Discussion based on the NLS strategic document moderated by. Aðalheiður Steingrímsdóttir

Transcription

1 Discussion based on the NLS strategic document moderated by Aðalheiður Steingrímsdóttir Jón Torfi Jónasson, School of Education, University of Iceland 1

2 Nordiska Lärarorganisationers Samråd Reykjavík Nov 29 th 2016 Discussion based on the NLS strategic document moderated by Aðalheiður Steingrímsdóttir NUT Iceland Comments and issues related to the NLS document Jón Torfi Jónasson, School of Education, University of Iceland

3 Introduction 5 minutes 4

4 Preamble Preliminary remarks and questions - but not in the focus here Please note how global or international the education discourse is. When I talk about developments, the time frame is normally decades. We might consider how the organization of education of teachers compares to the organization of other professions, such as medical doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers, The fragmentation of the teaching profession The focus of much of the current discourse: it is about the system and method, not about education? 6

5 Issues that I will come to directly or indirectly The forces, outside the purview or control of teacher professionalism that impinge on education The changing definition of teacher education The gradual drift of initial teacher education upwards (and outwards?) within the hierarchy of Higher Education The spectrum of teacher educators and their professional background. Are there common or distinct identity elements? I want to bring up for discussion questions about the teachers, their role and development. Their career development and lifelong professional learning; new perspectives and challenges. What is the position of the teacher in the bigger picture of education? The question of teacher professional autonomy. Who are the actors in the larger picture of educational development? What is the inter-institutional (unions are institutions) discourse like, at the Nordic, the European or the international levels? In what sense are people talking together and about what? 7

6 Theme - future 25 minutes 9

7 Temat för året: Framtidens skola och lärare Issues that should be discussed in this context only brief elaboration 1) Are we talking about the school of the future or education for the future? I am principally talking about the latter. And not about the future that is already here! 2) To what extent is education primarily about the future or preparing for the future? Futures? And what does it mean to prepare for our futures? 3) When I emphasise the future, please note that I also think our roots and our present are absolutely crucial topics 4) Mapping the future onto education: What does it mean to be future oriented? How do we do it? My claim is that it is a non-existent or a misconceived or a misplaced discussion!? 5) Is there too much emphasis on learning, method and learning environment? Yes? 6) Are there different goals for the future from those we have now, do we need to think again? Is this discussion also missing? Relate this to the principal topics in 3 and 4. 7) What are the teachers expected to do in this direction? Can they direct the school towards the future? How on earth are they expected to cope when it comes to this task? Have they got the space and competence to do this? Is there perhaps a logistic impossibility? (Return to this when discussing the developmental role of teachers.) 11

8 Temat för året: Framtidens skola och lärare Thus here I would especially like to bring up the following: I. What are we talking about when talking about the future? II. What are the forces or influences that shape education and the educational discourse and thus the task of teachers, and that inter alia determine or constrain her autonomy? III. In this context, I refer to my recent paper (Oct 2016) Educational change, inertia and potential futures, European Journal of Futures Research, 4(1), 1-14 DOI /s z 12

9 Think of a teacher in 2016 who is in her forties, - born on the 1980s and moulded The timeline of culturally teacher education in the 1990s and education She will be teaching 10 year olds in Consider the age group years old teachers in The reference group Age of teachers Their adolescence, teens Medium age of reference group Years since initial training Age of pupils Age of pupils Age of pupils Age of pupils

10 The windows into the future The past The present Most frequent; five years Different time perspectives Sometimes: 0-10 years Rare; 5-35 years The future Neglect. There are some crucial aspects of the future, and the challenges, and the opportunities it presents, that make it extraordinary how a disciplined discussion about some of the future challenges (and affordances) is largely or totally missing from the current discourse. (There are important exceptions, such as the sustainability challenges.) 14

11 The forces, outside the purview or control of professionalism that impinge on education Policy The neo-liberal turn Accountability, evaluations National curricula Testing local international Datafication, big data small data Learnification and the way we talk Curricular developments? ICT, new modes new tasks 21 st century skills soft - generic skills New knowledge areas, new challenges Old and new emphasis, Dewey and Biesta Technological developments? New industries, jobs, roles, affordances This is now, - much is going to unfold later. How to cope with change? How do we deal with it within education? And how to sustain change in our daily tasks? Cultural norms? New generations, competencies, attitudes and values; multicultural education But also how to cope with the present? 15

12 The field of education as shaped by teacher education? and distinct subfields that impinge on education and thus on the daily task of the teacher Curriculum ITE Mentoring, CPD Policy, with increasing accountability emphasis? Cultural institutional norms Technological, developments outside education Global challenges, developments Interaction - effects How do these subfields interact? In particular, in what way do they interact with, or affect the professional autonomy of the teacher? How do they affect ITE or CPD? 16

13 But we only can meet these challenges if we free the education profession from powerful distractors that have diverted and dissipated the precious energy of its members. 1. An ideological imperative that emphasized market competition, testing, and standardization as levers to improve schools despite the absence of evidence to support these directions; 2. An imperial imperative that projected this ideology onto other schools and systems as the best way to move forward, even when those other systems were already succeeding by employing different ways to organize their work; 3. A prescriptive imperative that mandated the daily work of educators from higher levels of school bureaucracies; 4. An insular imperative that overloaded educators with so many policy demands that their ability to learn from other schools and systems has been seriously impeded; and 5. An instrumental imperative that defined students and teachers in relation to their economic contributions, with a concomitant disregard for values of compassion, solidarity, or service. 17

14 The forces, outside the purview or control of teacher professionalism that impinge on education Lesson: There is a lot happening constantly - that is directly or potentially undermining the professional autonomy of the teacher. Food for thought: How do we proactively ensure the professional autonomy of the teaching professions in ITE and CPD noting the strong external effects? 18

15 The notion of futures and education opens up three perspectives I. When is the future or rather futures - that we envisage? Now? In five years? In 25 years?.. II. What should we talk about when we talk about futures and education? What changes or challenges or affordances should we focus on? III. How is the discourse, but more importantly the system and the modus operandi being moulded by various outside forces? 19

16 Theme future(s) Discussion 20

17 Theme - ICT 20 minutes 21

18 ICT i skolan skapar stora förändringsbehov ICT and education -- four perspectives focussing on the question: What does ICT in education mean? a) New tools - important in themselves b) New content - new technology needs to replace the old c) New content emphasis on human, ethical and social aspects d) ICT and the reinforcements of old agendas the ICT competence myth e) The good-bye teacher myth 23

19 sjá Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact When will these factors become a part of our everyday life? A summary of greatly varying views from a host of experts. The median positions don't show the widely differing views. The table is only shown to emphasise that the technology will affect all aspects of our life 24

20 En ny verden, nye kampe om læreplaner også i forhold til ICT Komplet fornyelse af de eksisterende fag Helt nye fag De grundlæggende målsætninger for Fagene i de 19. og 20. uddannelse århundreder skal revurderes hele tiden Nye færdigheder -- vigtige kompetencer Nye værktøjer, nye kulturer 25

21 The Fourth Industrial Revolution : Impact on us as human and social beings Klaus Schwab: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. It is already changing our health and leading to a quantified self, and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation. The list is endless because it is bound only by our imagination. How will the technology impact our identity us as human beings? Will compassion be diminished? could diminish our human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation. Our relationship with our smartphones is a case in point. Constant connection may deprive us of one of life s most important assets: the time to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversation. 26

22 One example: School and issues of social communication New venues, overwhelming communication, virtual worlds, isolation, alienation, new ethical and social class issues. our institutions from schools and sports teams to the military and health care institutions would perform better if they were structured with an understanding of our social nature. Some day, we will look back and wonder how we ever had lives, work and schools that weren't guided by the principles day.com/blog/socialbrain-socialmind/201310/are-wewired-be-social 'We're losing the raw, human part of being with of the social brain". x each other' 27 scomplicated.pdf

23 ICT i skolan skapar stora förändringsbehov ICT and education -- four perspectives focussing on the question: What does ICT in education mean? a) New tools - important in themselves b) New content - new technology needs to replace the old c) New content emphasis on human, ethical and social aspects d) ICT and the reinforcements of old agendas the ICT competence myth e) The good-bye teacher myth - but how do we prepare our teachers? 28

24 Theme - ICT Discussion 29

25 Theme the teacher 25 minutes 30

26 Läraren skal vara i centrum för utvecklingen (Again) What are the teachers expected to do in this direction? Can they direct the school towards the future? How on earth are they expected to cope when it comes to this task? Have they got the space and competence to do this? Is there perhaps a logistic impossibility? (Return to this when discussing the developmental role of teachers.) (I believe this is the only way forward, despite my several reservations. I often tell teachers that I don t trust them fully to take on a leadership role, but still I trust nobody (and no body) better. The best way forward is a professional teaching force as autonomous as possible. But it is not an easy way. A. What does it mean to be in the centre? Centre of what: the current overriding developments? What or who are then outside of the centrum? B. Renewed discussion about the goals of education C. New tasks (education vs learnification), new environment (CPD, networking) D. New external pressures (testing, accountability) and lack of trust (time regimes, teacher evaluations), but also the other forces discussed previously. E. New cultures (student cultures, ICT, ) 32

27 Innovative efforts in education must take note of the following: 1. Top down efforts (inadvertently?) threaten the professional identity and dampen or eradicate the initiative of teachers. At least as it tends to be applied concomitant with stringent testing regimes and accountability frameworks. 2. Bottom-up processes expecting the initiative of individual teachers or individual schools, will not work in the long run, because they are too demanding in terms of tradition, institutional constraints, time, competence, knowledge and effort. 3. Teachers, schools, municipalities and outside stakeholders must appreciate the importance of collaborative networks in order to engineer viable, sustainable projects. 4. The active school system must foster (enculture) its relationship to several outside actors in order to retain contact with the world, obtain inspiration, motivation, and to open up new avenues. Also in order to get active support. The initiative or agency of the teachers must simultaneously be ensured. 5. Any project of collaboration must respect the principal aims of the school, and its central role, and address all the various, ideological and pragmatic factors that are known to hinder or impede initiation or sustainability of innovative work. 6. Attempts to innovate education in schools must acknowledge both the priority and importance of innovation in curricular substance, which for various reasons should be at the core of educational innovation. 7. A dynamic, intense, open discussion about the aims of education and the preconditions for a truly dynamic development of the school system must be kept well alive, within the profession and outside it. It is no less important than subject or pedagogical knowledge. 33

28 Unga och nya lärare med i utvecklingen av yrket The time frame and ingredients of 1) ITE, 2) Mentoring and 3) CPD, and the 4) The relationship between teachers and principals (school heads) in this context and 5) The role of the teacher as the initiator also in this context 35

29 The changing definition of teacher education or is it? ITE Mentoring Continuous professional development Teacher education is an ongoing lifelong process It covers ITE, mentoring and continuous professional development - or does it? 36

30 The gradual drift of initial teacher education upwards (and outwards?) within the hierarchy of Higher Education Lesson: Initial teacher education is gradually drifting into a different world, increasingly inhabited by a) Academics, many with different background than before and with different incentives b) Institutional frameworks that are not favourable to TE and the development of teaching c) Research which is supposed to determine the routes to take. (Data has different roots, but a similar justification) Food for thought: How do these changes affect the relationship of academia to schools and education? 37

31 Thus when considering the career development of teachers and lifelong professional development, we may be well served to consider: What does teacher education (all of it!) in fact look like? Where does it take place? What kind of system is there? Where does the funding come from? Who are in control? What is the role of academia? What kind of changes are allowed? 38

32 The career development of teachers and lifelong professional development What does teacher education look like? Where does it take place? What kind of system is there? Where does the funding come from? Who are in control? What is the role of academia? What kind of changes are allowed? Lesson: It is increasingly being accepted that CPD is an imperative for education perhaps for its survival as the essential social force it has been for a long time. But there is rarely a system, rarely consistent funding, unclear who are in control and academia as a corpus - is not particularly interested, nor involved. The other main actors are quite content outside any system, understandably, as this gives them the say they want to have on CPD. Food for thought: Is this really a satisfactory state of affairs for the sustained professional development of education? Is this good use of academics who use hundreds (or thousands) of man years in each country researching, travelling between conferences, being at the frontier -- and having only an incidental role to play during the 30+ years of the professional life of many teachers? Why is everybody NLS möde i Reykjavík happy 29. Nov with 2016 this? 39

33 The spectrum of teachers and their professional background. Are there common or distinct identity elements? Statement: Teachers are a fragmented perhaps a very disjointed group where the common visionary element may be somewhat superficial. Food for thought: How does this affect the professional development of the teachers? To what extent will they all pull in a coordinated direction? How does this affect the agenda or vision and identity of the teacher as a professional? Is this a problem, or an issue? 40

34 Theme the teacher Discussion 41

35 Theme the unions action? 20 minutes 42

36 The complex field of education. The complex world of teachers I. Who are the actors within the field of education? Who should be the actors? Why? a) The students; their parents b) The schools, teachers, principals, counsellors, c) The teacher educators the universities d) The teacher unions e) The municipalities, f) School boards, governments g) Industry, outside bodies, local and global associations II. How should the actors interact, consult? About what? How much attention should they pay to each other? What role should each play? III. Where is the Nordic model of conversation, dialogue, multilogue? IV. I feel there is something missing, in this respect. 43

37 The activities initiated by the ATA the Alberta Teacher Association a) Unified union seems to be a good company to be with b) Union activities c) Their research division! They know exactly what is happening. d) Their publications, e.g. Renewing Alberta's Promise: A Great School for All The ulead leadership conference Very active consultation with internal and outside expertise such as Andy Hargreaves, Pasi Sahlberg, Simon Breakspear, Carol Campbell, Sam Abrams (note his new book), Young Zhao, but a host of others; much inspired and masterminded by J.C Couture at the ATA. Close connection to Norwegian and Finnish schools, but also BC and Ontario. They are also looking closely at what is being done in Singapore and New Zealand and are working with Australian scholars as with those in Alberta. 44

38 Inledning Afterthoughts Verksamhetsåret 2016 kommer att fokusera på den globala, speciellt den europeiska finanskrisens kraftiga inverkan på den offentliga sektorns finansiella ramar, som därmed påverkar utbildningens kvalitet och resurser. Finans- och flyktingkrisen inverkar också på de nordiska länderna och deras beslut i både arbetsmarknads- och utbildningspolitiska frågor. I kölvattnet av kriserna kommer också lärarna att få tampas med misstillit och en allt större arbetsbelastning. Detta påverkar lärare i tjänst men också yrkets status och därmed söktrycket till lärarutbildningen. Kan vi som representanter för de nordiska lärarna öka tilliten till läraryrket kommer intresset för yrket att öka och på sikt också utbildningens kvalitet. Detta kan lärarna inte göra ensamma utan vi behöver samhällets stöd. I krassa kristider är det lärarnas och deras organisationers uppgift att plädera för utbildning och påminna om utbildningens betydelse för likvärdighet och välfärd i samhället. Speciellt för små nationer som de nordiska är utbildningen kanske den viktigaste hörnstenen för ökad likvärdighet och konkurrenskraft och därmed för välfärdsbygget enligt nordisk modell. Utbildningen får aldrig ses som en kostnad utan som en investering i en bättre framtid. 1. Is the crisis the main problem? 2. How does one enhance status? 45

39 Inledning Afterthoughts Nordiska Lärarorganisationers Samråd, NLS utgår i sin verksamhet från bestämmelserna i sina stadgar, linjedragningarna i sin strategi- och strukturplan samt styrelsebeslut. De slår fast att lärarorganisationerna i Norden har stor nytta av ett strukturerat och aktivt erfarenhetsutbyte kring gemensamt beslutade teman, strategier och idéer inom aktuella verksamhetssektorer. Målet är en kvalitativt högtstående facklig- och utbildningspolitisk samverkan, som främjar, bevakar och tillvaratar lärarnas intressen särskilt inom Norden, men också på europeisk och global nivå. Målet är att främja en likvärdig utbildning av hög kvalitet. NLS står som aktör och koordinator för all verksamhet inom ramen för samrådet. Verksamhetsåret kommer att struktureras enligt de i NLS vedertagna principerna att spegla de aktuella frågorna utifrån utvecklingen och förhållandena i värdlandet och på det internationella planet. 3. Where does the current educational fundamental discussion take place? Does it? 4. Who has the strength, the motivation, the capacity to take it up? 5. How does the notion of Läraren skal vara i centrum för utvecklingen map onto the unions? 6. Networking and the combined strength within NLS. 46

40 NLS ska: - How serious is the suggestion to pull resources on each of these? What does it take to make a difference on each count? The teacher unions are perhaps best placed to do this while respecting the autonomy of the teachers but do they realize what a mammoth task this is? 1. inspirera och uppmuntra de nordiska lärarna till utveckling av sin lärarroll och professionalitet 2. följa upp vad som händer inom utbildningen och arbetsmarknaden i Norden genom att i styrelsen och sektorerna utbyta erfarenheter och verksamhetsstrategier och genom att inbjuda relevanta, sakkunniga politiker, forskare och arbetsmarknadsrepresentanter till diskussion kring årets tema 3. skapa diskussion och annat erfarenhetsutbyte om ovan nämnda tema och tyngdpunkter 4. byta idéer och växla erfarenheter kring temat framtidens skola 5. informera sina medlemsförbund om initiativ kring årets tema 6. följa med och informera om den ekonomiska och utbildningspolitiska utvecklingen i Norden 7. genom sitt arbete öka lärarnas status i Norden 47

41 NLS ska: - How serious is the suggestion to pull resources on each of these? What does it take to make a difference on each count? The teacher unions are perhaps best placed to do this while respecting the autonomy of the teachers but do they realize what a mammoth task this is? 1. inspirera och uppmuntra de nordiska lärarna till utveckling av sin lärarroll och professionalitet 2. följa upp vad som händer inom utbildningen och arbetsmarknaden i Norden genom att i styrelsen och sektorerna utbyta erfarenheter och verksamhetsstrategier och genom att inbjuda relevanta, sakkunniga politiker, forskare och arbetsmarknadsrepresentanter till diskussion kring årets tema 3. skapa diskussion och annat erfarenhetsutbyte om ovan nämnda tema och tyngdpunkter 4. byta idéer och växla erfarenheter kring temat framtidens skola 5. informera sina medlemsförbund om initiativ kring årets tema 6. följa med och informera om den ekonomiska och utbildningspolitiska utvecklingen i Norden 7. genom sitt arbete öka lärarnas status NLS i Norden möde i Reykjavík 29. Nov Which is the most important action? 2. How is it done? 3. Is there perhaps something important missing in addition to these seven challenges to NLS and the national bodies? 4. Or put another way: what must be done and who else is also going to do it? 48

42 Once again over to Aðalheiður, thanks 49

43 Theme the unions action? Discussion 50