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South Africa lags significantly in mathematics achievement on international benchmarking tests, which has led to several interventions aimed at improving mathematics attainment in the country. Drawing on the theoretical work of Vygotsky, Leontiev and Engeström, this chapter reports on one such initiative that implemented computer technology into disadvantaged schools in the apple growing district of the Western Cape. Contrary to expectations, the object of the lesson became control over students' actions, rather than a mathematical object aimed at developing students' understanding of the subject. The teacher adopted what I call a defensive position in relation to the novel technology, tightening pace and sequencing in these lessons. I draw on Ratnam's work into ‘excessive entitlement’ to illustrate that this teacher's defensive posture regarding technology emanates from a need to exert complete power over the content taught in a lesson and leads her to reject the novel technology in favour of traditional methods. While interviews with the teacher in this study indicated that she felt she promoted student dialogue and more symmetrical power relations in her classes through group work, this is not seen in the data. This is explained in relation to teachers' excessive entitlement to ‘owning’ the knowledge in their classrooms through maintaining control over the rules of the system. I pull on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to illuminate how the activity of teaching in a classroom affords and constrains what the teacher is able to achieve, often making them feel excessively entitled to push back reform.

This introductory chapter begins by outlining the background of this book: how the concept of excessive teacher entitlement took shape and was progressively enriched through my collaborative work with Cheryl J. Craig. Our ongoing informal dialogues gave rise to an invisible college where we co-created new meanings to deepen the understanding of professional inertia. We saw professional inertia as a manifestation of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement constantly adrift in a yin and yang relationship with their best-loved self. This insight came from challenging the narrow mainstream view of the notion of excessive entitlement as a purely volitional act of autonomous individuals which leads to blaming and pathologizing teachers/faculty. Instead, a Vygotskian cultural-historical perspective is proposed. This perspective facilitates a more complex historicized view of the phenomenon by directing attention to the historically and culturally mediated nature of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement and the means to alleviate it. The healing touch to excessive teacher/faculty entitlement repeatedly surfaces as humanizing pedagogy. This involves helping teachers/faculty develop empowered entitlement and work towards realizing their dreams, their best-loved self. Finally, this introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the 15 chapters that follow. They explore the notion of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement in diverse sociocultural contexts and examine promising approaches to address this problem from different theoretical and methodological angles. You are invited to join us in this rich journey of inquiry and transformation.