Explaining the Workload Problems
In the remainder of this paper we offer an analysis and explanation of why members of the taskforce undertook their work in this way. To anticipate, they developed structures and processes independent of any consideration of task efficiency or impact on their workload. Eventually, these processes became so inefficient that the group failed to make any substantive recommendation on how to assist Pacific students in the school. One obvious explanation for the limited achievement of the taskforce is the competing priorities, the timetable clashes and the constant interruptions that are an endemic feature of any large secondary school. The committee and co-curricular responsibilities of staff far exceeded the time they were able to allocate to such duties. Such an explanation is too simple, however, because the staff simultaneously suffered from and created these pressures. They unintentionally created these pressures by adding on new activities without reducing the number of those already existing, by developing parallel structures to solve similar problems, by relying on volunteers with high workloads to undertake key tasks and by uncritically accepting all suggestions for how Pacific students might be assisted. We offer three explanations for the teachers’ actions. First, their bounded non-systemic thinking left them largely unaware that they had created an uncoordinated proliferation of many different initiatives. Second, the norm of professional autonomy reduced their capacity to hold one another accountable for the quality and efficiency of the various initiatives that were in place or for the efficiency of the taskforce processes. Thirdly, the norm of supportive collegiality led staff to uncritically support the genuine desire of colleagues to help Pacific students by volunteering to participate in yet another initiative. The relationship between these explanations, the practices of the taskforce and their achievements is summarized in Figure 1.