chinese future for the island. The push toward “Taiwanization” that accelerated during the years of DPP control over the executive and legislative branches (2000–2008) led to changes in social-studies curricula (e.g., reduced emphasis on Sun Yat-sen’s teachings and a more critical view of the KMT’s role in the years after the Second World War and during the period of martial law). Yet another gnawing problem concerns Taiwan’s economic development. The island thrived over the past few decades with its high export levels and tremendous store of human capital. The island’s average economic growth rate from 1966 to 1986 was just under 11 percent. But this fell to about 5 percent from 1991 to 1999, and to just below that from 2000 to 2007 (Shih 2008; Yuan 2004). Having lost much of its “Asian Tiger” gleam in recent years (especially during the economic recession that swept the island in the first few years of this century), concerns have risen as to whether and how economic growth will continue in the future. It was inevitable that the political and economic problems just described would be played out in the education-policy arena; and, as is often the case, their nature as related to public schooling is viewed dramatically differently, and contested, depending on frame of reference. At the national level, educational officials and elites tended to believe that the problems could be addressed through educational expansion, decentralization, democratization, and innovation—essentially, that is, by establishing a “world class” system of public schooling that would foster the creative capabilities of growing numbers of students, thereby increasing national economic capacity and influence. This view was no doubt fueled by a combination of institutional isomorphism within the global education environment and the fact that more and more Taiwan education officials and elites were earning their advanced degrees at Western universities (including Dr. Chaur-shin Yung, a graduate

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of the Pennsylvania State University, who served as the nation’s vice minister and minister of education through most of the years of school reform). For parents at the local level, however, growing social and economic turbulence perhaps signified a different problem: that of how to raise their children’s scores on high-stakes entrance exams and thereby increase their likelihood of attending a prestigious university. Ironically, Ministry of Education efforts to restructure the content of these exams or mitigate their high-stakes nature triggered even greater anxiety and resistance among many parents. As parents intensified their efforts to gain educational advantage for their children, national systemic school reform became an even more daunting task for educational officials and elites. It was a classic sociopolitical tension, that between the globalist concerns of elites for a “world class” educational system and the basic concerns of local parents for obtaining the greatest possible educational advantage for their children. And yet, it’s also a curious conflict. Why might parents be cautious or skeptical about what on the surface would seem to be national efforts to humanize and expand educational opportunity? What could be wrong with exposing more students to new forms of instruction and increasing the availability of postsecondary education? One possibility is that because Taiwan’s education ministry never made any move to eliminate the high-stakes entrance exams, the reforms may have seemed for many parents like mere distractions from what they considered a crucial purpose of schooling—to prepare students to score well enough on those exams to enable them to be accepted into a reasonably prestigious university. Might many parents have viewed some of the reform efforts, to use a Western idiom, as a form of “greasing the skids,” that is, a means of diverting some students along sidetracks, away from authentic and more valuable educational currency? To illustrate the problem, consider that unlike in the United States, with its multitude of colleges and universities and a social climate of universal, “eased,” and lifelong access to higher education, Taiwan’s higher-educational resources tend to be scarce and starkly hierarchical in terms of academic status and social prestige. American students who fail to gain acceptance to a “top” university may rest easy believing that ultimate occupational attainment will mostly be determined by their own tenacity, creativity, and achievement, or from knowing that many highly regarded professionals earned their degrees at lesser-ranked institutions. But in Taiwan, institutional ranking takes on far greater importance. The nation’s top professional and political levels tend to be filled with those graduating from the top colleges and universities. The status and prestige associated with a university will influence not only students’ future careers, but also their future social relationships. For men in particular, attending a lower-status institution (or ending up in a lower-status

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occupation) may even limit their attractiveness as potential marriage partners later in life. Thus, although Westerners often think of schooling in Taiwan (and other Asian nations) as something like a well-oiled machine, producing high and equitable levels of student achievement, beneath the surface one sees how social, economic, and political desire and uncertainty among the island’s people spawn conflicting efforts to innovate or preserve existing elements of the system. Among those supporting innovation are those who would go beyond creative pedagogy and expanded access. More than that, they argue for moving from the traditional institutional functions of transmitting knowledge and social status and toward goals of generating social change and “social justice.” Taiwan’s Minister of Education, Tu Cheng-sheng (a member of the DPP), expressed this idea in late 2005, arguing that education reforms will not succeed unless the overall values of Taiwanese society change . . . [and] are bound to fail if they involve only changes in schools. . . . Education reforms should be comprehensive, farsighted and persistent, and aimed at enhancing personal quality, rather than simply teaching children to pass exams. . . . Parents should not show off just because their child works as a doctor or feel embarrassed because their child works as a cook.8

For many Americans such words might seem taken as given; for in America, a doctor might very well take a cook for her husband and be proud of it. At this point in Taiwan, while no one seems to really know how to produce such attitudes, debate continues over the need for its citizens to reconceive of learning and schooling and their relationship with social and political change.

THE CURRENT WAVE OF DEBATE OVER REFORM Although not intended as a pun, the words “current wave” serve to illustrate the peculiar nature of Taiwan school reform. Imagine yourself camped out on high ground overlooking the confluence of a great river with a mighty sea. Over time you notice the river current to be strong on some days while the sea is fairly peaceful and passive. On other days, the sea is raging while the river must subside. Sometimes all is calm, while at other times the river and sea struggle against each other like angry arm wrestlers amid a roaring crowd. Like the images described here, recent Taiwan school reform is infused with an ebb and flow of competing concern and desire. Educational initiatives may gather their steam from the local or national level. Some ideas and policies have staying power and tend to endure in recognizable form over several years. Other ideas and policies may be advanced one year only to fade or be

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replaced the next, often due not only to disagreements over educational philosophy, but also to socioethnic political struggles. An example of this sort of policy vacillation can be found in the changes in language-education policy in Taiwan’s schools. Without delving deeply into the details, it is sufficient to note the many debates and policy changes that have occurred in recent years with regard to instruction in Mandarin, Taiwanese, English, and even Hakka (a language spoken by many of the island’s native peoples). Who should learn which language? Starting at what grade level? Who should teach these languages? And what should the proper instructional balance be between them?9 The most recent wave of Taiwan school reform had its legislative roots in the establishment in 1993 of the Consultative Committee on Education Reform (CCER) of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan. At that time, the CCER outlined several principles for legislative action involving the exercise of democratic governance, autonomy, and instructional flexibility in local schools and districts, including the right of teachers to choose their own forms of professional development (Weng 2002). Over the next several years, Taiwan’s legislature enacted a series of acts designed to implement these and other educational initiatives and to clarify rights and responsibilities of the national and local levels of the education system. By the mid-1990s, teachers and administrators began to take on new freedoms and responsibilities. Local school committees were granted authority to select textbooks. Teachers in many areas of the island, dissatisfied with the formal in-service professionaldevelopment activities typically offered by their principals, began organizing their own informal study/discussion groups aimed at helping them improve their skills and understanding (Chiu 2001). By the end of the 1990s, the path toward further reform seemed clear. As reflected in the changes in principal and teacher selection discussed earlier, schools were expected to grow more politically and professionally independent, more democratic, and more open to parental participation. School curriculum was also a key target of reform. Thus, from a local school perspective, the most significant policy change may have been the so-called Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum initiative, a part of the Basic Education Act of 1999. Under this policy, to be phased in over three years, schools would be expected to veer dramatically from their traditional ways of teaching. Rather than emphasize the memorization of material needed to do well on entrance exams, teaching was to aim at developing students’ character, good citizenship, respect for law and country, humanity, judgment and creativity (Weng 2002). Moreover, rather than teach “subject by subject,” schools would be called upon to combine subject areas into broad fields of study: language, health and physical education, social studies, arts and humanities, mathematics, natural science and technology, and “interdisciplinary

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activities” (Huang 2006). Teachers were thus expected to produce a new kind of student by teaching in new kinds of ways. For example, the integration of instruction across subject areas could be achieved, it was believed, through the use of team teaching or other new strategies. It is probably an understatement to suggest that by 2003, the year that the new curriculum was to be implemented in all schools, things had not unfolded as planned. Teachers, having been given scarcely any training in the ways of the Nine-Year Curriculum, didn’t know how to carry out the tasks demanded by the new reform. Ironically, despite (or, perhaps, because of) the new spirit of democratic autonomy and local empowerment, schools were simply expected to find an answer to the complex challenge they had been handed. It was as if the Ministry of Education had said, “Here is the vision. Now just make it happen.” On the surface, the situation seems like a kind of contrived or even authoritarian type of local school empowerment, something reminiscent of the American school principal who at a meeting sternly insisted to her somewhat unconvinced faculty, “People! Understand this! We will become an empowered school!” (Boyd and Shouse 1997, 155). Principals and teachers were directed to dramatically alter or, in some cases, abandon their traditional structures and practices without being given any practical guidance as to how to “make it happen.” Of course, it’s possible that many Taiwan teachers were eager for this kind of curricular change and challenge, especially those working in the nation’s top secondary schools with the nation’s top students. But teachers working with less talented students, those less able to garner the special abilities or letters of recommendation needed to gain “diversified admission” to meaningful higher education, may not have welcomed the demands for increased curricular and instructional complexity. After all, tethered to a system in which entrance-test scores below 75 percent can effectively sidetrack students from obtaining further quality public education, it is no surprise to find that teachers strive for simplicity, focusing on specific subjects and skills to be tested. Nor would it be a surprise to find many parents suspicious of the kinds of reform ideas contained in the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum. Consider, for example, the reactions of many American parents to the new styles and standards of mathematics instruction used in schools over the past two decades with the backing of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The changes in textbooks and classroom approaches sparked by the NCTM “Standards” prompted substantial outcry from parents upset with what some derisively referred to, with its emphasis on “real life problems” and its de-emphasis on practice and memorization, as “rain forest math.”10 Concerns were also raised over the use of team teaching in math; there was concern that the need to constantly integrate math lessons into other subject

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areas might limit math teachers’ ability to cover a sufficient range of ideas and concepts, many of which might not be easily blended into a language or social-studies lesson. (For examples of such concerns in the United States, see Meister 1997; Mussoline and Shouse 2001; Shouse and Mussoline 1999.) In Taiwan, in fact, the Nine-Year Curriculum appeared to encourage elementary-school teachers to offer mathematics instruction that was much less demanding than what had been offered previously. Over time, parents, community members, and some teachers began expressing concerns over what was perceived as a drop in the mathematical ability of students entering junior and senior high school. This was alleged to be especially acute as the Nine-Year reforms were phased in at higher grade levels. Junior-high texts were judged to be too difficult for incoming seventh-graders who had been exposed to the new math curriculum. As the new curriculum was phased in to the junior high schools, incoming tenth-graders began to face the same problem. A Taipei lawyer, writing in the English-language newspaper Taipei Times, complained about the arbitrary imposition of curricular integration in general and of “constructive math” in particular: “[Though] all subjects have been integrated, teachers still follow old method and teach them separately, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to complete their duties under the new program.”11 By early 2006, the problem of waning mathematical rigor was so widely perceived that elementary-school teachers were directed to renew their emphasis on teaching students to memorize basic math facts. A math professor and his math teacher wife wrote, After seven years, second-grade students will begin to learn the multiplication tables again. . . . Ever since the implementation of the mathematics curriculum under the Nine-Year Educational Program the public have noticed a decline in students’ calculation abilities due to the gap between the old and new programs.12

The disappointment and conflict spawned by the Nine-Year Curriculum had become a matter of public discourse by early 2003. Warning signs were evident, however, in the fall of 2002, when on the national “Teachers Day” holiday, tens of thousands of Taiwan school teachers took to the streets of Taipei to protest the law barring teacher unions and the recent revocation of teachers’ tax-exempt status.13 At that same time, a poll of the nation’s publicschool teachers found that nearly one-third did not wish to continue teaching due to low pay, poor benefits, long hours, inferior work environment, few opportunities for promotion, and declining public respect and social status.14 Against this backdrop, debate over the Nine-Year reforms became more focused at the start of the new year. On January 23, 2003, the Ministry of Ed-

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ucation released new curriculum guidelines calling upon schools to integrate “Taiwan-centered values” into the five main subject areas. Language learning was an area of key emphasis here, and as the new guidelines highlighted the study of local languages (Hakka and other aboriginal tongues), some educators feared this would take up time necessary for teaching Mandarin and English. Eight months later, in fact, a survey conducted by the Mandarin Daily News reported that 80 percent of elementary and junior-high teachers believed that their students’ ability to read and write Mandarin had deteriorated since the implementation of the Nine-Year reforms.15 Members of the opposition KMT party accused the Ministry of Education of trying to infuse education with political ideology. Among the public and professionals alike, however, attitudes toward the Nine-Year curricular reforms did not fall out entirely along party lines. Though the reform process had been set into motion in the mid to late 1990s under KMT administration, the reforms received support from the new DPP leader, President Chen Shui-bian. Despite his disappointment with the apparent failure of the reforms, Chen stated in February 2003 his wish that “the educational reforms see fewer exams, lighter school bags, more sleep, and more options for schoolchildren so that future generations will not be bedeviled by exams.”16 In direct response to Chen’s remark, however, a member of the legislative education committee and of the Taiwan Solidarity Union argued that the education system could not be overhauled simply by asking for a reduction in pressure. He further suggested that as long as the students like what they are studying and the degree of pressure is bearable, we will survive. But simply to ask for a non-pressure studying environment is not conducive to the cultivation of talents that Taiwan needs for high-tech development. . . . To alleviate the pressure on students would undermine students’ academic ability.17

In July 2003, a group of one hundred college professors released what they referred to as an “Education Reconstruction Declaration.” Led by Huang Kuang-kuo, a professor of psychology at National Taiwan University (NTU) and well-known political activist, the declaration listed thirteen perceived failures over the past decade of school reform and several suggestions as to what needed to be done to improve the system. The thrust of the declaration’s criticism focused on the charge that the reforms launched over the prior decade, guided by “figures in the liberal faction,”18 had worked to lower the quality of the nation’s high-school graduates. It called for a return to subjectoriented and ability-grouped instruction, and an end to the proliferation of new, ostensibly weakly academic high schools and colleges. Though the declaration also called for an end to partisan and ideological bickering over and

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manipulation of education policy, it received some criticism from members of the DPP administration, who claimed that some of the signers had connections to the rival KMT. Perhaps aggravated by raw feelings lingering since the 2000 national elections, the academics’ declaration led to further emotional debate. Looking back, the professors’ call for a nonpolitical reassessment of reform seems reasonably sincere despite the occasional use of terms that may have had “red flag” meaning among supporters of school reform and the DPP. Three days after the release of the declaration, an NTU chemistry professor’s published opinion piece charged that the education reform advocates “happy learning,” hoping to improve the performance of all children. However, the Ministry of Education has simplified teaching materials, claiming that “knowledge is not important” while adopting some unsuitable teaching methods such as the controversial “Constructive Mathematics” for elementary school students. As a result, students are unable to learn modern knowledge and lack the ability to learn on their own.19

The writer went on to suggest that the lowering of educational quality had forced more students to “attend cram school at every stage of the educational system. How can students from financially-disadvantaged families hope to compete?” A week later, the Taipei Times printed a scathing editorial response signed by a collection of scholarly higher-educational professional organizations under the headline “Academics’ Hatred behind Criticism,” which stated, Looking at the spirit of these proposals, it is clear that they hope the schools can return to the days of being a jungle in which students compete with one another on the basis of their own prowess. Urban students and those with abundant resources could then enjoy advantages and parents could brazenly enter the campuses and seize educational resources. These are the bygone nightmares of the “liberal faction,” and they are what this group of academics hopes to restore as the status quo.

The piece further stated, Taiwan’s education circles, having hardly emerged from the shadow of this nightmare, are just beginning to see some progress, and now this group has appeared in conjunction with the political old guard to wreck it all. They even whisper enticingly about “looking after underprivileged students and safeguarding social justice” as well as reviving “the spirit of helping others” in education. What kind of malicious intent do they harbor?20

Despite the good intentions of most people on both sides of the debate, it would appear that legitimate philosophical debate as to how to best meet the

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needs of Taiwan and its students had become twisted and exaggerated by the weight of layers of social, ideological, and political conflict. The following September, at the opening of a Ministry of Education conference on school reform, President Chen asserted that the problems plaguing the reforms could be traced to the incompetence of the previous KMT administration. It may not have been simply incidental that a cabinet member from the old government was at that time campaigning for President Chen’s position. It would be speculative to suggest that the rough politics of school reform may have had some impact on the morale of Taiwan’s school teachers. A survey conducted by nonprofit King Car Educational Foundation, however, revealed some troubling findings. A spokesperson for the group announced that the survey highlighted the “five nos” that summarized teachers’ feelings: “No respect for teachers in implementing educational reform, no free hand given to teachers, no definite education policy, no happy schoolchildren and no time for preparing classes.”21 Specifically, the national survey of 1,043 elementary-school teachers found that 20 percent of teachers were unhappy in their positions (with 30 percent of these most unhappy because of uncertainty over educational policies). Over 80 percent of the surveyed teachers reported believing that education reform would lead to a wider gap between rich and poor students. Seventy-six percent were opposed to the imposition of new proposed student-assessment instruments. It seems completely reasonable to infer from such figures the extreme difficulty principals might face in attempting to lead their teachers toward anything approaching successful reform implementation. It is also fair to suspect that much of the rancor surrounding the debates on education throughout 2003 reform was more about the upcoming (2004) national elections than about specific policy details. But by the fall of 2005, a sense of dissatisfaction among the nation’s teachers was still evident in the findings of a national survey of 1,600 elementary and middle-school teachers. In addition to reporting high levels of stress and depression among teachers, the survey, conducted again by the King Car Educational Foundation, found teachers troubled by uncertain education policies, heavy administrative burdens, and insufficient time to prepare for their classes. Moreover, 96 percent expressed doubt about whether current policies would help reduce heavy academic burdens on students, and 69 percent believed that current policies failed to adequately equip students with the skills needed for future success.22 Again, one can infer from such results the intense uphill battle facing principals’ leadership efforts. Evident here is a classic example of a recipe for low morale: a mismatch between organizational goals, the professional needs of teachers, and the bureaucratic demands placed upon them. The curricular reforms and the

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new, more flexible high-school and college entrance policies imposed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education may have been intended to enhance students’ learning, reduce their stress, and encourage creativity and problem-solving skills. Nonetheless, even under the current educational reform, schools must still prepare students for the existing standardized academic assessments. They are, in a real sense, simultaneously expected to veer from traditional teaching and curriculum while still constrained from doing so by traditional norms and structures. Teachers’ perceived sense of organizational rationality and belonging may suffer under such conditions, increasing the risk to their morale, undercutting their willingness to devote extra effort to instructional reform, and handing their principals one more problem with which to grapple.

THE PRINCIPAL’S POSITION IN THE SCHOOL-REFORM CONFLICT Though we are unaware of any national surveys of Taiwan school principals, we have ample reason to suspect that levels of stress and frustration among principals must be at least as high as those among teachers. Principals, after all, bear the brunt of responsibility for whether or not reforms become integrated into the structure and practice of daily school life. By saying principals are responsible for reform, we do not simply mean that principals “must do it.” Rather, we are suggesting that regardless of their efforts or success in creating reform, they are most liable to be held directly accountable for the impact of reform on local school quality. Aside from the usual reason for this, that a principal is perceived to be captain of the school ship, their accountability is increased by the newly created local school principal-selection committees and their direct control over how long each principal will remain in his or her position. Besides navigating the sometime treacherous crosscurrents of school reform, principals must now become more politically adept at predicting and evaluating the demands of the parents, teachers, and community members on each local committee. Taiwan’s principals are thus confronted with a new and extremely daunting organizational situation. They face intense responsibility and vulnerability, high uncertainty, and weakened formal authority. Principal responsibility and vulnerability are intense for the reasons discussed above (and for some to be discussed below). Principal formal authority is weakened because of the impact of the local committees as well as because of organizational demands for teacher empowerment. Principal uncertainty may be the most acute problem, however, for reasons related to the two different types of uncertainty they face.

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First, like teachers, they are uncertain as to what policies are currently and what they will be in the near future. As the earlier sections on the history of recent reforms attempted to illustrate, the tremendous ideological clash at the national political level has interacted with the always present conflicts over educational philosophy, to create what Duncan (1972) would categorize as an unstable and complex policy environment for schools. The second type of uncertainty flows from the complexity of tasks principals are expected to perform. Specifically, even if reform policies and future directions were well-defined, the progressive nature of the Nine-Year curricular reforms appears to demand solutions and technologies that can severely tax the capabilities of most principals and teachers. Moreover, highly complex instructional practices, if not done well, may not deliver the type of education quality demanded by Taiwanese parents. To illustrate the problem, consider the proposition once posed by the former dean of Harvard’s graduate school of education, Patricia Graham (1985, 12), asking readers to consider progressive education as pork chops, and traditional education as apples. . . . A pork chop at its best is absolutely wonderful and is enhanced by the addition of a baked apple. But the pork chop half done, half cooked . . . will give you trichinosis. The baked apple half cooked is not very imaginative, but is still very nutritious.

The implication for Taiwan principals is that the more they strive to implement reform, the greater the risk they bear. If the parents and the greater public perceive a connection between instructional reform and a lowering of school quality, principals are likely to become more vulnerable in their positions, perhaps to the point of losing them. This may be especially true if parents believe they need to spend more on their children’s cram schools—to buy that “baked apple” that they once received for “free” via their public schools. But what do Taiwan’s principals actually think and feel with regard to school reform? Do they sense the increased uncertainty? Are they feeling more vulnerable than before? Do they perceive a loss of formal authority in their schools? If so, have they made efforts to increase their informal authority? Have they changed the way they communicate with their teachers? For example, do they exercise less task orientation and more human-relations orientation in their interactions with teachers? Do principals rely more on stories and symbols than in the past? Do they find a greater need for developing a vision that will help unify teachers, students, and parents and help them to all sail less fearfully through the strange waters ahead? To what extent does a unifying symbolic vision help buffer principals and their schools from the difficult formal demands of school reform?

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Echoing Selznick’s (1957) point that “leadership is dispensable,” at least in the Western sense of the word, we argued in chapter 2 that for Taiwan school principals the practice of “leadership” (again, in its Western sense) has in the past been largely unnecessary. This is because until recently the nation’s education system has been relatively simple and stable in terms of internal structures and external demands. Over the past two decades, however, half of this equation has dramatically changed. While internal structures (systemic meritocracy based on standardized exams) have remained fairly intact, external demands have become far more complex and dynamic. At both the national and local school level, the system most certainly represents another concept presented in chapter 2, that of “juxtaposed order and disorder,” conditions said to give rise to organizational learning (Weick and Westley 1996). We would thus argue that the days are over, at least for the time being, in which leadership (in its complex and dynamic sense) could be viewed as dispensable; in which principals needn’t be exceedingly concerned about the messy task of persuading the various actors with whom they interact to change their hearts and minds. To further examine this argument, the next chapter presents the views of a sample of elementary and junior-high principals gathered during the 2003–2004 school year. Their responses seem to reinforce speculation that the climate of “juxtaposed order and disorder” evident at both the national and local school level has made the job of principal in Taiwan much more challenging and perilous than in the past. At the same time, the responses also indicate that some principals have navigated the rough waters much more successfully than others.

Chapter Four

Voices of Taiwan School Principals

Taiwanese school principals, perhaps more than any other organizational actors, stand in the spotlight of their nation’s school-reform efforts. The previous chapters discussed how Taiwan’s reform movement has changed the principal’s role from that of a venerable local official with considerable power and authority to that of a more vulnerable and dependent organizational actor. Reform would appear to require them to shift from a position of formal and traditional leadership to one more dependent on expertise, persuasion, and political skill. Reform also appears to have created some precarious crosscurrents through which principals must carefully wade. One such current emanates from the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) push for new curricula; for more integrated, diverse, and constructivist styles of instruction; and for developing pupils who are more creative and, ostensibly, better equipped to contribute to their nation’s future. Another of these currents, born more from tradition, is fed by parent and teacher uncertainty and dissatisfaction with the new ideas of school reform; by an embedded structure of standardized testing and merit-based educational decision making;1 and by the powerful and norm-generating national industry of shadow education and cram schooling. Less able to rely on traditional sources of power and authority, how will principals successfully address these challenges? How will they “lead”? In fact, against the backdrop of reform, how do Taiwan principals conceive of leadership? As a characteristic that must be redistributed among their teachers? As a precious resource that they must carefully guard or share with only a few trusted staff members? Or as a quality embedded into an evolving school organization and community?

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METHOD AND SAMPLE To gain insight into these and other key questions, we visited twenty primary and junior high schools in southern Taiwan during spring 2003 and summer 2004. We conducted semistructured open-ended interviews with the principals of fifteen of these schools. Although these interviews served as the source of our primary data, we also spent many hours touring the campuses and observing many formal and informal daily events. This chapter offers and examines portraits from our experience. School/Principal Selection Our school sample was drawn based on the recommendation of education experts in southern Taiwan, that is, faculty members at National Pingtung University of Education2 and its Graduate Institute of Educational Administration. These experts were asked to select schools based on the following criteria: 1. Include schools in both central city and outlying areas. 2. To the extent possible, include those with both male and female principals, with varying years of experience. 3. Include principals who have carried out reform policies successfully as well as those who have struggled in some way.3 Based on these criteria, our experts identified fifteen principals willing to be interviewed for our study. Three were from northern and twelve were from southern Taiwan. Six principals were from junior high schools and nine were from elementary schools. In terms of school size, two principals worked in small schools (fewer than twelve classes), four in moderately sized schools (thirteen to twenty-four classes), and nine in larger schools. Two of the principals were from schools serving outlying rural areas, while the rest were from schools serving relatively urbanized areas in northern and southern Taiwan. Table 4.1 provides background descriptions for each principal interviewed. Fourteen of the fifteen principals interviewed received their undergraduate degrees from one of Taiwan’s teachers colleges or normal universities. One of the principals majored in educational administration at a national university and received a doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from an American institution. Interviews and School Visits Our interviews were conducted in Mandarin Chinese and tape-recorded, and they ranged from sixty to ninety minutes in length. They were semistructured,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Principal

F F M M M M M M M M M F F M F

Gender

Normal university Teachers college Master’s degree Teachers college Master’s degree Teachers college Master’s equivalent Doctoral degree Master’s degree Master’s equivalent Master’s equivalent Teachers college Master’s equivalent Master’s equivalent Normal university

Education background 1.5 3 12 13 16 16 12 3 17 2 14 10 3 18 13

Years as principal

Table 4.1. Principal Background and School Description

Small Small Large Medium Large Large Large Medium Large Medium Large Medium Large Large Large

School size Primary Primary Jr. high Primary Primary Primary Primary Primary Jr. high Jr. high Primary Primary Jr. high Integrated jr.-sr. high Integrated jr.-sr. high

School type

South rural South rural South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban South urban North urban North urban North urban

School location

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based upon predesigned, open-ended protocols incorporating indirect questioning aimed at gathering information regarding the following research questions: 1. What meaning do school principals in Taiwan attach to the concept of “leadership”? 2. What challenges did principals perceive and what strategies did principals use in trying to implement local school reform? 3. Do the principals seem to have been aware of and willing to incorporate aspects of Western leadership theory in their reform efforts? 4. To what, if any, extent do principals perceive that Taiwan school reform compelled them to adopt Western modes of leadership? Grappling with Issues of Validity Before we began our school visits and interviews, we realized that gathering an authentic picture of each principal’s thinking would require us to consider the way we approached these schools, both in a literal and figurative sense. For example, we knew that by custom we would be welcomed not just as researchers, but as “distinguished guests.” In that vein, we would be greeted with tea, fruit or some other small snack, and sometimes even small gifts. We accepted these ceremonial formalities, for to have attempted to skirt them might have had some slight chilling effect on our data-gathering efforts. This is simply an example of how social and formal relations are intertwined in Taiwan, and though we are confident it did not influence our impartiality, final determination as to whether it did or not is left to our readers. A related but more difficult challenge involved the strong desire of principals to present their own, and their school’s, “best face.” Of course, this tendency is not unique to Taiwan. For example, Lortie (1975) writes of the researcher’s need to “penetrate the rhetoric of prestige-seeking, defense, and public justification to identify the genuine sentiments of people within the organization” (107). But the pervasiveness and persistence of the need to preserve face, or mein-zi, throughout Taiwan and other East Asian countries poses a particularly acute problem for researchers. We attempted to address it by creating interview protocols that would be more likely to evoke honest responses from principals. To that end, and following Lortie’s example, we devised a set of questions that were mostly indirect, personal, and cathectic, intended not just to gather information, but to also evoke an affectively toned response. Our rationale for this (and Lortie’s) was that tapping into each respondent’s personal experience and emotion would increase the likelihood of obtaining authentic information. An additional difficulty that can occur with interviews of Asian subjects is a reluctance to share sensitive information with interviewers whom they

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perceive as strangers or outsiders. But because the subjects were recommended to us by mutual professional colleagues, we could enter the school more as “insiders” who understood the complexities and difficulties of daily administrative life in a Taiwanese school, thus increasing our likelihood of obtaining valid information (see Suh, Kagan, and Strumpf 2009). To further increase this likelihood, our interview protocol was designed more as a guide than a script, thus allowing the opportunity to follow interesting and informative conversational currents. Box 4.1 contains the English translation of our interview protocol. The complaint may be raised that our sample size of fifteen seems rather small given the goals of our research, or that our sample might not be adequately representative of the entire population of Taiwan school principals. Research of this type is, of course, always marked by a series of compromises, and with greater time and resources we might have opted to enlarge the sample or incorporate a more complex sampling design. Yet during the time since we gathered and analyzed our data, our informal contacts with numerous additional Taiwanese educators have not only served to increase our confidence in the findings we report here, but have also encouraged us to engage in further study of the reform processes at work within Taiwanese schools. In other words, we believe that our findings very likely represent the experiences of some substantial population of Taiwanese principals, and that our work to this point will help promote further interest and study by educational researchers around the world.

PRINCIPALS, IN THEIR OWN WORDS All the interviewees having agreed to be taped, the tapes were first transcribed into Mandarin and then translated into English. We read these results several times in both a “principal by principal” and “question by question” way, each time taking notes and later conferring so as to clarify and confirm our understandings. This was followed by the creation of matrices indicating the major emerging themes. We present and discuss these themes here in what we believe is a logical conceptual order, and not necessarily in the order in which questions were asked during the interviews. It is important to note when reading the interview excerpts presented in this chapter that Mandarin draws no distinction between “he” and “she” when making general references to people. Rather, the word ta is used in the place of “it,” “he,” or “she.” Because of this, we’ve sometimes used the device of substituting “he or she” for the word ta. In addition, to protect their anonymity, we have decided not to identify our principals in these pages through the

Box 4.1.

Main principal interview questions QUESTIONS

1. To begin with, I will start with some personal and school information. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? 2. Please tell me about your professional background and experience as a principal and as a teacher. Can you tell me about your experiences of any professional development related to leadership? 3. You have a very nice school here! You must be very proud of your students. It must be very difficult to build a good school. (Pause for response, then probe.) What advice would you give to a new principal about how to build a good school? What is “the secret of your success”? 3. (Based on answer above.) But still, it must be very difficult. What are the greatest challenges you have faced as principal of this school? Can you give me some examples? 4. Can you tell me what you think are some of your best accomplishments—the things you are proudest of—over the past few years? 5. What makes a good school? What makes a good teacher? How do you know if a teacher is really excellent? (Probe for in and outside of class; in the school generally.) 6. What kinds of things do you do to help teachers improve themselves, to become better teachers? What are some things that teachers do to help improve the school? 7. Do teachers ever show “leadership”? How? Do you ever learn new ideas from your teachers? 8. Taiwan has been in the process of school reform for several years. Has school reform changed the way you work as a principal? (If no, why not? If yes, how?) Is it more difficult to be a principal now than before the reform? Can you give some examples? 9. Do you think your teachers understand how to carry out curricular reforms? Do they look to you for guidance? 10. Do you see a difference between being a “good manager” and a “good leader”? What is the difference? How would you like your teachers to think of you? CLOSING QUESTION 11. It seems that we are nearing the end of this interview. Do you want to add something that you think is important but we did not talk about in previous questions?

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use of any sort of numbering system. This coincides with our purpose, which is to offer a broad and aggregate account of principal attitude and behavior, not a specific description or “case study” of any particular school. Principals’ Training As indicated earlier, all but one of these principals had earned an undergraduate degree from a teachers college or normal university; one principal had earned a bachelor’s degree in educational administration from a national university and a doctorate in the United States; and several of them had earned higher degrees in education. Many of the principals indicated they were “proud” of their educational background, and some emphasized their study of Western leadership theory. As one principal explained, many of their professors had studied in the United States and brought back Western concepts and points of view. All of the principals indicated having administrative experience before taking their principal’s exams. In Taiwan’s system, there are four administrative offices in each school below the level of principal, each of which is headed by a director: instruction, student affairs, general affairs, and guidance. Many of the principals mentioned how their experience as directors had provided some training and preparation for the office of principal. In addition, many principals mentioned their participation in a required eight- to ten-week training program. Based on their own descriptions, program topics included education reform, administration, crisis management, and leadership theory, with experts from the MOE, faculty from various universities, and experienced principals giving lectures and sharing their experiences. One principal stated, however, that the only really useful part of the training was the advice passed on from the experienced principals. Besides participating in the required training, a few of the principals said that they had acquired additional knowledge and skill by attending private leader-training programs and/or reading books on leadership. In short, nearly all the principals cited their training as either coming from their education, their prior experience as school administrators, the MOE’s required training program, or their own private efforts. Principals’ Views on the Importance and Meaning of Leadership Six of the principals, without prompting, specifically cited the importance of principal leadership to the making of a successful school. As one put it, “I think principal leadership and shared vision are the keys to school success.” Another responded that “good communication and principal leadership are

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critical elements for a good school.” Consistent with past studies (Cheng 1994) and as in the United States, the word “leadership” and the associated idea constitute a salient concept for many of these principals, notwithstanding the possibility that they may view its meaning differently from its typical Western understanding. Several principals mentioned the importance of personal traits to good leadership. While many of these responses referred to professional qualities such as “responsibility,” “energy,” “courage,” and “creativity,” others referred to more personal characteristics such as having a “good personality” or “charisma.” As one principal put it, “I don’t see challenges as difficulties. I think the problems come from a principal’s problematic personality.” Insisting that she could “see” that someone could never become a good principal, even if he or she passed the principal’s exam, she stated that I think principals’ personalities are important. I know some people who passed the exam and became principals. However, I can predict they will not make successful principals because of their personalities. They are self-centered. They do not know how to socialize with other people, or they do not have the charisma needed to be a good leader.

In addition to citing the need to have an attractive personality, these words reflect an awareness evident among these principals, one apparent throughout most of our interviews, that their authority with teachers and the public increasingly depends not just on their formal position, but on their ability to forge persuasive and personalistic relationships. “Leader” versus “Manager” One strategy used to tease out the meaning these principals attached to leadership was to ask them about the differences they perceived, if any, between being a “good leader” and a “good manager.” As discussed in chapter 2, the Mandarin words most closely associated with these two concepts are ling-dao (to lead, guide, or govern) and guan-li (to be responsible for and to deal with some task or problem). Our purpose here was to see whether and how Western leadership ideas might be reflected in the principals’ responses. We found that all but one of our principals indeed spoke in ways indicating that they considered leadership and management as distinct concepts. Many principals pointed out, for instance, that leadership is distinguished by an effort, in their words, to “build a shared vision,” “emphasize relationships,” “communicate goals,” “know the direction,” “look further,” “lead people’s hearts,” “create and influence followers,” “share leadership with other school personnel,” “have high moral standards,” and “inspire commitment.” A few

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of the principals referred to this idea of leadership as an “art.” Management, on the other hand, was more often described with phrases like “follow the policy,” “be effective,” “focus on results,” “complete the task,” and “fix the problem.” Management, thus, appeared to be viewed as more technical, rational, and impersonal, while leadership was understood as having social, emotional, and visionary aspects. Some concrete examples may help further illustrate these principals’ points of view. One principal differentiated leadership from management by saying, “I think to be a good manager is only to finish what should be done. A leader, instead, has followers, has a vision, and has styles. If there is no follower, then there is no leader.” His words express the Western perspective that leadership is fundamentally a social or communal activity. In similar fashion, another principal asserted that the biggest difference between leading and managing is that the latter concerns changing “things,” while the former concerns changing “people.” For me, management is about things and is scientific. Leadership is about promoting, arousing, and improving. I don’t want to “manage” people. Leadership is about the harmony of an administrative organization. And it focuses on partnership. All groups need a good leader. I guess the teachers think I am pretty democratic and not so directive. I don’t think I am the only “leader” because all teachers are my partners. I pursue the harmony of the organization. I create an environment for people to work together. I would like to treat people as human beings.

In similar fashion, another principal stated, “I think I would like to be a leader who has goals and knows the direction. But I also leave room for teachers to work toward the goals with their own methods. It is like playing a ball game. I draw the line and create the rules for the game. However, people should feel that they can play the ball freely.” Besides reinforcing the social dimension of leadership, the above responses highlight these principals’ positive disposition toward democratic governance and the redistribution of power and authority, and their wish to be seen as caring facilitators. They also appear to imply the principal’s sense of dependence upon teachers. Other principals mentioned a reluctance to act “too authoritatively” and a willingness to release power, especially to other school administrators (the directors of instruction, general affairs, etc.). More than one principal stated that being a principal meant “serving the school,” not just “holding the power.” To ask principals to express a distinction between leadership and management calls upon them to engage in a difficult conceptual and rhetorical task. In some cases, our respondents seemed to be “thinking out loud,” perhaps

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working out the distinction in their own minds, perhaps revealing a struggle or conflict they faced in adapting to new leadership norms and expectations. In the words of one respondent, I think leadership means the leader has a powerful influence on the follower and the followers are willing to follow with their hearts. It is like an art and should be efficient. Leadership, benevolent rule, means that everyone works together. A good leader should use formal and informal communication . . . with the followers. Furthermore, a good school leader should always encourage the teachers spiritually and encourage them to participate in school activities. Management is like the technical part. A good manager asks only for the results and that things be done fast. Teachers will think they have to listen to the principal, if the principal tries only to be a manager. Leadership focuses on the process, not only the results. Management is autocratic. So I would like my teachers to think I am a good leader.

To paraphrase, leadership is viewed here as an “efficient art.” If such words seem a bit conflicted, it may be because they hearken back to the “yin and yang” of traditional understandings of Chinese leadership described in chapter 2. Leadership is authoritative, but the good leader is dependent upon the hearts and spirits of his or her followers. Followers may feel obligated to obey the manager, but will wish to follow the leader. The good leader identifies and communicates the goal to followers, and also the pathway they must travel to reach it. But the good manager is also needed to provide the know-how followers need to overcome obstacles along the way. A few other principals emphasized the equal importance of leadership and management. Their remarks also appear to reveal some resistance to the idea of shared governance. For example, one principal implied the need for school policy to emanate from a single school authority, stating, “A good manager has plans and strategies.” Four of the principals specifically mentioned and emphasized the idea of “walking management,” something akin to the concept of “management by walking around” (Peters and Waterman 1982). One principal described how he “checked up” on teachers: “I think walking management is important. I often walk by the classroom to see how teachers teach while seeming to check for school utilities such as teaching equipment, lights, or water fountains.” Another principal, however, used walking management not only to supervise but also to “understand teachers more.” I often go to teachers’ offices, sit there, talk to them, and ask for their needs and opinions on certain things. At first, teachers hesitate to talk to me. Gradually, they talk to me a little bit. It is also another time to supervise teachers. They would be more on time to their class because some of them would say, “Sorry! I cannot talk to you now. I have to go to my class to teach!”

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Thus, for some principals, leadership and management appear to be closely linked. “Walking around” may represent personal contact and communication with teachers, but it also serves as a reminder that their activities are always visible to the school’s main leader. These principals apparently see their key task not so much in terms of winning hearts, but more in terms of communicating expectations and gathering feedback on teacher compliance. Principals’ Conceptions of Teacher Leadership Principals were asked to describe ways in which teachers showed “leadership” in their schools. One of the key themes across all of the responses was that our principals appeared to view “teacher leadership” largely in terms of “moving up the ranks” into various formal positions within the school. Unlike what one might expect from a sample of American principals (for example, an emphasis on teachers taking initiative, coming up with new ideas, mentoring other teachers, sharing ideas at faculty meetings, etc.), our principals seldom gave answers related to specific teacher leader behaviors. Instead, they tended to respond with words like “I will encourage teachers to become administrators, and they can show leadership in administrator positions,” or, as one put it, “I think teachers can show leadership in many positions. For example, as homeroom teachers, chairs of each subject-development committee, and chairs of curricular-development committees, teachers get a chance to show their leadership. Those teachers are leaders.” Because such positions are either appointed by the principal or selected by other teachers, the example suggests that our principals view being a “leader” in terms of formal status. In other words, as discussed in chapter 2, formal status appears to be a prerequisite for leader status, and becoming an administrator means taking a formal leadership role. Only a few of our principals talked about teacher leadership in terms of sharing ideas or helping other teachers become more effective. When our principals did mention teacher informal behavior, it concerned effective classroom management, participating in professional organizations, or helping to select textbooks. One principal stated that “if teachers cannot be good at classroom management, I do not think they can be good leaders.” One might surmise from this that our principals tended to feel teachers must conform to normative understandings as to what it means to be a leader of students before they can even approach being considered as leaders within the school. The perceived meaning of “leadership” thus becomes associated with pupil control and, by extension, teacher control and social control. A few of our principals did seem to equate teacher leadership with “participating in the decision-making process.” As one put it, “Teachers can show leadership in their professional areas and they have started to contribute their

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ideas in curriculum design and school activities.” These few principals mentioned that they would sometimes encourage teachers to actively participate in school decision making and expect them to express their opinions during faculty meetings. But as shall be subsequently discussed, strong social barriers exist that appear to discourage teachers from showing this kind of informal leadership. In the words of one principal, “Only a few teachers will speak up during meetings. Teachers still think that I am superior to them.” Another principal described how when she was an elementary-school director of instruction and offered what she considered to be “good new ideas,” teachers were not willing to follow her suggestions because, in her words, “the principal did not ask for these ideas.” The problem of the “appropriateness” of teacher leadership within the Taiwan school is captured by the remarks of a principal who stated, I won’t feel bad if teachers see further than me. I will use any good ideas that are good for the school and the students. I always told the teachers that I will feel afraid if they only listen to me and do not have their own ideas. If they only listen to me, I think the school will stop here. I think many school principals still like their teachers to only listen to them. These principals do not like teachers to say too much or have too many opinions. But I think teachers and principals should be equals. Although I have encouraged teachers to do so, I don’t think it is good enough. Maybe because of the influence of Chinese culture, teachers respect the principal. Again, I tell my teachers that only the most stupid organization will be like that—teachers only doing what the principal says. If teachers have better ideas, why should they listen to the principal?

This story illustrates one principal’s belief in a more Western style of leadership that views teachers more as colleagues than subordinates, an idea that is only beginning to catch on in Taiwan. It also suggests the unusual nature of this view within Chinese organizational contexts, as evidenced by the principal’s frustration in attempting to realize it. Apparently, teachers remain uncertain about whether to offer their views, even when their principal invites them to do so. For example, the elementary-school faculty meetings we observed revealed little in the way of “two-way” communication. Teachers tended to sit quietly much of the time, simply listening to administrators talk. They asked few questions and only offered an opinion when directly and individually asked to do so. Teachers appeared to resist involvement, or at least felt comfort with nonengagement, seemingly waiting for the principal to tell them what they needed to do. Teacher silence at faculty meetings is certainly not unique to Taiwanese schools. But it seems reasonable to argue that silence at American faculty meetings often grows out of either boredom concerning the topic, or frustration rising out of a belief that opinions may not be welcome. It is not going

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too far to suggest that an American principal’s sincere invitation for comment will usually be gladly accepted by teachers. Is the silence of Taiwan teachers a function of comfort, boredom, or frustration, or is it the logical consequence of cultural dispositions regarding status relationships? The principal in charge of the meeting described above, while commenting on the teachers’ passivity, did not ascribe a reason. He did suggest, however, that teachers “needed time to change” and that they might talk more at smaller meetings focusing on curricular design. Interestingly and tellingly, at no time did any of our principals express a wish for his or her teachers to “show more leadership.”

Principals’ Views of Their Most Salient Tasks Several of our interview questions aimed at having principals identify their most salient and challenging tasks. In particular, we asked about “what it takes” to build a good school. The purpose was to elicit concrete examples of the meaning they attached to leadership and to their perceptions of what leaders ought to do within the context of Taiwan education. Understanding Local “Culture” One of the key themes emerging from their responses involved the importance of knowing the culture of the school community, especially for principals beginning a new position. It was evident from their responses that these principals, as is probably the case with their Western counterparts, thought of the word “culture” in a more general or generic fashion, as compared with how a sociologist or anthropologist might use it. That is, they often used it more like Western theorists use the term “climate,” referring to the feelings, the attitudes, or the atmosphere they sensed when they entered a school, or even to the school’s physical environment and the students’ level of performance. At the same time, they also used “culture” to refer to the beliefs, values, and expectations of teachers, parents, and external stakeholders. Though Taiwanese tend to hold similar general goals and purposes (e.g., to educate and prepare students for life), several of our principals expressed the belief that knowledge of each school’s “own culture” was critical to maintaining effective relations and operations, both internally and externally: “First of all, a new principal should observe the existing school culture—teachers’ attitudes, the expectations of the community, and of the students. After that, the principal can start to develop his or her idea about how to build the school.” Echoed another principal: “I think ideas should be created on the framework of reality. Reality means the community and the existing school culture.” These principals’ words can be interpreted in at least a couple of different ways. First, they may reflect a belief (as expressed by several other principals

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in the sample) that parent expectation, demand, stability, and involvement might vary from school to school, and that principals need to be sensitive to how local community political and socioeconomic characteristics might shape student expectations. Another way to look at these remarks is to observe the way they reflect a subtle difference in principal attitude. While both comments emphasize the importance of existing school “culture,” the first suggests that this is more a basis on which to “build,” while the second suggests it is a “reality” to be accepted. We shall offer more detail regarding principal–local community relations in a subsequent section. Building Culture and “Vision” When asked about the characteristics of a good school and “what it takes” to achieve them, many principals stressed the importance of building a shared vision or (as one principal rephrased it) “creating a new culture.” Though none of the principals used a Mandarin equivalent of the term “transformational leadership,” many principals did use other words that appeared to reflect this Western idea. One principal spoke in the following optimistic terms: I think the secret of my success is to build a shared vision. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan is pushing the school to have a shared vision now. Many people think this is hard. However, I felt that my teachers and I can really create this vision together.

Like the principal quoted above, several others emphasized a need or desire to share authority for this vision with teachers. For example, one principal stated a belief that “a shared vision is the most critical element. The vision is created through everyone’s efforts; it is not based only on the principal’s personal idea.” Another replied, “I always tell teachers to think about what they want the organization to look like and to go for it!” These simple words may be interpreted in a number of ways. First, they suggest a valuing of democratic governance among some of these principals. At the same time, might they also reflect a desire for greater teacher assistance or initiative? Perhaps it is the case that the term “shared vision” works as a rhetorical equivalent to the concept of “collective leadership,” the idea of establishing a normative current that moves all school members toward the goals of reform. One additional possibility, however, is that such calls for shared vision or collective action operate at a more institutional level, as symbolic evidence of principal commitment to reform, the idea here being that “calls to action” may be more important than the specific nature of the “action” itself. The building of a shared vision and the initiation of cultural change within the school came up so often in our interviews that it prompted us to suspect that these tasks are not only highly salient, but also extremely difficult. Some

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principals indicated that it was often very difficult to reach their teachers; as one put it, “to make a teacher feel touched is usually the hardest thing in the process of leading.” Speaking in what we perceived to be rather tenacious terms, one principal described her efforts as follows: I believe in democratic communication and continuous reminding. I talk to every homeroom teacher and go to each classroom to talk to students about my education philosophy. I do this at the beginning of every school year. I hope to promote teachers’ identification with this school and feel that school is another home. I use meetings and try to build a shared vision with everyone in this school.

Other principals stated that they “worked very hard” at trying to change school culture—to help teachers acquire new norms, beliefs, and philosophies regarding the kind of schooling that was best for children. As difficult as this task was perceived to be, however, the principals who emphasized shared vision and cultural change appeared to believe strongly in the importance of these goals. Their eagerness and passion appeared to reflect their sincere desire to impress us with what they had tried to accomplish in their schools. It was common for principals to show us their file drawers filled with research on vision and culture building and to point out the related words and slogans hanging on their office walls. During one of our meetings, a principal showed us various documents: a school vision statement; an outline of a proposed cultural-change process; and letters he wrote to parents and teachers regarding school vision, culture, and the need for new styles of instruction appropriate to the needs of children as understood within the context of national school-reform efforts. Also consistent with the spirit of reform, another principal spoke about the need to build “a humanistic platform” for students to “develop their full potentials,” “learn happily,” and “pursue their dreams.” Notwithstanding such expressions of belief, other interviews revealed a contrast. One more obvious counter-theme seemed to be that some principals seek to create and sell their own visions, regardless of whatever beliefs their teachers may have. Words and phrases like “reminding,” “telling my vision,” and “teachers listen to my words” appeared regularly in some of the interviews. Though the idea of transformational leadership is often said to involve “inviting” members of the organization to help create a shared vision, some principals seemed less inviting than others. For example, one principal stated, “After I came here, I always let teachers know my goals whenever there was a chance to do so. Of course, everyone has different values. But gradually they start to identify with my goals.” These words indicate a sense that the shared-vision process boils down to persuading teachers to accept the principal’s vision. In accounting for this type of top-down vision sharing, another principal pointed to Taiwan’s administrative culture, stating that “in the past, teachers

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usually participated less in the decision-making process. Maybe the administrators always decided everything for teachers in the old days.” Along similar lines, one principal expressed frustration, saying, “I think during the meetings, teachers usually just listen to what I say.” The implication appears to be that many teachers simply wish to be informed of a new policy or vision rather than contributing to its creation. It seemed evident that several principals were experiencing frustration with the reform-driven shift from traditional patterns of Asian top-down leadership and management to the new, more Western-oriented idea. This is one of many examples where reform efforts appear to run up against a wall of prevailing culture. Dealing with the Outside Community. While parent involvement in school activity is widely considered a positive attribute of schools, it can sometimes become an obstacle for principals in operating the school or carrying out education policy. Several principals discussed this problem during the interviews. Sometimes the problem was tied back to an individual parent, while in other cases it was related to parent associations. One principal stated that “sometimes parents’ expectations are different from ours. I feel that nonprofessional parents will try to influence school management.” Similar sentiments were expressed by another principal who claimed that sometimes parents will come to the school and make comments to teachers about their teaching. Parents might try to tell the teachers about what they think should be taught or what material and topics to focus on. Furthermore, some parents even try to tell teachers how to teach. Parents no longer think that teachers are always right.

One principal described the following different kinds of pressures: First, when new students enter the school, many of the parents would like to select their homeroom teachers, especially those who are of high socioeconomic status. Or sometimes parents would like their kids to go to school even if the kids are not old enough. Parents will ask city-council members to interfere with the enrollment process. This has given me lots of pressure because sometimes many parents ask for the same homeroom teachers and there is not enough room for all students. And, if I do not do what the city-council member asks, sometimes they will give me a hard time during the interpellation of a parliament session.

It seems evident in the above statement that parent interference may involve political factors that can make a principal’s task quite complicated. And, as

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discussed in chapter 3, the politicians with whom these principals must deal are often the same ones who will pass formal judgment upon their effort and success. “Political involvement can be an obstacle for school operation,” said one principal. Another principal provided greater detail: When the school recruits new teachers, some [city or county] councillors will ask the school to hire certain people. Also, the councillors will interfere with school affairs such as purchasing, or selecting the restaurant to provide the school lunch. As a principal, I feel a lot of pressure from it. If I did not do things as the councillors wanted, the councillors started to make things hard on me and were picky about my school. I think political interference in school affairs really has a bad influence on the school. Sometimes teachers or the principal will stop doing the right things only because they are afraid of politics. This has made teachers’ morale pretty low for the past year. Sometimes it made me want to quit.

The above example offers a clear picture of principal stress, as well as the negative influences of political involvement on teachers’ morale and school operation. Principals who mentioned political involvement as a key challenge revealed that they did not like the pressure from city and county councillors, but felt that there was really nothing they could do to change the situation. The phenomenon of politicians attempting to influence school policies and procedures is not new. What is new is the relative loss of power, clout, or leverage principals have experienced in the wake of school reform and organizational restructuring. Also new, according to many of the principals we spoke with, is the growing phenomenon of parents using political means to obtain a desired result for their children. An authentic example of this occurred when one of our interviews was interrupted because a parent brought a city councillor to the principal’s office to settle an issue involving her daughter. The parent and councillor tried to persuade the principal to transfer the child to a different homeroom because the parent did not feel the current teacher could effectively handle her personal problems. Parental challenges may also arise during a national crisis. For example, when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the fear of this infectious, deadly disease hit the island in the spring of 2003, schools were faced with a range of complex and unexpected demands. Staff and students had to have their temperatures taken every day, and a temperature higher than thirty-eight Celsius often meant quarantine for individuals and even their families or entire classes. One principal described the impact parents’ fears had upon his school: “When the problem of SARS became serious, the school had to deal with it, especially since many of the parents work in the nearby hospital—about two hundred students. Some parents did not want children of the hospital staff to

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come to school.” More than one principal described scenes of parents, fearful that their children might contract the disease from children of health professionals, staging protests outside their schools and attempting to block children from entering the building. Several of the principals described the strategies they employed to deal with this particular form of parent interference. The approach most often described involved holding meetings with parents and other community members aimed at quelling fears and concerns. As one principal stated, “First, I communicated with the community and let them know that what the school tries to do is going to help the kids in the community. Also, I told them that everyone in the school tries to be student centered. Whatever is good for students, we will do it.” One might point out that such a strategy for dealing with unexpected problems, one involving meetings and oral communication with parents, is not unlike what principals tend to employ when dealing with more routine problems, for example, the expression of a school vision. As pressures intensify, however, and as problems become more complex, principals’ communication skills become particularly taxed. Their words and rhetoric must become more persuasive and creative, but at the same time more diplomatic and reassuring. Because “small looking” problems may become “urgent” in a politically turbulent atmosphere, such rhetorical skills become increasingly important not only in crisis situations (like SARS), but also in more common situations such as when the parent insisted her child be transferred to another classroom. A little bit of kindness, persuasiveness, or diplomacy at the appearance of a tiny spark may prevent a growing brush fire later on. It thus seems likely that Taiwan principals will become more pressed to develop a wider, more subtle, and more complex portfolio of social and public-relations skills. Although dealing with the outside community appeared to be a tremendous challenge to many of these principals, they also tended to express a belief in the benefits of maintaining good community relations. People or organizations in the community can provide schools with numerous resources, especially under Taiwan’s current curricular reform. The Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum policy asks each school to develop its own local-culture curriculum, making use of materials or people from the surrounding community. The “community” can be as small as the school’s neighborhood or as big as its village, town, city, or county. Some principals thus sought to maintain good local relationships in order to use community resources in the curriculum. For example, one principal described inviting “people from the community to help students learn the culture of the community. Teachers and outside school people work together to develop the new curriculum.” What appears to emerge from this portrait of principal-community relationships is a familiar theme. Principals are highly dependent upon and sensitive

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to those with whom they must work, both inside and outside school. For American school settings, this is nothing new. Lortie (2009), for example, has discussed how principals are constantly compelled to deal with the demands of, and enlist the cooperation of, teachers, parents, students, and the central office. But while Taiwan principals have also always had to relate well to the communities they served, traditionally they did so from a position of power, prestige, and stability. That position would appear to have been undercut substantially by the demands of school reform and by growing political turbulence in Taiwan society. One may even speculate that while American principals depend heavily on others for their own success, their Taiwanese counterparts have become equally, if not more, dependent on and vulnerable to the inclinations, abilities, needs, and demands of those they work with, lead, and serve. Becoming a Moral, Ethical, and Professional Leader Given their dependence on teachers and their implicit need to influence them to pursue new ideas and practices, it was no surprise to discover that, by and large, our principals expressed a desire to be viewed in particular positive ways by those they led and served. As one principal put it, “I think a principal should be a role model to all teachers and students whenever there is a chance. I like the idea that if teachers can be role models to students, the students will learn things fast and have good behaviors.” Similarly, another principal stated, “I promoted a young teacher to be the director of student affairs. At first, she was afraid of offending someone else whenever she did things. I helped her and talked with her regarding strategies to solve difficult problems.” Apparently, these principals felt a need to play the role of something like a “wise uncle” or even parent when dealing with teachers. As one stated, “Administrators can use their experiences and wisdom to help teachers. It is important to pass their good experiences to teachers.” Another principal, in particular, expressed a desire to be viewed as something of a father figure: “unafraid of any difficulties.” By helping teachers settle their problems, both professional and even sometimes personal, he believed he would help teachers find a strong sense of belonging with the school. A number of principals emphasized the specific character traits a principal should have and the moral standards a principal should hold. In particular, many commented that they considered one key leadership trait to be that of “showing fairness” and “having high moral standards”: “A principal should be honest about everything. A principal should not be involved in graft. And it is important that a principal treat teachers and matters fairly in the school. Then teachers will respect the principal.” One way to interpret such statements is to view them as reflecting a genuine desire among principals to

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maintain moral and ethical principles. Yet they also may reflect the salience and daunting challenge of doing so within a society so dependent on mutual demonstrations of personal favor, and where so much potential exists for abuse within this normative structure. It seemed clear, however, that many of our principals attached great importance to being perceived as honest, fair, moral, and ethical as a way of establishing respectful relations with teachers and becoming strong role models for them. They seemed to believe that winning teachers’ respect and admiration was a key means of increasing their authority with teachers. Becoming an Instructional Leader Our principals mentioned “instructional leadership” quite frequently, connecting it especially to the issue of teachers’ professional development. Seven of the fifteen principals, in fact, gave explicit reference to the idea of instructional leadership, and all of the principals offered implicit reference (e.g., stressing how important it was for them to help teachers improve their professional ability). References to several types of instructional leadership emerged from the interviews. First, principals emphasized their practice of often walking by classrooms to observe and make mental notes of teachers’ performance. As was noted in chapter 2, most classrooms in Taiwan have large windows on both sides, due to the hot, humid weather much of the year. Principals can thus easily see from the outside the kind of teaching that is taking place on the inside. Principals have less need than their American counterparts to enter a classroom, and most stated that they seldom entered a room unless a serious problem seemed to be occurring. Apparently, many of these principals do not want teachers to feel that they are “losing face.” One principal stated, “Usually I won’t go into the classroom to see how teachers teach because I think this will frustrate teachers. However, I will often go by the classroom to observe the situation from outside. Particularly, I will look at the atmosphere in the classroom.” One principal, a woman who mentioned actually going into classrooms, stated, “I tell teachers that I will go into the classroom to see how the teacher is getting along. And I will provide methods for teachers to use when they teach.” This practice of “walking around” was the most common type of instructional leadership identified by principals. Several principals stressed the importance of being an instructional leader by giving the example of walking up and down the hallways and observing through classroom windows. One principal stated, “It is really important to be an instructional leader. I supervise the committee of teaching and research. I supervise teaching. I often

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walk by the classroom and look at students’ reactions.” Touched on earlier in this chapter, the idea of walking supervision emerged as having important meaning to many of our principals, as being a key way in which they felt they were demonstrating leadership. Based on our experience (one of us in particular, who both grew up and taught in Taiwan public schools), this sort of walking-around leadership is a very traditional practice. Teachers expect that the principal will be watching, although the principal seldom says anything to interrupt the teacher’s lesson. As an aside, it’s tempting to speculate that the same subtropical heat and humidity that influence the open-air design of the typical Taiwan school building may also encourage principals to leave their offices whenever possible and walk about the campus. (Though most principals’ offices are air-conditioned, our experience suggests that AC units are seldom turned on, usually only upon the arrival of “distinguished guests.”) One may ask, however, if this is an example of a contrast between Western and Asian understandings of “leadership.” Although literature on American principals often includes discussions of the importance attached to being “seen” out and about in the school, it can’t be denied that a great deal of American teaching still goes on either behind closed or only slightly opened doors. Even when a teacher sees an administrator passing in the hallway, most of his or her students may not even notice. The physical structure of the Taiwan public-school building appears to allow an “openness” that on one hand allows principals a greater flow of information from the classroom, and on the other preserves teachers’ sense of “face.” The structure may help promote good (or at least “standardized” or “compliant”) teaching, friendly communication, and peaceful relations between teacher and principal. It would thus appear that walking around serves a variety of purposes in the Taiwan school and may represent a more symbolically powerful act than in American schools. A second, often-mentioned type of instructional leadership identified by our principals relates to teachers’ evaluation of instruction and curriculum design. Our principals frequently stated that they encouraged teachers to evaluate each other’s teaching and share ideas about their methods. One principal stated, “I encourage teachers to share their curriculum and observe each other’s teaching. The purpose is to see the good side of a teacher’s teaching and share this with other teachers. Collaboration is promoted in the school. The teaching quality will become better as teachers learn more from each other.” In this case, the principal appears to be inviting teachers to become voluntarily involved in a spontaneous and maybe even open-ended form of collegiality. On its face, the invitation is consistent with Western ideas of teacher empowerment. To the extent a principal’s teachers accept such an invitation, good collaborative working relationships may emerge. On the other hand, the practice might also be viewed as one that encourages compliance with top-down directives.

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In that latter regard, some principals suggested that if they did not require, guide, or persuade toward teacher participation in the process of instructional improvement, teachers would not do it on their own. Some principals told us that to avoid or reduce resistance, they would sometimes start by encouraging their younger teachers or even their teacher interns to engage in peer evaluation. Ideally, many suggested, they would like the practice to spread to their entire faculty. One principal stated his beliefs and policy as follows: I think evaluation can help teachers to improve teaching. The current evaluation system is not enough, and I suggested the school develop small-group evaluation, too. There are a few schools that have the [peer] teacher evaluation system. In my school, I ask teachers to observe each other. Teachers in my school have to observe at least four other teachers and learn from others within one school year.

This principal’s words suggest that teachers’ participation is directed more than invited, and that supervision and compliance, more than innovation, may be the activity’s underlying purpose. Though our data do not permit conclusions about this particular school or principal, in a period of top-down school reform, the risk exists for this kind of administratively driven professional collegiality to become compulsory, predictable, and focused on implementing policies devised by external authorities (the government, MOE, etc.)—in other words, “contrived” (Hargreaves 1991). Another reform-related problem lurking here springs from what appears to be missing from the words of most of our principals. That is, only a few of them gave examples of providing teachers with specific ideas concerning how to actually implement the new curricular demands of the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum. One is thus drawn to wonder whether principals might be prescribing the kinds of collaborative activity described here as a means of redistributing their own uncertainty as to how to implement a set of complex, top-down demands. In other words, do principals invite or insist upon teacher collaboration in order to pressure or simply implore teachers to find ways to make reform work? If so, this may exacerbate—and help explain—teachers’ feelings (discussed in chapter 3) of low morale associated with not always knowing how to implement the requirements of the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum. Notwithstanding the comments above, a third type of instructional leadership emerged from our interviews, which involved principals providing instruction directly to students or teachers. Some principals, in fact, mentioned how they would sometimes model instructional techniques and in other ways assist teachers in developing new ideas and teaching topics. One principal mentioned that she enjoyed teaching on a regular basis, saying, “I . . . also teach my students during what I call ‘storytelling by the principal.’ It is under the biggest tree on campus, and all students of all grade levels can attend the

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session. This has helped students improve their language ability. This has also set a role model for teachers.” Another principal stated that he tried to help teachers with the curriculum reforms by selecting a topic or theme each month for teachers to learn about and try to implement in their classrooms. He stated, “Sometimes during the workshop, I will show teachers some strategies to use. For example, I taught teachers about how to teach creatively. They can use multiple-intelligences theory. I also showed them what I have learned from other workshops or conferences.” Such practices seem closer to the spirit of Western views of instructional leadership. They not only help symbolize the importance of instructional improvement, but also are quite concrete in that teachers are shown some ways to implement new teaching techniques. It appears that school reform has prompted at least some of the principals to become more directly involved in instructional improvement than in the past. At the same time, in a system with fairly rigid expectations regarding what students should learn and when they ought to learn it, one may wonder whether general discussions of topics like students’ learning styles really translate into useful knowledge for teachers. For example, given the culture and structure of Taiwan’s education system, will multiple-intelligence theory ever be applied in a more-thancursory fashion beyond the early primary level? Moreover, is it possible that “multiple intelligences” and other similar expressions serve more as rhetorical signifiers demonstrating institutional alignment with key “myths” related to school reform? The tension between new and old ideas and structures must certainly introduce great complexity into the job of principal. Interestingly, nearly all of the principals mentioned that they encouraged their teachers to pursue further studies and to participate in conferences and workshops on instructional improvement. As with many of our observations, multiple interpretations are available. A principal’s encouragement may represent a sincere call for general instructional improvement. It may also function like an “institutional intelligence mission” intended to encourage teachers to scour the professional landscape in search of information that will help guide their school (and principal) toward educational and political success. On the other hand, as already suggested, principals’ ongoing verbal and written encouragement of teachers might also serve as a fairly manifest and documentable way for principals to demonstrate their effort to comply with the demands of school reform. Exercising Symbolic Leadership Though not all principals used the word “symbol” or “symbolic,” their descriptions of strategies and behaviors conveyed the importance they attached to symbols, ceremonies, and rituals. As one principal put it, “What I do in the

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school always has meanings behind it. Providing the opportunity for teachers to feel proud and recognizing their accomplishments also helps me develop the school.” She went on to describe an example: I wanted to have a special event for new first-grade students. I would like them to celebrate their first day in the school, and wanted to give them an impression that they were welcomed and make them feel that going to school was a good thing. My director of students did not think it necessary. However, many of my teachers supported—and parents also supported—me in action. Many parents came to the school on that day and celebrated with their kids. The director started to feel that these activities were good for students.

Echoed in the principal’s words is the Western idea that the symbolic leader shapes meanings of events, helps people find a sense of purpose in their work, and helps everyone in the organization feel positive about handling the difficult challenges to come. Ceremony is an important feature of Chinese and Taiwanese culture. Perhaps more so than in American schools, Taiwan principals use frequent ceremonies to show their care and respect for teachers, students, and the community. The school year is filled with many such events and opportunities: Teachers Day (Confucius’s birthday), the school’s birthday or anniversary, graduation day, and the first and final days of school. In most elementary schools, at least one morning each week is spent raising the flag, singing the national anthem, and listening to the principal speak. Such activities aim to promote a sense of unity, direction, and emotional connection. One principal serving in an outlying rural school gave the following example: This is the only school in town, and the new school building had just been built. So, I held a completion ceremony for it. No teachers or people in the community supported my goal and ideas. I used this opportunity to change people’s views about me, and they started to support me. Before the ceremony, I invited parents, people from the community, and the school teachers to the preceremony meetings and explained how I would use the budget to help the school and the students. I also told them about my educational philosophy—to help my students have the same opportunity as students have in the city, and to improve students’ reading ability. I want to close the gap between city schools and outlying schools. It was amazing that after the ceremony, people started to say that the principal really cared about our students and the community. Gradually, people started to work with me, and people from the community would come to me and provide resources for the school to use.

This principal’s words read very much like a “turnaround” story—a narrative told by a teacher or principal about the time he or she “really got through to”

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or “managed to change” a child or a school for the better. Often, such stories involve having a heartfelt talk with a student or, in this case, members of the school’s internal and external adult community. When successful, such activity would likely help reinforce a principal’s political position within the community. In this case, the principal appeared to have skillfully combined a community’s pride for its new school with its collective hopes for its children’s academic futures. (One may speculate as to whether or not this type of symbolic speaking is underutilized in American public schools.) Nearly all of our principals mentioned some story or instance involving the formal or informal use of symbols or ceremony. One, for example, said that he wrote birthday cards to every teacher every year as a way of making a “connection” and “showing appreciation.” Other principals mentioned the importance of their own visible participation in teacher-directed school activities and competitions. As a way of “showing support” for his teachers, one principal organized friendly sports competitions between his teaching staff and teachers from other schools. The principals describing such friendly interaction expressed belief that it would lead teachers to become more willing to identify with their ideas and work to enact them. As discussed in chapter 2, social and organizational life in Taiwan (and much of East Asia) is pervaded with formal ceremony and ritual. Much of this activity, especially as it occurs in school organizations, is aimed at expressing mutual respect, building unity, alleviating potential conflicts, reinforcing authority relationships, and the general facilitation of human interaction. For example, nearly all the principals we met with offered us tea and fruit. It was a sign of care and respect, but it also seemed to substitute for the Western idea of “breaking the ice.” One principal asked two of her school directors to speak with us prior to the interview regarding current educational issues and the differences between American and Taiwanese schools. After the interview, the principal wanted to have pictures taken with us. It was common for principals to give us campus tours and introduce us to key staff members. In addition to showing care and respect to “honored guests,” it was a way for these principals to show pride in their school. Indeed, it came through clearly from many of the principals that they were proud of having been selected for our study. This kind of behavior, this symbolic exchanging of care, respect, pride, and face, permeates social and organizational relations to the point that such exchanges, while noticeable and perhaps somewhat disconcerting at times to foreigners, are completely natural, comfortable, and reassuring to Chinese and Taiwanese natives. They represent a sort of tacit language, one often used by principals in relating to teachers, parents, and other community members. But if, in fact, political tensions are on the rise between principals and their

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constituents, one must wonder how long this mode of interaction can robustly serve its purpose. Balancing Task and Relationship Orientation Western leadership research over the past fifty years has distinguished two contrasting dimensions of leadership, consideration and initiating structure. As Halpin (1966, 86) suggests, Initiating structure refers to the leader’s behavior in delineating the relationship between himself and the members of his work group, and in endeavoring to establish well-defined patterns of organization, channels of communication and methods of procedure. Consideration refers to behavior indicative of friendship, mutual trust, respect, and warmth in the relationship between the leader and the members of his staff.

Sometimes referred to as “task” and “relationship” orientation, these differences in leader approach have been linked to follower cooperation and morale. Barnard (1938), for example, argues that leader authority and general morale increases as subordinates perceive a sense of “effectiveness” (organizational goals are being met) and “efficiency” (their own individual needs are being met). The interview data indicate that initiating structure and consideration may be tightly interwoven in Taiwan schools. Several of our principals described specific ways in which they attempted to define and clarify a school vision and establish goals, principles, or philosophies related to that vision. We also heard from principals seeking to promote trust and cordial relations between themselves and other school members, and from some who wanted to be viewed as “caring uncles” to whom teachers could turn for emotional support during rough times. Yet paralleling both of these inclinations is the strong current of social formality described in previous paragraphs, which appears to help tie together organizational “effectiveness” and “efficiency.” In contrast to many American schools, where “friendship” or “camaraderie” commonly occur between principals and teachers, Taiwanese principals and teachers seem to neither seek out such relationships nor expect them to occur as a natural function of working together within a school. The words of our principals suggest that although they hoped for good and trusting relations with teachers, they did so within a much more formal framework than their American counterparts. This may help explain why some studies find Taiwanese principals to be perceived as high in terms of both consideration and task orientation (Chin 1998). Information from our interviews appears consistent with such findings. Our principals appear “balanced” between the two dimensions, in the sense that while some tilted one way or the other, the overall set of responses in-

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dicated a balance of disposition. For example, principals expressed opinions like the following: “The most important tasks for me are to help my students pass the basic ability tests and then go to senior high schools. I want my students to score high on the tests . . . I still emphasize the results and work, more than verbal encouragement to teachers.” “[The most important thing for a new principal is to] understand the newest educational policy so that he or she knows what to follow.” “I think the teachers association and the school should work together and not argue with each other. The school does what the policy says, and it makes no sense for the teachers association to argue with the school on those subjects.”

The message here seems not only task oriented, but also quite directive, as if to say, “These are rules and structures within which we must work, so let’s get busy.” But other principals responded differently. One principal implied his own disposition, saying, “The first thing is to deal with people and relationships so that you can have a good school, good teachers, and good community.” For this principal, and the others who expressed similar thoughts, the implication seems to be that through “relationships,” the principal and other school actors (teachers, parents, and community members) can help each other. A principal may learn about some teachers’ needs or problems, try to help them, and then later on rely upon these teachers to provide extra effort or time helping the school meet a need or solve a problem. This idea, similar to the Western idea of “transactional leadership,” seems to fit very well within the Chinese custom of social relations based in part upon the exchange of favors. Relationships are built, mutual authority is expanded, and goals are attained via the exchange of resources. One might think of this aspect of Chinese culture as a mechanism for the generation of social capital. Other principal comments lead us to suspect that while the words “good relations” sometimes refer to the creation of trust or friendliness, it may be more reflective of a desire for “harmony” within the school, a desire for people to routinely follow normal rules and procedures, to work as they are expected toward a common good. In that sense, one notes that harmony can occur in both professional and bureaucratic settings. If “harmony” does in fact refer to the calm carrying out of prescribed daily routines, then its function for these principals may be to create a facilitative setting for the more time-intensive task of building trusting, and what might be called more “authoritatively rich,” relations with teachers. “A new principal does not need to

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be in a hurry to do things,” said one principal. Several other principals gave similar advice and emphasized the importance of what some referred to as the “not-in-a-hurry period” as a means of learning about school culture and getting to know teachers. One principal stated with pride his ability to learn the names of all his two hundred teachers during the first year of his principalship. Doing so, he claimed, made it easier for him to build relationships and obtain support. While some of the principals leaned toward consideration or initiating structure, others indicated that they sought to attain their own balance. As one stated, “The principal should clearly communicate with teachers about his or her expectations and should be a role model. . . . Also, the principal should be sincere to the teachers in order to win teachers’ trust.” Another principal stated explicitly that he was high in both initiating structure and consideration: “I care a lot about teachers’ feelings and needs. At the same time, I am pretty firm regarding what the education policies require of us. Everyone should work hard to fulfill the requirement or what was decided upon during the meeting.” Several principals indicated that they used different approaches when serving in differently sized schools. In a smaller school, they would try to focus on relationships because, as one put it, “a small school is like a family.” He stated further that “[a] medium-size school needs rules. And the principal in a big school needs to create a good operation system first, and then he can start to focus more on human relationships. If a principal of a big school does not build the rules and make sure everyone knows them, the school will be difficult to operate.” If it is the case, as our data seem to suggest, that these principals tend to view themselves as striving for effectiveness in both task and relationship orientation, one problem still remains. As was indicated earlier, our data offer little indication that “task orientation” among these principals amounts to much more than simply telling teachers to accept and comply with MOE requirements. When tasks are relatively traditional or straightforward, this kind of approach may pose little threat to teacher perceptions of principal leadership. It may, in fact, actually help strengthen them—and strengthen morale—if teachers identify with the traditional goals and procedures. But as tasks become more complex, and as teachers perceive themselves as lacking the knowledge, time, support structures, or other resources to complete them, a principal’s task-orientation skill may be severely tested. Under such circumstances, maintaining good morale may require principals to more effectively communicate and clarify the technical demands of the new, more complex demands teacher face. Might principals who find themselves unable to offer meaningful technical guidance to teachers fear being viewed as ineffective leaders? If so, how might they respond or compensate?

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Communicating Effectively with Teachers In every interview, “communication” was mentioned as being important for understanding teachers’ needs, as well as being a means of helping teachers understand their principal’s ideas and expectations. While some of the principal statements mentioned the need for sincere two-way discussions with teachers, many emphasized a more one-way communication style. As one put it, “The principal should clearly communicate with teachers about his or her expectations.” Though principals mentioned using special events, newsletters, or other written forms, for most of our principals, faculty meetings appeared to be the most common arena for communicating with teachers. Some principals emphasized that they “invited” or “encouraged” teachers to express their ideas and needs at such meetings. But none of the principals expressed a sense of having much success in this regard, complaining that teachers were more likely to sit and listen or ask questions of clarification concerning policies. One principal said that she would occasionally visit teacher offices to talk and listen, stating, “I think a principal and teachers will influence each other. I always sincerely listen to my teachers and discuss ideas with them. Sometimes they will provide ideas for activities.” It would appear noteworthy that the principal’s statement above does not lead one to suspect that the teachers in these schools are particularly vocal with their ideas. In fact, many principals expressed some frustration in this regard. Even in informal settings, several suggested that communication can be difficult. One principal who occasionally dined out with her teachers and administrative staff explained that whenever she did, the teachers would “automatically sit at a table away from me and my administrators.” While the atmosphere on such occasions was “light and easy,” this principal expressed concern that her teachers still viewed her and her administrative staff as having higher social status. On one occasion, we had the opportunity to dine out with another principal and several of his teachers. Though this principal kept telling everyone to “eat happily,” the teachers still appeared to behave and speak in a rather guarded fashion, some even at times rising to serve food to the principal or to their older, more experienced colleagues. The teachers’ behavior in this out-of-school setting may have reflected the way they behaved within the school, according to positions of status. It also seemed to indicate how difficult it can be for principals to create a relaxed, informal setting for collegial interaction. Most of our principals expressed a desire to have free and collegial communication with teachers as a way of building good working relationships. However, the examples above reveal the difficulties involved. Getting teachers

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to speak freely, at banquets, at staff meetings, or in general, appears to remain a major challenge for these principals. Working with Teacher Resistance Our principals expressed some frustration with two sources of teacher resistance. The first type involved that presented by older and more experienced teachers. One principal, for example, while saying it was good to have experienced teachers, complained that “when people are in an environment for a long time, sometimes people will become lazy. There are a small number of teachers that are like that. I think it also relates to how old the teachers are. The longer the teachers are in the school, the more difficult it is for them to change.” Several other principals expressed similar views, frequently pointing blame at a “teacher group” (which, in English, we interpreted as something similar to a teacher “clique”) that presented some passive, yet significant, resistance to change. Some principals complained that older teachers might have lost much of their motivation due to the “generous guaranteed government benefits” they received. One principal stated that passive noncooperation and a seeming unwillingness to change old habits often caused difficulties with both small and large proposed changes (for example, “moving classrooms to a new space” or “reassigning responsibilities to different positions in the school”). One principal suggested that the problem is not always just related to regular teachers, pointing to a problem caused by one of his administrators: “I would say that my biggest challenge is that I have a director of students who has stayed here for forty years. He does not like new changes and will often say no when I want to try some new things.” In addition to the somewhat surprising revelation that a director of students might simply say “no” to a principal, these words suggest that more so than in the past, Taiwan principals are called upon to make efforts to motivate and overcome the resistance of their more seasoned teachers. A second source of resistance mentioned by our principals emanated from the formal teachers association. The Taiwan Teachers Association is quite active around the nation and operates in some ways in a politically similar fashion to American teacher unions. A principal who had an unpleasant experience with the association expressed the view that the teachers association is against the idea of a major change in this school. It was the policy mandating the school to change. However, the teachers association was not satisfied, and I had meetings with the association over and over again. . . . Another example is that many teachers are against the curricular reform. I was pretty firm on this and asked teachers to do what the policy said because it is the policy and it is from the government.

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This principal’s comment represents the views of a few other principals who apparently felt compelled to assume an adversarial position with their schools’ teacher associations in order to implement reform. Though several of our principals perceived their schools’ teachers associations to have opposing opinions regarding school reform, some indicated that they maintained good relationships with them and their representatives. These principals spoke of their own attempts to influence the association representatives, using words suggesting that their “best role” would be to support the school and work toward educational improvement through “rational mutual communications.” It seems interesting, and perhaps revealing, that while our principals tended to express a desire for greater teacher participation in curricular and instructional matters, they appeared rather cautious or even reluctant about having this occur through the teachers association. School Reform and Principal Leadership To this point, the information obtained from interviews—set against the political backdrop of school reform presented in chapter 3—presents a picture in which principals appear to be struggling for effectiveness in a changing, perhaps unstable environment of high complexity, high uncertainty, declining authority, and increased vulnerability. Both individually and collectively, they appear drawn in two directions. The demands of school reform and their exposure to Western leadership models pushes them toward shared authority, innovation, and greater dependency upon teachers, parents, community members, and political actors. At the same time, traditional Chinese cultural and social norms, coupled with the long-entrenched structures and patterns of instruction and educational attainment, pull them back toward a more authoritative role. But would this picture hold up to further scrutiny, based on principals’ more direct responses to questions about school reform? Recall that the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum reforms required schools to shift from traditional teaching methods and subject organization toward a combining of subjects linked with commensurate instructional changes— something quite new to most of Taiwan’s schoolteachers. In addition, the reforms called upon teachers to design their own curricula, so as to emphasize local indigenous culture and the special characteristics of each school community. Teachers were also asked to become more creative in terms of curriculum design, instruction, and the evaluation of student performance. Finally, whereas in the past textbooks had been selected by the MOE, schools were now required to choose their own textbooks. Along with these reforms, principals could no longer assume the same level of job security as in the past, since they were now subject to regular review by local boards.

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Not surprisingly, the majority of principals in our sample expressed concerns about the impact of school reform. Not all of their concerns were highly critical, however, with one principal stating that much of the confusion resulted from principals being more concerned with their “personal future” than with the “quality of education.” But only a few principals downplayed the impact of reform. The following opinion reflects the views stated by this minority of principals: “I think teachers support me and support the reform. Also, I think I am not like these principals who only follow what is asked from the upper level. I am creative and looking further. So, I think reform is just an accomplishment of my dream.” It would appear that this particular principal held a good deal of confidence in his ability to exercise leadership despite—or, perhaps more accurately, because of—the demands of school reform. Most of the other principals expressed rather sharp criticism of school reform and of how it had made their work harder and more uncertain. One principal focused on the problem of ever-changing demands, commenting that “the content of school reform usually changes when we have a new Minister of Education. The constant policy changes are hard for the school to follow.” Principal selection and job security seemed to be uppermost in the minds of two principals. One put it emphatically, as follows: Yes! I think education reform has influenced how I do my job. I do not totally agree with the process of principal selection right now. In the past, principals were appointed to the school by the Ministry of Education or city bureaus of education. Now the principal’s selection process has changed. Principals have to be evaluated every four years, and the experts in the principal-selection committees have the right to vote. If the principal is not good enough, he or she has to go. I think the system is not too bad if the city bureau of education really does a good job in evaluating the principal. However, what if the principal is not reselected? Where should he or she go? I think a principal will think that he or she has lost face, and it will be hard for him or her to stay in the same school. An elementary-school principal is not like the college president. If a college president is not selected again, he or she can still work as a professor.

His words provide a picture of the fears some principals may face regarding a potential loss of power, authority, status, and face. The fear was echoed in the words of another principal who, in addition to feeling somewhat threatened by reform, seemed to feel a need to be able to point to some activity, change, or “adjustment” that might demonstrate his school’s compliance with reform: “I felt too much of the principals’ power was taken away in this reform. Principals cannot do this or that. If a principal does not make some adjustment within the reform context, he or she might not be able to keep his or her job.”

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Other principals complained about the additional workload brought about by the reforms. In the words of one, “[We principals] have to deal with all kinds of problems that come from education reform. For example, principals now have to deal with choosing new textbooks, hiring teachers, combinedsubject teaching, new curriculum design, teacher and parent complaints and resistance, or other difficulties.” Unfortunately, our data allow us only to speculate as to the nature and difficulty of principal work prior to these new types of demands. It is doubtful, however, that the institutional, technical, managerial, and bureaucratic demands placed upon principals prior to school reform diminished significantly after its implementation. It thus seems reasonable to conclude that the amount of principal work has increased dramatically under reform. All but one of the principals indicated that they did not think their teachers fully understood the requirements of national school reform, and most of the principals seemed concerned about how to actually implement them. Some principals responded in ways indicating their active involvement in carrying out reform. Others responded in ways that suggested they viewed reform as “too difficult” a task. Still others seemed to express little concern or attention to reform at all; one said explicitly that he did not care about the new policies and only cared about “raising students’ grades.” Other principals suggested that they were only meeting the requirements in a rather perfunctory way, even to the point of using a bit of subterfuge, perhaps in order to show evidence of compliance with school-reform demands: “Well, the policy asked the teachers to do combined-subject teaching. The school really has difficulties actually doing it. So the school changed the name of the subject to look ‘combined’ while, in fact, teachers still teach the subjects individually.” The kind of strategy suggested above reflects a couple of key points made earlier. First, it illustrates Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) predicted “uncoupling” of an organization’s institutional and technical core. In addition, it reveals an example of Riseborough’s (1993) “unofficial underlife to official policy intention,” a layer of subterfuge tacitly accepted within the local school unit. Such strategies or structures would likely work most effectively in instances involving high levels of pragmatic agreement between teachers, parents, principals, and local school councils. In this pragmatic spirit, several principals emphasized the need for “flexibility” in implementing reform. As one put it, In order for the schools to follow the reform, the Ministry of Education and the Bureau of Education create some regulations. Then people will think that these regulations are school reform. But the regulations are not suitable for every school. If schools only follow the regulations, teachers will have a lot of complaints.

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More, perhaps, than a plea for flexible implementation, one might read these words as a plea for a more practical, locally based, and realistic style of school reform that needn’t necessarily align completely with government mandates. Most principals stated that they encouraged their teachers to talk to each other about the new curriculum, claiming that they worked hard on communicating with teachers and parents about the essence, rationale, and requirements of reform. Many formed committees for curriculum development and teaching research aimed at helping teachers learn and develop new strategies. But only a few principals offered examples of ways in which they provided teachers with explicit direction as to how to implement the new procedures. One stated that “my school has a committee for curriculum design and a committee of teaching research. Also, the school uses subject grouping, and teachers are grouped according to the grade level. These helped teachers adjust to the reform. And sometimes I will teach teachers strategies to use.” Another principal told the following story: The reform focuses on local culture. People from the bureaus of education thought that it should start from the teachers. So, teachers should be able to speak fluent dialects. And the Bureau of Education would like to see the results from competitions. I try to help my teachers as much as I can. For example, when one of my teachers was required to participate in a Taiwanese-speaking speech competition, I invited an expert to help her prepare.

Notwithstanding this pair of responses, our evidence suggests that regardless of how seriously principals view the demands of reform, they rely heavily upon their teachers to help implement it, to try to implement it, or, in some cases, to at least put up a good institutional face.

Chapter Five

Discussion and Implications

Nested within centuries of Chinese culture and tradition, Taiwan’s national system of education has been historically characterized by a merit-based structure relying on standardized, academically focused curriculum and highstakes testing. The system functioned as a social switching yard, distributing students onto different and largely permanent tracks of academic and occupational status. The criticality of the decisions and outcomes involved in such a system combined with a deeply embedded acceptance of hierarchical authority to produce a situation in which actors at lower organizational levels seldom questioned rules or procedures in anything but the most subtle or discreet fashion. In particular, principals, as long as they followed Ministry of Education (MOE) policies and adhered to normative expectations, were generally assured continued status and authority—that is, the mantle of leadership—within the organization. Over the past fifteen years, however, driven to some extent by social and political changes on the island, Taiwan launched a series of ambitious educational reforms calling for more diverse and integrated curricula, more creative forms of teaching, increased teacher empowerment, more substantial and formalized parent involvement, and community governance of local schools. These reforms mirrored the kinds of changes that had been advocated and implemented with varying degrees of success in the United States since the late 1980s (but which to some extent have fallen by the wayside due to increased state demands for formal accountability, brought about in large part by the socalled No Child Left Behind [NCLB] legislation). The overarching purpose of our book was thus to evaluate the impact of these Western-style reforms on the meaning and practice of school administration and leadership among a sample of Taiwan school principals. Would traditional structures and social expectations mute the reform initiative? Or might principals’ beliefs and 87

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practices become more congruent with Western views, which emphasize the need for more distributive and transformational forms of school leadership? Curiously, the answer to both questions appears to be yes. In general, the principals with whom we spoke express strikingly Western views about their efforts to lead their schools. At least on the surface, the view among these principals about what it takes to achieve success as a school leader seems much less authoritative than expected and somewhat at odds with the “one finger, one leader” idea described back in chapter 1. Our interviews offer grounds to suspect that principals have shifted toward a greater sense of dependence on their teachers. In past decades, principals expected teachers to follow fairly well-established routines of instruction to efficiently and effectively prepare students for their next academic level or their next entrance exam. The reform movement, however, created a new setting in which innovation was viewed as a sign of progress and compliance, but in which efficiency and effectiveness could not be abandoned due to internal structural and external normative demands. Unable to crack this puzzle on their own, principals must rely more heavily on their teachers’ creative professional efforts. Yet, in contrast with Western perspectives, though principals value their teachers’ efforts, they seem hesitant to view them as acts of “leadership.” A “leader,” it would seem, is someone in a position of formal authority. It also appears that school reform has rendered the principal’s workspace much more turbulent and uncertain than in the past, and in so doing has made principals much more professionally vulnerable. For example, unlike in past decades, principals must increasingly operate within a school-reform framework based upon vague technologies with few clear measurable outcomes, weighed down by a set of conflicting social and organizational structures. Yet we find no persuasive indication in our interviews that these principals (or many of their teachers) really understand how to technically implement the new reform practices within their schools while still meeting other critical structural and environmental demands. On the plus side, however, this combination of characteristics lends itself to a situation in which multiple responses and indicators may serve as evidence of a school’s compliance with the goals of reform. Principals thus have the option of working harder toward building community support and demonstrating perfunctory compliance than toward the authentic implementation of reform practices. In other words, we are left wondering whether or not these schools, beneath the surface and at the technical level, are in most ways operating as they always have. In particular, it may be that rather than pressing principals to become dynamic instructional leaders, reform has pressed them to become more creative and dynamic symbolic leaders. At the same time, the idea of becoming a “master of meaning”

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would appear to fit well within the traditional role of the Taiwanese school principal. In this final chapter, we review the study’s main findings, highlight key themes and trends, and attempt to discuss and analyze these results in a way that promotes understanding and reasoned policy inference. We begin by highlighting the ways in which our principals’ words reveal congruence or tension with some key Western leadership concepts.

WESTERN LEADERSHIP CONCEPTS IN TAIWAN SCHOOL SETTINGS To a moderate degree, the principals we interviewed have begun speaking the language of Western-style school leadership. Apparently, principals perceive these Western concepts as somewhat salient, thus providing us with insight into how they view and respond to the new challenges prompted by Taiwan school reform. In particular, our principals appear to be influenced by ideas related to transformational, instructional, and symbolic leadership, and they also struggle in some ways to develop and balance a set of effective relationshipand task-oriented leader behaviors. In addition, while our principals sense a difference between “leadership” and “management,” that difference is not always clear, nor is it necessarily in line with ideas often expressed in Western literature. Finally, our principals’ words reflect a belief that leadership is an activity that requires them to be consistently helpful, responsible, and moral. The following paragraphs discuss each of these aspects. Transformational Leadership and Vision Building Our principals perceive vision building and “culture” building as two key tasks. While most are sensitive to MOE pressure to implement reform practices, it seems interesting and somewhat telling that they rarely apply the language of goals and objectives when speaking about how the reforms might unfold within their own schools. Instead, most appear to believe that the ministry’s reform policies could only become implemented through the creation of some new vision or culture shared among their teachers, parents, and community. The language of vision and culture building appears to serve as a tool to help school members identify with, consider, and become gradually acclimated to the new school reforms. At the same time, we note a split in the way principals approach transformational tasks. Some act more as facilitator, inviting all school members to participate in the process. Others appear quite certain about the value of their own visions and take a more

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top-down approach in transmitting their ideas to teachers. While a top-down approach may conflict with the spirit of reform, the principals who utilize it may believe it to be the most effective way to promote change. The behavior and divergence of behavior described above represent a pattern not so different from what we might expect to see in the United States—some principals engaged in vision building, others engaged in vision “telling” as a means to create change. Regardless of the approach, vision has become more explicitly important in Taiwan’s schools, most likely because of a confluence of social currents. One of these, of course, is the general sense of pedagogical dissatisfaction that emerged among many Taiwanese elites in the mid to late 1980s, which in turn prompted the push toward school reform. A second current relates to the way in which concepts like “vision” and “transformation” gained mythical status and symbolic power into the mid-1990s within global educational markets and conversations about school improvement and reform. Finally, and in related fashion, the language of transformational vision building would certainly have influenced the growing numbers of Taiwan students who studied in American graduate programs during this period and who eventually returned to serve as either school officials or professors of education. Instructional Leadership Our principals speak about instructional leadership in three different ways. First and most frequently, they describe a type of instructional leadership that is primarily symbolic: the idea that it is important for principals to supervise instruction by being “ever present” in the halls outside of the largely permeable boundaries of Taiwan classrooms. They walk by, observe, and listen in somewhat conspicuous fashion, and in so doing convey important meaning to teachers. While it is unusual and unexpected for these principals to drop into classrooms unannounced, their strolling presence, coupled with the school’s physical characteristics, ensures classroom transparency and promotes some standardization of teachers’ instructional behavior. Although Western literature highlights the value of principals “being visible” within schools, from a leadership perspective this is often more for the sake of morale and social connection than instructional supervision. For Taiwan principals, however, the reform movement may have heightened the importance of principal visibility, for it may also serve as a way of garnering support or approval from teachers and visiting parents, a way for principals to show that they truly care and are “on the job.” A second type of instructional leadership expressed by these principals concerns teacher evaluation. Interestingly, several principals suggest that responsibility for this task should be shared with teachers. In other words, they

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express support for some kind of peer evaluation, something that is becoming more popular (at least in theory) in the United States. Based on the information we gathered, this willingness of some principals to shift responsibility to teachers is not simply a matter of lessening their own administrative burden (for principals are still held formally responsible for teacher evaluation). Rather, those principals who encourage peer evaluation seem to honestly view it as a means for sharing and expanding the technical core of instructional knowledge within their schools. To reiterate the words of one principal, “The teaching quality will become better as teachers learn more from each other.” As we have argued, Taiwan school reform has rendered principals much more dependent upon the skill and creativity of their teachers than in the past. This in turn may have prompted some principals to become more active in promoting teachers’ professional collegiality. A third type of instructional leadership is evidenced by those few principals who actually took the reins and attempted to demonstrate instructional practices to teachers, occasionally even teaching directly to students. Perhaps because of reform demands, perhaps because of their own professional training, principals are increasingly expected to know how to conduct the new curriculum and communicate to teachers the skills and tools needed to carry it out. Overall, it appears that while some principals still emphasize their aura of “authority” in practicing instructional leadership, others lean more toward developing collegial, coaching-style relationships with teachers. Symbolic Leadership As discussed in earlier sections, we expected our principals to offer evidence of using symbols as leadership tools, but in different ways than might typically be found in American schools. Taiwan society has a tremendous amount of symbol, ritual, and ceremony built into its everyday culture, and much of this structure is infused into patterns of school organizational life. In general, Taiwan schools and principals (including those we interviewed) attach great importance to school events such as anniversaries, opening and closing weeks, holidays (especially Teachers Day), and even teachers’ birthdays or other special personal events. There are ceremonies, assemblies, and other formal activities that reinforce everyone’s attachment to school, town, and country. Principals use this kind of activity to build relationships and cohesion with teachers, students, and members of the surrounding community. Though American principals may strive for similar results, they tend to do so less frequently, purposefully, and formally than as discussed by the principals in our sample. For the principals interviewed here, ceremony and celebration appear to offer an opportunity to speak to school members about reform, to shape the meaning

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of the new demands placed upon them, to help them identify with the purpose and motivation of their work, and to help them align their sense of team spirit and morale with the general idea of instructional reform. These kinds of symbolic interaction may provide a bit of “grease for the wheels” of school reform, working at an emotional level to help teachers and principals mitigate the great uncertainty they face in implementing its specific technical demands. Task versus Relationship Orientation Most of our principals respond in ways suggesting that they understand the need to be sensitive to teachers’ personal needs while, concurrently, being able to understand, clarify, organize, delegate, and manage teachers’ organizational tasks. Prior research (Chin 1998) suggests that Taiwan principals tend to be ranked high in both aspects, and our interview data reflects a similar tendency. For example, our principals express a willingness to serve as “uncle,” “father,” or “mother” figures to teachers and to offer them advice concerning personal issues and problems. Indeed, it is interesting that our principals seem to be most emphatic and cathectic when discussing their efforts to build and strengthen relationships with teachers. We note, for instance, that our principals do not say things like “I know what specific steps we must take to implement reform, and my problem is persuading teachers to follow my lead.” Rather, we hear principals lament the fact that teachers rarely voice their ideas about how to find an effective path toward reform implementation. The principals’ words reveal their struggle to persuade teachers to break the chains of formality and interact in a more informal, interpersonal, and collegial way. We are left to infer that the reforms may have made it more difficult for principals to exercise task orientation in ways truly useful to teachers. More specifically, our principals seem daunted in developing a useful, productive, technically focused task orientation that goes beyond their traditional, authoritatively directive stance. The result is one in which principal instructional leadership remains largely about encouraging, motivating, and providing symbolic direction. Principals may know how to encourage teacher professional development and collegiality—the “trappings” of reform. But they are far less certain about implementing particular new technical routines of curriculum or instruction. The Meanings of Leadership and Management Our principals speak in ways indicating recognition of a difference between leadership and management. In general, they view management as a sort of

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“science” involving task efficiency and effectiveness, a focus on procedures and results, and an emphasis on system preservation over system change. Leadership tended to be described as an “art” that entails creating vision and direction. It involves being able to see farther into the future than teachers, but also the ability to be persuasive and motivate their supportive efforts and voluntary innovation—in other words, to expand their zone of acceptance. Leadership, as one principal puts it, is more than just “telling people what to do and when to do it.” At the same time, some tension seems to remain as these principals struggle with the idea of “distributive” or shared leadership in their schools. On one hand, they appear to realize that they probably ought not be the only leader in the school, and they express concern about their ability to increase their teachers’ willingness and ability to engage in technical change and innovation, traits that Western theorists would likely call “teacher leadership.” On the other hand, as stated earlier, they hesitate to use the term “leader” when talking about teachers’ formal or informal professional engagement within the school. Instead, most of the principals we interviewed think about teacher leadership in a more limited or formal fashion. We inferred from their words that teacher leadership occurs when teachers manage their classrooms skillfully, develop more expertise within their curricular area, or move up the ranks by obtaining positions of higher formal authority and status within the school. In other words, within the general template of meaning, teachers “lead” only their “subordinates,” that is, their students or (if they become directors) their former “fellow” teachers. Though our data do not allow for strong inference, they do raise the question as to whether the beliefs and behaviors expressed among these principals represent a change from the pre-reform era. Do they mainly represent a greater interest in or sensitivity to Western views of leadership? Or are they more a response to specific school-reform policy demands? The fact that they appear to struggle with the idea of teachers as leaders suggests it may be more the latter. They seem to long for their teachers to speak, offer opinions, and initiate discussions and ideas, and they lament that most teachers tend to remain silent. Still, they refrain from referring to such behaviors as “teacher leadership.” But regardless of how they perceive or refer to increased teacher participation, it seems clear that principals have become more reliant upon their teachers as a result of school reform, perhaps from their recognition that they cannot—or do not know how to—implement the reforms on their own. Being Helpful, Responsible, and Moral As mentioned above, our principals often see themselves as personal as well as administrative leaders. That is, they appear willing to offer teachers advice

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and support for problems they face outside of school. They also seem to recognize that to play this role properly requires them to appear fair and honest, especially when it concerns matters such as money and budgets. In Taiwan, the idea of principals being moral actors may differ slightly from that expressed in Western theories of moral and ethical leadership that have become quite popular recently in the field of educational leadership. In the Western view, being a moral leader generally refers to “doing the good” (Starratt 2004), and a moral leader may rely on an ethic of “justice,” “critique,” “care,” and “professionalism” to make decisions aimed at the “best interest” of students (Shapiro and Stefkovich 2001). The focus of these Western ideas is to systematize and institutionalize the process of moral and ethical decision making in the daily course of leading a school. In Taiwan, however, at least among the principals we interviewed, the idea of being a moral leader relates more to the personal level, describing a principal who possesses personal virtue and behaves morally. In this sense, the importance of being a moral leader is that it reinforces, authenticates, and personalizes the formal respect of teachers as well as the principal’s ability to serve as a role model within the school. With this kind of respect from teachers, a principal might be able to run the school more easily—for example, to obtain teachers’ support, participation, and loyalty, or, in short, enrich and expand his or her authority.

PROBLEMS LINKED TO SCHOOL REFORM Taken as a whole, the responses to our interviews suggest that Taiwan principals are becoming more open to the use of Western ideas in attempting to solve the puzzles of school reform. Though our study found interesting differences, our principals express many ideas well in line with Western leadership theories. The challenges of school reform have apparently led them to work in ways that are arguably more collegial and less authoritarian than in the past. Ironically, this change has come about due largely to top-down organizational demands; for beyond the local school level, Taiwan’s educational system remains hierarchically and authoritatively organized, and to a large degree driven by a structure of meritocracy and high-stakes testing. This tension between the creation of distributive authority structures at the local level and the persistence of hierarchical structures at levels beyond has placed Taiwan principals in a very difficult position. The Mandarin words used by the principals in our study, translated into English as “challenges,” “difficulties,” “uncertainties,” and “frustrations,” suggest a somewhat negative tilt toward school reform. The reforms have placed tremendous new demands on principals’ responsibility while at the

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same time triggering new resistance from teachers and parents. In addition, many principals point to specific structural and cultural barriers that they believe have made school reform very difficult to implement. These include such factors as an inappropriate distribution of teachers and students across classrooms; a lack of effective teacher training; the dominance of high-stakes testing; and the loss of face teachers and principals may often experience in shared-authority situations. In short, reform has handed principals enormous new responsibility, but has also undercut a great deal of the authority, power, and security they once held. The overall result for principals appears to be a working environment marked by growing uncertainty and vulnerability. Principal Dependency, Uncertainty, and Vulnerability In past decades in Taiwan, a principal could easily consider himself the leader of the school. Barring any major mis-, mal-, or nonfeasance of duty, he (and it was nearly always a “he”) could expect to serve in his position as long as he wished, and parents and teachers either followed or at least rarely spoke out in opposition to his decisions. Moreover, in the realm of curriculum and instruction, there were few substantial decisions to be made. Teachers were charged with presenting material selected and organized by the MOE, and students were charged with learning what teachers presented. The technical core of schooling was largely understood. Teachers taught and students studied in traditional fashion. Principals supervised the process while making sure that each new MOE directive was understood and implemented. Teachers tended to follow their principals’ instructions, and there was little demand for innovation—and, as was argued in chapter 2, little need for leadership, at least in the Western sense of the word. In the wake of school reform, however, principals face new and more demanding selection and tenure procedures. Curriculum and instruction are surrounded with greater complexity. The technical core of schooling has become far less clear than in the past, as has the meaning of what constitutes a successful school. Is it one that increases students’ potential to score well on national tests? Or is it one in which curriculum, instruction, and governance fit the demands of school reform? Principals must now be quite careful in determining the proper balance between these two visions and must be far more politically adroit than in the past when it comes to persuading school stakeholders to accept and support his or her decisions. More than ever, they need to utilize forms of leadership that enable them to expand the zone of acceptance among teachers and parents. At the same time, they seek to reduce uncertainty and promote stability within the school organization and community.

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The phenomenon presented here offers an intensified example of Lortie’s (1975, 2009) point that the American principalship is marked by high formal responsibility and low formal authority. Lortie’s argument highlights American principals’ dependency on teachers for their own success, which results from the fact that principals cannot control students’ success directly. What makes Taiwan principals more dependent on their teachers—and more vulnerable—is the fact that teachers, parents, and community representatives have more direct influence over whether or not they will remain in their school positions. Thus, while principals maintain the traditional trappings of formal authority, they are increasingly pressed to demonstrate higher levels of educational expertise and leadership. But because there is no recipe or road map that explains how to implement key elements of school reform, such demonstration has become a much more daunting problem, one that basic power and authority relationships alone cannot solve. Based on our interviews, it seems that principals tend to respond to this challenge by encouraging teacher professional development and collegiality and democratic forms of decision making, and by pointing to these characteristics within their school as evidence of having complied with the spirit of school reform. It is tempting to speculate that principals will find that they can create the appearance of reform while largely preserving the kinds of teaching and learning that parents have come to traditionally expect. At the same time, some measure of substance lies within this “appearance.” Changes in attitudes may lead to incremental changes in technical routines, and the gradual nature of the process may help preserve teacher morale. Organizational Learning Like “leadership,” the idea of “organizational learning” is often wrapped together with rationalist notions of organizational effectiveness and improvement. Organizational learning becomes problematized into questions of how to create “learning organizations,” and these in turn become tied to popular ideas, prescriptions, and outputs. The case of Taiwan school reform, however, reveals the complexities embedded in the organizational-learning concept, as it indicates how the types of learning that occur may differ substantially from what was explicitly laid out in school-reform legislation. Returning to the suggestion of Weick and Westley (1996) offered in chapter 2, organizational learning emerges out of juxtaposed order and disorder: from a combined need to exploit old structures and collective memories on one hand, while exploring new possibilities on the other. Organizations thus “learn” as they create new balances of exploiting and exploring behavior. In the case of our Taiwan school principals, it seems clear that they have actively

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participated in a process that Weick and Westley describe as one in which people learn to innovate and at the same time learn how to protect themselves from external threats. Within such a process a key problem of leadership becomes that of finding ways to cultivate explorative curiosity among school members while also finding ways to absorb, or buffer the school from, the uncertainty created by new environmental demands. Borrowing words from Weick and Westley, the principals in our sample appear to struggle between the simultaneous needs to “disorganize” and “organize,” between promoting and reducing technical variety. In a land where symbols and ceremony are of great social importance, it makes sense that to address this contradiction, several of our principals have adopted a strategy described by Meyer and Rowan (1977)—namely, to respond separately to the demands of technical production and the demands of the institutional environment. This approach is suggested in the way many of our principals speak positively and proudly about the value of school reform and their efforts to achieve it, while also indicating their more realistic expectations about its actual classroom implementation. Though more research and data are needed to fully flesh out the nature of this dichotomy, based on our past experiences with Taiwan school organizations, it is possible that principals may tacitly allow or even promote the continuation of norms and practices that conflict with official policy intention—that is, to take advantage of an idea touched on in the previous chapter, Riseborough’s (1993) normatively and semiofficially sanctioned organizational “underlife.” Though this idea is not uncommon in American schools (e.g., teachers who strictly follow supervisory guidelines only while being observed), it may be more common in top-down, administratively driven systems like Taiwan. In her study of Taiwan kindergartens, for example, Chen (2006) reports how schools often maintained two sets of curricular routines: a “default” version popular with parents, and another more “progressive” version for days when government inspectors visited the schools. Similarly, Chiang’s (2009) study of disciplinary policies in Taiwan schools reported the modest continued use and acceptance of corporal punishment more than five years after the practice had been nationally outlawed. In terms of organizational learning, it may not be too extreme to suspect that Taiwan principals may need not only to coordinate innovation and tradition, but also to balance transparent authenticity with buffered subterfuge. Increasing Pressure from Parents News stories and other various anecdotes over the past several years suggest that Taiwan parents are taking a more active stance regarding school curricular and instructional practices, and our principals’ words appear to reflect

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this phenomenon. Part of the growing involvement may stem from concerns as to how school reform might affect their children’s readiness for qualifying exams, and part may stem from the general increase in political and ethnic mobilization and polarization occurring throughout the island over the past several years. Regardless of the causes, our interviews suggest that principals may be directing a good deal more time and energy than in the past toward communicating with parents and responding to their needs and demands. Implicit in the responses of these principals (and evident from stories in Taiwan’s national media) is the idea that Taiwan parents are more demanding and active than in previous decades or generations. In the past, both openly and tacitly, parents tended to express respect, admiration, and compliance with respect to the school and its teachers, seldom raising much doubt about education policy or how the school and teachers handled the children. Most “parent involvement in education” occurred in the home, as parents established suitable norms and structures for children to study (Muller and Kerbow, 1993). Within the context of reform, however, parents have begun to feel freer to raise doubts about their schools, about the reform itself, and even about teachers’ instructional approaches. Parents may fear that their children may not be receiving enough knowledge to perform well on future exams—or the specific type of knowledge necessary for those exam successes. They may try to influence school policies and decisions in order to get what they think is best for their children, sometimes even if it involves requesting special favors. Parents may try to pressure schools to teach in a particular way and may even ask city or county councilors to assist their efforts. This may not be an entirely new type of pressure, but the current reform climate may have removed some of the clout or leverage principals once employed to deal with “high maintenance” parents. For principals then, communicating with parents becomes a more critical issue than in the past. Principals cannot simply pass down policies from the MOE and expect to receive continued support. Instead, they increasingly need to talk explicitly with parents about school procedures, policies, curriculum, teaching, and even safety. The days when Taiwan parents could be counted on to provide consistent, passive support have probably, to a significant degree, been washed away by school reform and the public’s increasing sense of political efficacy.

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS This book was intended as a first step toward understanding the nature and dynamic of Taiwan school reform, the organizational and cultural tensions

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associated with its implementation, and the consequences of all of these on the manner in which principals practice leadership within their schools. As readers will likely suspect by now, our intention and capacity was not really to help “fix” the problems of Taiwan school reform or to offer any sort of guide for its further implementation. Rather, our goal was to promote greater understanding of the tremendous obstacles facing school-reform movements (in Taiwan and elsewhere) that seek to transplant Western educational models and ideas into traditionally rigid and hierarchical organizational settings. Our analysis would be incomplete, however, were it not to note that in spite of recent trends in Western leadership theory, American schools are themselves becoming in many ways more bureaucratic, regimented, and hierarchical than in years past (Shouse 2005, 2007), and American principals appear less free to innovate in ways extending beyond relatively narrow parameters. This trend is in part driven by the high-stakes testing demands of NCLB and by a reinvigorated “standards” movement in school-leader preparation (English 2006). But while Taiwan schools move one way and American schools another, policy makers in both countries continue to be frustrated by the lack of progress being made toward reform goals. The question, in a nutshell, perhaps is: Why can’t Asian schools look more “American” and American schools look more “Asian”? This question has been addressed recently in succinct and, we believe, accurate fashion by Yong Zhao, University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Zhao is the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology and the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. In a keynote address at a recent national summit on secondary education, Zhao (2007) noted numerous examples of how Asian and American school reforms seemed to mirror each other as they attempted to move toward some common middle ground of educational practice. After his talk, an audience member asked Zhao to comment on the “wall” between the desired goals of Eastern and Western educational systems and their successful implementation. Professor Zhao responded simply, “It’s a wall of culture.” More recently, addressing the question as to why East and West continue to bang their figurative heads against this wall, Zhao’s recent book Catching Up or Leading the Way (2009) supports the arguments made here and by others that globalization has greatly increased the ability and tendency of nations to attempt to copy each other’s educational innovations. He argues, however, that there may be great costs involved. While standardized tests may have some value, America’s move toward high-stakes accountability may threaten its long-standing ability to produce creative human capital. And while there may be room in Beijing, Taipei, or Kaohsiung for American-style free-learning academies, Chinese

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and Taiwanese citizens seem as yet unwilling to completely trust such institutions or the types of teaching and learning they represent. School systems are, for better or worse, creations of the cultures they serve. Culture acts as a kind of “DNA,” shaping their structure and activity, while parents, students, and the public at large act as socio-genetic messengers that limit the ability of schools to reinvent themselves into fundamentally different kinds of institutions. Parents, students, and the public carry out this function by carrying and relaying meanings, dispositions, and orientations gathered from history, tradition, and long-standing social norms. In the United States, this activity has tended to work to shape schools into institutions of diverse activity and expectation that produce widely varying levels of performance and achievement. In Taiwan, it has worked to create more homogeneous types of school institutions, some emphasizing achievement in key content areas, others offering vocational education for students on different learning tracks. In terms of school leadership, American culture tends to facilitate styles that are egalitarian, diversely distributed, informal, and loosely coupled from hierarchical authority. In Taiwan, leadership is understood in a more formal way, as a characteristic tethered to position, hierarchy, and tradition. Thus, while Asian and Western nations may through various school-reform initiatives approach the “wall,” cultural dissonance draws them away from it. Of course, culture itself may change, within countries or schools, but usually only over very long periods of time, and often with a measure of social cost. For example, although the United States has imposed standards and sanctions on schools (via the NCLB legislation), it has been unwilling to impose serious sanctions directly upon students, perhaps due to the public fury that would result from seeing large numbers of students “fail” or be denied promotion in school. Similarly, as discussed in chapter 3, Taiwan’s effort to change curriculum, instruction, and college-admission procedures has been met with public complaints of social-class favoritism and a decline in educational quality across all levels of schooling, as well as a decline in teacher morale and an increase in shadow-education expenditures. The “wall” thus works to discourage acceptance of all but incremental changes and to diminish the long-term impact of more dramatic types of reform. In the short term, however, dramatic reforms may have a great deal of impact even when not fully implemented. In the case of Taiwan, for example, they have introduced a great deal of turbulence and instability into the system, and into the professional lives of principals. These qualities flow from the complexity of new educational tasks and organizational demands, from the uncertainty as to how to meet these new challenges within the structural and cultural context of Taiwan’s public-education system, and from the political

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vulnerability principals face in attempting to balance what are often conflicting public and organizational expectations. It is possible, perhaps likely, that these problems may dissipate somewhat for Taiwan school principals as reform demands become more moderate over time, as reality surges through the system like brake fluid through an automobile. This is already happening in the United States (as growing numbers of educators and politicians have begun to question the idealistic benchmarks of NCLB) and in South Korea (where teachers grew overwhelmed by the intense complexity of curricular reform policies—see Kim 2004). In Taiwan, such moderation may take the form of principals being able to demonstrate reform compliance and general effectiveness by demonstrating evidence of a “reform spirit,” a willingness to build “communities of practice” or to invite and encourage greater involvement and participation among teachers and parents. Note that this kind of spirit-building activity may be largely symbolic and take place even as actual structural and technical changes within the school remain relatively moderate and incremental. In Taiwan, appearances are often just as important as, if not more important than, reality. Was the principal described at the beginning of this book, the one who held his finger proudly in the air, expressing a vision of how things should be in his school—or of how things should appear? We may never know the answer, but one thing seems clear. If “leadership” is truly viewed as “art” in the Eastern world, then Taiwan principals may be well advised to acquire as many skillful techniques as they possibly can. The principals in our study seem eager to do this, and they view Western theory as a rich source of instruction.

Notes

CHAPTER 1 1. Shedd and Bacharach (1991) characterize American school organizations as being marked by unpredictable technologies and raw material without any “wellestablished or generally accepted body of practical knowledge concerning what steps or techniques teachers either should or could use in any given situation” (44). 2. Readers should be aware of the dual meaning of “Taiwanese.” Americans may understand the term to mean being a citizen of “Taiwan,” or, more formally, the Republic of China. But the term also refers to the distinctive ethnicity of those whose families lived on the island for generations prior to World War II and who tend to distinguish themselves culturally and linguistically from the Han Chinese who migrated to Taiwan during and after the Chinese Revolution in 1949. The distinction also thus lends itself to the meaning of terms like “Taiwanese autonomy” or “Taiwanization,” which may thus refer to Taiwan’s shift away from mainlandChinese influence, as well as to the growth and influence of a Taiwanese ethnic identity within the island. 3. The Kuomintang is one of the Republic of China’s two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Established in the late 1920s, the KMT governed much of China until the Chinese Civil War of the late 1940s. Since its forced retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the KMT has been the island’s primary governing party, except for the period of 2000 to 2008, when the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian held the presidency. In general, the KMT supports the idea of a “Chinese Taiwan,” identified as the “Republic of China,” which maintains links with the Chinese mainland. In contrast, the DPP tends to support “Taiwanization” and a gradual separation and independence from the People’s Republic of China. 4. Paul Simon, “The boy in the bubble,” Graceland [record], Warner Brothers, 1986.

103

104

Notes

CHAPTER 2 1. See E. Dimytryk (director), S. Roberts (screenplay), and S. Kramer (producer), The Caine mutiny [motion picture], Columbia, 1954. 2. There are ten chapters in Sia’s book, with the initial letters from each chapter combining to spell the word “leadership.” 3. Recess tends to be quite frequent in Taiwanese elementary schools, sometimes occurring two or three times during a four-hour period of school.

CHAPTER 3 1. At the time this book was being prepared, Taiwan’s legislature passed a new twelve-year compulsory-education act. 2. The five-year junior-college program is attractive to those students whose scores on the entrance exam were too low to admit them to a good-quality academic high school. It also grants students the advantage of obtaining a “college degree” without having to take the rigorous college-entrance exams. Students who complete the five-year program graduate with a junior-college degree, but without a highschool diploma. 3. See op-ed piece by Shen Mei-Che, “It’s time to re-educate MOE school reformers,” Taipei Times, November 2, 2002. 4. This form of political control has raised some organizational tension in recent years, as Taiwan’s two major political parties have become aligned to some extent along ethnic and linguistic lines. The Democratic People’s Party, in power as of this writing, tends to attract native speakers of Taiwanese. The Kuomintang, in contrast, has traditionally been the party of Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese. This has led to considerable back-and-forth change regarding language-instruction policies in Taiwan schools. 5. The ROC is politically organized into two provinces and two special municipalities. This arrangement can cause some confusion for those unfamiliar with political intricacies of the ROC, which technically considers itself to represent the government (in effect, the government in absentia) of the Chinese mainland. Thus, the two provinces are considered to be Taiwan (the main island) and Fukien (consisting in part of a number of smaller islands, including Kinmen [Quemoy] and Matsu). The two special municipalities are Taipei (the capital of the ROC) and Kaohsiung. 6. In mountain communities, evaluation committees may determine the length of a principal’s term. 7. By 2006, all of Taiwan’s “teacher colleges” had been upgraded to “universities of education.” 8. Minister Tu’s words were paraphrased into English by the Taipei Times, November 20, 2005, 2, at www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/11/20/2003280918. 9. For examples of how language-education-reform initiatives can cause conflict, see the following articles from The China Post electronic archives (www.chinapost.com.tw):

Notes

105

“Tower of Babel in the offing,” February 19, 2003. “MOE charged with flaunting laws in hiring of foreigners,” April 24, 2003. “English curriculum too hard, lawmaker says,” August 28, 2003. “Students to be required to learn more English: MOE,” April 10, 2004. 10. Numerous examples can be found on the Web describing contentious schoolboard meetings during the late 1990s, involving parents from middle- and uppermiddle-class professional backgrounds expressing strong complaints about NCTMstyle math curricula and instruction. Interestingly, during the early fall of 2006, the NCTM released a statement underscoring the importance of students memorizing basic math facts and procedures. 11. Shen, “It’s time to re-educate MOE reformers.” 12. Jack Chang and Linda Chou, “Foster a good attitude toward math,” Taipei Times, February 15, 2006. 13. “Teachers demand right to form union,” Taipei Times, September 29, 2002. 14. “Teachers down and out on eve of Confucius’s birthday,” Taipei Times, September 28, 2002. 15. “Teachers rue falling Mandarin standards in schools,” Taipei Times, October 14, 2003, 2. 16. “Education reforms failing, says Chen,” Taipei Times, February 23, 2003, 2. 17. “Education minister promises public transparency to calm nation’s fears,” Taipei Times, February 23, 2003, 2. The Taiwan Solidarity Union is a pro-independence party, more staunchly so than the DPP, and part of the DPP’s “Pan-Green Coalition.” 18. “Academics’ hatred behind criticism,” Taipei Times, July 30, 2003, 8. 19. Liu Kuang-ting, “Politicians, schools, get failing grade,” Taipei Times, July 25, 2003, 8. We were unable to determine if Professor Liu had been a signer of the restructuring declaration. 20. “Academics’ hatred behind criticism.”

106

Notes

22. “Survey finds most schoolteachers are stressed out,” Taipei Times, September 28, 2005, 2.

CHAPTER 4 1. We have been told that efforts are underway in Taiwan’s Ministry of Education to develop standardized-test items aimed at measuring student creativity. It was speculated that some of these may be of the multiple-choice type. 2. At the time of the interviews, the National Pingtung University of Education (NPUE) was known as the National Pingtung Teachers College, or NPTTC. The extra T in this acronym reflects the fact that Pingtung was in earlier times often written as “Ping-Tung.” 3. Though this, of course, produced a nonrandom and to some extent a convenience sample of schools, we saw no evidence of systematic bias and were reasonably confident that we were working with a reasonably representative sample of schools.

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Index

alternative access to higher education, 8, 37, 49–50 authority, x, 1–11, 13, 19, 21–22, 24–25, 27, 30, 32–33, 50, 51, 53, 60, 66, 72, 77, 78–79, 83, 84, 87–88, 91, 93–95, 96, 100 Barnard, Chester, 19, 78 Basic Education Act of 1999, 44 “The Boy in the Bubble,” 6–7 The Caine Mutiny, 21–22 Center for Research on Educational Excellence, 99 Center for Teaching and Technology, 99 Chen Shui-bian, President, 47, 49, 103 Chiang Kai-chek, President, 29 China, 15, 24, 25, 27; People’s Republic of (PRC/mainland), 41, 103n2–3; Republic of (ROC), 36, 41, 103n2–3, 104n5 China Post, 104–5n9 The Chinese Art of Leadership, 25–26 Chinese Civil War, 103n3 Ching Dynasty, 35 collectivism, x, 3, 24, 28 Confucianism/Confucius, x, 4, 5, 24, 27, 35, 36, 76

constructive math, 46, 48, 105n10. See also “rain forest math” contradiction (in Chinese philosophy), 25, 33 cram schools. See shadow education culture, ix, x, 22, 25, 36, 64, 65–68, 70, 75, 76, 79, 80, 83, 86, 89, 90, 100; “wall of,” 99–100 democracy, 15, 22, 25–26; in Taiwan, ix, 2, 9, 24, 36, 40, 41; in Taiwan schools, 3, 6, 9, 39, 41 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 3, 31, 41, 43, 47, 48, 103n3, 105n17 democratic spirit, 16 Dewey, John, 40 diversified plan. See alternative access to higher education dynamic subordinancy, 21, 27 “Education Reconstruction Declaration,” 47–48, 105n19 entrance exams. See high-stakes testing face (mein-zi), x, 3, 56, 72, 73, 77, 84, 95 “five nos,” 49, 105n21 “flat world” thesis, 6 functionalism, 7, 9, 28

113

114

Index

globalization, xi, 5–8, 9, 15, 33, 41–42, 90, 99–100 Graham, Patricia, 51 Han Chinese, 40–41, 103n2, 104n4 high-stakes testing, 3, 6, 28, 42, 94, 95, 99; entrance exams, 2, 3, 6, 8, 20, 26–27, 30, 36–37, 42, 44, 45, 88, 104n2 Huang Kuang-kuo, 47 institutionalism, 6, 7, 66, 75, 85, 97 institutional isomorphism, 7, 41 Kerlinger, Fred, 40 King Car Educational Foundation, 45, 105n21 Kuomintang (KMT), 3, 41, 47–48, 49, 103n3 languages: English, 5, 31, 44, 47, 31, 104–5n9; Hakka, 31, 44, 47; Mandarin, 24, 31, 40–41, 57, 60, 66, 104n4; Taiwanese, 31, 40–41, 86, 103n2, 104n4 leadership: administratively driven, 5, 14; as “art,” 60–61, 62, 93, 101; attempted, successful, and effective, 19–20, 22; authority and, 1–2, 6, 21–22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32, 60, 78, 88, 91, 93–94, 96; coercion and, 18–19, 25; collective, 66; constrained view of, 2, 5, 23; definitions and meanings, x, 1–2, 5, 9, 10–13, 15–29, 60; descriptive vs. normative understandings, 11–13, 17, 22; dispensability of, 52; distribution of, 1, 2, 7, 10, 12, 30, 53, 61, 74, 93, 100; educational goals and, 5, 12, 16–18, 20–21, 23; effectiveness and efficiency of, 19–20, 62, 78; as floating signifier, 11; formal rank and, 1, 2, 18, 21, 24, 27, 31, 63, 93; guan-li and ling-dao, 24–25, 60; instructional, 3, 7–8, 32, 72–75,

88, 90–91, 92; li-liang and, 25; management and, 5, 19, 24, 60–63, 68, 89, 92–93; moral/ethical, 2, 22, 31–33, 60–61, 71–72, 89, 93–94; multiple directions of, 1, 9, 18; as “myth,” 7–8, 12, 15; obedience and, 12, 19, 26; path-goal theory and, 31–33; politics and, 11, 16, 22, 31, 32, 39–40, 50–51, 53, 66, 68–71, 77–78, 82, 83, 96; principals and, 2–3, 5, 7, 10–11, 14, 22, 23, 28–29, 31–32, 50, 59–65, 66–68, 71–80, 83–86, 88–101; relationship orientation (consideration), 51, 78–80, 92; school reform and, 17, 31–32, 50–51, 53, 56, 75, 83–86, 87–92, 94–95; school size and, 80; as “slippery phenomenon,” 17; social turbulence and, 24, 42, 71, 100; student learning and, 16–17, 20–21; symbolic, 75–76, 88–89, 91–92; task orientation (initiating structure), 32, 51, 78–80, 92; teachers and, 10, 24, 63–65, 93; traditional views of, 2, 10, 13, 17, 21, 23, 25, 27–28, 29, 31–33, 53, 62, 68, 71, 73, 88–89, 92, 100; transactional, 79; transformational, 12, 20, 21, 22–23, 25, 28, 31, 66–67, 87–88, 89–90; vision and, 1–2, 5–6, 12, 13, 16–17, 22–23, 25, 29, 45, 51, 59–61, 66–68, 78, 89–90, 93, 101; “walking,” 62–63, 72–73; Western and Taiwanese contrasts, 17–29. See also “Chinese Art of Leadership” Lee, Yuan Tseh, 3 local school councils, 10, 32, 39, 44, 50, 85, 87 Lortie, Dan, 11, 56, 71, 96 loyal opposition, 24 Lunar New Year, 28 Mandarin Daily News, 47 mein-zi. See face methodology. See research design

Index

morale, 19, 20, 23, 28, 49–50, 69, 74, 78, 80, 90, 92, 96, 100 multiple entrance scheme. See alternative access to higher education myths, 7–8, 12, 15, 75, 90 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 45, 105n10 National Pingtung University of Education (NPUE), xiii, 1, 54, 105–6n2 National Taiwan University (NTU), 47, 48 Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum, 44–47, 51, 70, 74, 83 No Child Left Behind (NCLB), 2, 5, 7, 9, 87, 99, 100, 101 organizational coupling, 2, 85, 100 organizational learning, 8, 14, 21, 52, 96–97 parents, 2, 3–4, 8, 11, 21, 28, 30, 36–40, 42–46, 50, 51, 66, 68–71, 76, 87, 95, 96, 97–98, 100 People’s Republic of China. See China, People’s Republic of power, 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 18, 19, 25, 32–33, 61, 69, 71, 84 power distance, 3, 24, 28 principals: assignment of, 38–39, 50; communication, 51, 59–60, 62–64, 67, 70–73, 80–83, 86, 91, 98; dependence on teachers, 13, 61–62, 70–71, 83, 88–91, 95–96; duties of, x, 38–39; evaluation of, 38–39, 104n6; leading vs. managing, 3, 5, 19, 22–23, 24–25, 58, 60–63; as “masters of meaning,” 88–89; as moral and ethical leaders, 4, 22–23, 31–32, 39, 60–61, 71–72, 89, 93–94; outside influences on, 31, 68–71; personality and, 39, 60; professional training of, 32, 38–39, 59, 91; social status and, 11, 32, 38, 63, 64, 81,

115

84, 87, 93; symbol and ceremony use, 5, 19–20, 28–31, 51, 73, 75–78, 91, 97; teacher evaluation and, 74, 90–91; uncertainty and, 9, 11, 31, 39, 50–51, 74, 83, 92, 95–96, 100; vulnerability, 11, 33, 39, 50, 51, 53, 71, 83, 88; as “wise uncle,” 71. See also leadership; parents progressive education, 4, 6, 33, 51, 97 “rain forest math,” 45. See also constructive math remonstrance, 22, 27 Republic of China (ROC). See China, Republic of research design, 10, 52, 54–57 school reform, 6, 9–10, 12, 20, 40–41, 99–100; emotional roots of, 40; “restructuring,” 3, 33, 69. See also Taiwan school reform Selznick, Philip, 17, 52 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 69–70 shadow education, 8, 26, 37, 48, 51, 53, 100. See also cram schools social harmony, 25, 26, 61, 79 social justice, 43, 48 social mobility, 8, 24, 37 social relationships, importance of, 42–43, 79 social status/prestige, 3, 4, 5, 7, 24, 26, 36, 42–43, 46, 56, 64–65, 68, 71, 81, 93 South Korea, 7, 15, 101 students, 7, 8, 16, 17, 26, 28, 29–30, 33, 35–37, 38, 41–45, 47–48, 49, 51, 64–66, 67, 68, 70, 73, 74–75, 76, 95, 100; achievement, learning, test scores of, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16–17, 26–27, 29, 36–37, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46–48, 49–50, 65, 67, 71, 75, 79, 80, 95; college/graduate, 1–2, 13, 29–30, 39, 42, 90, 104n2; Confucian ideals and, 4–5, 35–36; extracurricular

116

Index

activities and, 26, 37; language learning and, 46–47, 74–75; as leaders, 19, 21; math learning and, 45–46, 48, 105n10; pressure on, 47, 49; reform and, 49–50, 75, 83, 85, 105n1; rich-poor gap and, 48–49, 76; Sun Yat-sen, President, 29, 36, 41. See also SARS ta (he/she), 57 Taipei Times, 46, 48 Taiwan: “Asian Tiger” status of, 41; Chinese revolution of 1949, 36, 103n2–3; Compulsory Education Law, 36, 39, 104n1; Constitution of 1947, 36; democracy and, ix, 2, 24, 25–26, 36, 40, 41; economy, 2, 7, 36, 41–43; Executive Yuan, 38, 44; independence movement and, 41, 103n3, 105n17; Japanese occupation and influence, 35–36; martial law, 2, 24, 40, 41; Ministry of Education (MOE), ix, 2, 6, 10, 31, 33, 37–38, 39, 42, 45, 46–50, 53, 59, 66, 84, 85, 87, 89, 105n1; political organization and provinces, 104n5; social characteristics of, 24, 83; Taiwanese ethnicity and, 40–41, 103n2, 104n4. See also China, Republic of (ROC) Taiwan school reform: concerns about and resistance to, 3–4, 8, 20–21, 42, 49–50, 62, 74, 82–83, 85–86, 100; functional and institutional impact, 20–21, 66, 75; global context, 6–8; impact and meaning, 8–10, 12; politics and, 44, 47–50; principals and, ix–xi, 3, 5, 10–11, 17; “reform spirit,” 101; roots of, 3, 44; Taiwan Committee/Council on Educational Reform, 3, 44; “Taiwanization,” 41, 103n2–3 Taiwan schools: administrators, 1, 27, 38, 44, 59, 61, 63, 64, 68, 71, 73, 81, 82; “bilateral,” 36; culture and climate of, 65–67; curriculum, 2, 27,

35, 44–47, 50, 70, 73, 74–75, 83, 85, 86, 87, 92, 95, 100, 104–5n9; democratic governance and, 3, 6, 9–10, 39, 41, 44, 45, 61, 66–67, 96; directors in, 27, 59, 61, 64, 71, 76, 77, 82, 93; empowerment of, 40, 45; junior college, 36, 104n2; memorization emphasis in, 29, 35, 44, 45–46, 105n10; physical design, 29–30, 73; political structure, 2, 6, 37–40; recess and, 30, 104n3; social reality in, 9, 29–30; “Taiwancentered values” and, 47; tracking and, 87, 100; types of, 36–37. See also alternative access to higher education; languages; high-stakes testing Taiwan Teachers Association, 82–83 teachers: attitudes toward reform, 49–50, 82–83; empowerment of, 2, 50, 73, 87; silence of, 64–65; surveys of, 47, 49; team teaching and, 45–46. See also leadership, teachers and Teachers Day, 28, 76, 91; protest on, 46 “Three Principles of the People,” 36 traditional education, ix, 10, 26, 28, 33, 43–45, 47, 50, 51, 80, 83, 95, 96, 100 Tu Cheng-sheng, 43 Twelve O’Clock High, 17 “unofficial underlife” in schools, 85, 97 virtue, 4, 25, 94 World War II, 17, 21, 36, 40, 41, 103n2–3 yin and yang, 26, 62 Yung Chaur-shin, 41–42 Zhao, Yong, 99 zone of acceptance/indifference, 19, 21, 28, 93, 95

About the Authors

Roger C. Shouse has been an educator for thirty-five years. He spent a year as a visiting professor at Taiwan’s National Pingtung University of Education and is currently an associate professor of education in the Pennsylvania State University College of Education. Kuan-Pei Lin earned her B.Ed. in educational psychology and counseling at the National Taiwan Normal University, her M.S. in counseling and counselor education at Indiana University, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership at the Pennsylvania State University. She has been an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Educational Administration at the National Pingtung University of Education in Taiwan since 2005.

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