It was clear that the school has high expectations of its teachers and its students.
The teachers however expressed that the school in its continuous journey to better its
educational program, generated an expectation for the teachers that has become massive
and overwhelming. This study confirmed that along with teacher ownership, any
initiative the administration implements must include teacher support with meaningful
professional development and feedback. Hargreaves and Fink (2005) agreed that a lack of
continuity is another self-destructive pattern in schools. If schools swing from one
educational initiative to another or school leadership is constantly changing, teacher
enthusiasm can be undermined. The administrator, although very knowledgeable about
21 st century students and their learning, focused on technology acquisition as the means
to implementing effective 21 st century learning and not cultivating rigorous 21 st century
classrooms. A genuine 21 st century learning program is a combination of meaningful
technology use, high-level thinking and literacy skills within a student-centered authentic
learning environment that promotes problem or project learning activities. This shift in
instructional context must be clearly understood by administration and articulated as the
mission of the school to the staff.