What kind of teacher do we need today?

New times put forward new challenges for educators. Teachers say that children come to school with the moulded sense of their own dignity, they are often overly emotional and sensitive and burst with desire to try their hand at something new. Kids are also a lot better at learning the new information technologies. That is why they are called the net-educated generation. Their teachers have to take all this into account and consequently, they have to change themselves alongside with changing the methods of teaching. This is actually what the Ministry for Education and Science of Ukraine is currently preoccupied with. In late August, at the meeting of the Ministry Board dedicated to the results of the development of comprehensive, secondary, pre-school and out-of-school education, and the tasks for academic year 2009-10, Minister Ivan Vakarchuk said that this year Ukraine is going to launch a new system of teacher training. First, specialists in math, chemistry, history and other disciplines will be trained in colleges or universities. Then, on getting a degree, graduates can be recommended by their university to continue their studies at a teacher training school, and only after that they can work as teachers. “This is just the model we are going to suggest to try at several universities. We are well aware of the fact that the results of such innovations will not be visible until eight to ten years later. But it is high time to start on the changes”, the Minister believes.

The Day has interviewed a couple of experts to find out their opinions of the new system of teacher training.

COMMENTARY

Ivan VAKARCHUK, Ukraine’s Minister for Education and Science:

“In Ukraine there is a well-developed network of teacher training schools of higher education: 49 universities, two academies and four institutes, as well as forty-seven junior colleges and nine technical schools. Meanwhile, a great many graduates can’t find a job in their field. One of the reasons for this is an imperfect system of selection and vocational training, students’ low motivation in the choice of their future occupation, as well as the low percentage of applicants who enroll with a special-purpose assignment. In order to solve these problems, the Ministry of Education and Science is now developing a plan on the reform of the teacher training and further teacher education for the years 2009-12. According to it, the Ministry and administrations of teacher training institutions are supposed, prior to 1st December, to arrange for a set of steps aimed at the improvement of application rules and conditions for students’ practical training.

“The Ministry also intends to develop a Regulation for teaching staff certification with a set of criteria to assess the quality of the work of school principals, faculty, instructors of study groups, hobby groups and clubs. It is necessary to change the current practice of all teacher training universities, especially what concerns organization of studies and practical training. It might prove appropriate to assign the departments, dealing with teaching methods, directly to schools. The prospective teachers and their professors will be able to have wider contacts with students at schools, work with academic programs and school textbooks. They can learn, in particular, how to fill out class registers and other related documents. Each teacher working in a specialized educational institution has to undergo a comprehensive training in his subject. Prior to 1st December, regional data banks will be created, which will enable the Ministry to know each school’s needs in what concerns the faculty vacancies. The banks will comprise information on each school’s open vacancies, as well as the data on new graduates.”

Myroslav POPOVYCH, Director, Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences:

“Teachers are supposed to do the same thing they were supposed to do yesterday, or thirty, or one hundred years ago: love children. The signs of new times, that have recently sprung to attention, are that kids have become more erudite. They are also quite advanced in what concerns information technology, which gives them an advantage before the older generation. Secondly, kids experience a certain inequality in material terms: for instance, they tend to show off just because they’ve got a new cell, and this certainly is a problem. Though there exists a more serious challenge: teaching the teachers to love children and not get annoyed by their job at the same time.

“What concerns school curricula – they have to be reorganized in such a way as to make them relevant to the modern stage of science development. They also have to be coherent, that is, physics, chemistry, biology and math should be taught in such a way as to make these subjects closely connected to each other. We have to simplify the structure of the curriculum in order to make it a reflection of the relationship between man and nature, instead of just reflecting the history of science. Today I can’t see this unity in the school curriculum for natural history, for example. It is still a concoction of physics, chemistry and other disciplines, whereas it should be an integrated theory. This is what concerns not only teacher training. The whole system of teaching has to be given a thorough reconsideration. The American way of dealing with this problem virtually gave me a shock. If the level of teaching in private schools is more or less adequately high, state-owned schools provide a very low level of knowledge. At least this was what I saw several years ago, when I was in the U.S. The curriculum in natural history provides the most elementary information about the flora and fauna, that is, it is aimed at the most basic background knowledge. Students should instead get an insight into the comprehensive structure of the world, and this has to be done in a simple and clear way. We do not have the books of this sort, that is why we should start with creating good, understandable textbooks and curricula. For this, popular science literature is absolutely necessary. Today you will find nothing on the general relativity theory, the theory of elementary particles, etc. If there existed a state program for support of popular science literature, it would be a step towards training the type of teachers, familiar with the gains of modern science, teachers, who would be able to pass this knowledge on to their students.

“Another problem for the school, especially in big cities, is to find a young teacher. But a lot of problems are caused not so much by our school system, or the Ministry for Education, as by our society on the whole. I mean the prestige of this profession, as teachers, together with doctors, are considered to be the basis of an intellectual society.

“This job will never become prestigious, not with thirty or forty students in one classroom. The best option is to have twenty students on a class. Better still is to have ten, as they have done in Finland. We can’t make a teacher’s job prestigious again unless we do that.”

Maria LESHCHENKO, Head of Department of Pedagogy, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University:

“The question of teachers’ further education is of utter importance now. The Ministry for Education and Science is making a correct emphasis on the importance of the first, basic education in a certain subject (chemistry, biology or history) prior to getting a degree in pedagogy. This is a common practice in many countries. In Ukraine, it can provide invaluable opportunities for prospective teachers on condition that it is a special training course involving one or two years of profound course in pedagogy and psychology.

“International research proves that the children of today are different: they have a sense of their own dignity, their own ‘ego’, they are very creative and innovative even in traditional or everyday activities; they are characterized by a higher degree of empathy and emotional sensitivity. The mankind is undergoing a slow qualitative change, so the teacher in a modern classroom (as well as a university lecturer) has to take this into account, too. There is no way for him to work after the authoritarian patterns of communication and pedagogical interaction. The present-day children and young people will not accept rigid disciplinary rules. They refute role relationships. When a schoolkid or a college student hears, ‘I’m a teacher, I’m a professor’, it means that they have to respect this person’s professional and social status. But students will respect (and cooperate with) only those individuals who can enrich their personal and professional experience in practice. If we want to encourage young people to become teachers, we have to raise the teacher to the status of civil servant, because the teacher actually works for the state and for the entire human civilization.

“The present-day teacher has to be tolerant in order to accept various manifestations of a child’s nature. They also have to be authentic, behave in a natural way and be able to create a reality, in which the students might feel comfortable and interested, so that a student can learn and blossom both as a personality and a professional.

“With a correct school reform we can make a considerable progress. It is important that, while gradually giving up traditional approaches, we aren’t left without any good substitute. Classical universities provide profound training for specialists in various fields. But a teacher-to-be will get a lot more from training sessions and classes in teaching skills. It very often happens that a well-trained specialist in a certain discipline does not have the command of teaching methods and techniques which would enable him to pass his knowledge on to his students. It is in the course of competent training that a person acquires all those ‘teacher’ features.

“A great many of university graduates take up postgraduate courses or start working in research institutes, later becoming university teachers. But one cannot be a competent scholar without being a competent teacher. Anyone who conscientiously chooses a teaching career, can be trained in pedagogical skills. Young teachers are not conservative, their thinking is not yet hardened by years of routine, and they are more capable of a live dialog with students. But they have grown up under such complicated socio-economic conditions that very few of them are capable of sacrifice. Teaching involves a lot of out-of-class activities, it is a responsible spiritual mission. In order to find out if the students are capable of this, some teacher training universities practice student interviews with psychologists or experienced educators. Such interviews seem quite appropriate, but an individual should have a right to free choice. Those young people, who have both abilities and adequate education, should be given an opportunity to study free of charge. The others, who would like to gain this knowledge just for themselves, might pay for their tuition. There is no crime in it, this is just the manifestation of a democratic system of education.

Mykhailo BIHUN, Principal, Public School No. 4, Zhmerynka:

“I remember my own experience as a new graduate of the Chernivtsi University, when I first came to teach a class and really lacked practical teaching skills. Sure enough, we had had a course in pedagogy and practical teaching sessions, but it is only gradually that you get adapted and used to a certain kind of job.

“Nowadays, institutions of higher education work along their own curricula which lack a practical bias: they should include more seminars, training sessions, courses in psychology, etc. Now the practical section on the curriculum takes up a lot less time than it did ten or fifteen years ago. It comprises about two or three weeks, while in my time students used to work at school up to six months, and in summer many of them worked at children summer camps, so that students had an opportunity to learn to communicate with kids and develop a rapport with them.

“This year we have taken on two new teachers. I know that there are a lot of graduates with university degrees in pedagogy who are anxious to get a job, but do they really want to work at school? And even if they do get a vacancy, there is another problem, lack of experience. You show the new teacher the ropes, and for some it takes a year to become skilled in teaching, for others it takes longer, it’s very individual. But there are really good professionals who follow their calling and come to teach. You have to talk to this young person to find out if they are pursuing their lifelong dream, or if it was a last-minute decision. On the other hand, the system of three-year obligatory working term for tuition-free students isn’t working properly now. This could have become the time for a new graduate to realize if they are capable of working with children. If not, they should give up teaching in order not to waste themselves and their students. Studying is one thing, while practical work is something quite different. The state should raise teachers’ salaries and pay extras to encourage the young to take up teaching professionally, as well as provide housing, at least for the first couple of years, and maybe, help arrange their leisure, that is, ensure decent living conditions.”