Illuminating View From One Roving Guru
What are the “Big Ideas” for BC’s Personalized Education Plan? I haven’t seen them articulated nor have I yet to see the public invited to provide their views and input. Sure, there is a lot of activity and gurus popping in and out but if public education is to be modernized, shouldn’t BC public and parents generally be asked?
When the last go-round on this topic of environmental education was discussed in the Tyee (January) I wrote a mini-essay called “Indigenizing The Curriculum?”. I mentioned that in Australia three over-arching themes were to be integrated into the New Curriculum, but with a new government now in place, there is a comprehensive
Review now going on. Correspondingly, there is also a separate Review of Teacher Training.
Those three Australian overarching themes were indigenous history/culture, global engagement and sustainability. Other 21st Century Learning “transformations” projects being discussed in other Western nations (US, NZ, UK, Cdn) include “social justice” as a cross-curricular theme.
Now, these themes would be fine if they met with general agreement in local communities and not something devised by educators or vested lobbies alone or in secret.
I’m sure most people involved in education conversations these days are familiar with the Finnish “miracle” and with Pasi Sahlberg as the guru instrumental in producing literature and presentations on their successful approaches. I know he is the darling of teacher unions who often sponsor his trips because he strongly supports the funding, and more funding, mantra.
But, we learn an important policy principle that Pasi endorses — a principle which is widely endorsed in public policy matters — and one which might not sit well with activist teachers. By the way, this was a huge benefit I gained from reading materials relating to the $16,000 (now $19,075) contract obtained by a teenager to travel to Finland to study teacher training. This insight is completely unrelated to this case.
In the materials it was seen that another researcher was in Finland at the same time, a Fulbright Project, and a lengthy blog report was prepared. Here in quotes are the Pasi comments I find applicable to us in BC or anywhere else when public education policies pertain:
“Janet English “I said to Pasi, "This disconnect (between policy and practice) is why I keep saying, 'Why aren’t the teachers at the decision-making table?' because if we don't have the teacher voice at the policy-making table we'll continue having the same
problems we’re having now!"
He acknowledged my words, looked straight at me and replied, "There is a saying … that 'war is too important to be decided by the military people' and it's the same with education. I think education is too important to be decided by teachers – and this has nothing to do with undervaluing teachers' expertise – but their view is very different to
education. I think teachers should have a say to these issues – exactly what you said – how to decide the teaching, how you set the standards for your own kids, how you organize your school work – this should be left to the teachers. I think too often we intervene in the wrong areas of education – we try to control what each and every teacher is doing in the classroom. We should leave those things to the professionals. But the broad issues, the principles of education should be based on a more
balanced view and that's why I would only have one practitioner in the room and
divide this voice more equally to those who are the key stakeholders,
(including) parents and the community members – not necessarily just those
working or teaching in the school."
I [English] replied, "I've seen that community-driven, cooperative approach in Finland and it works. I agree with you."
From interview with Pasi http://eltorofulbright.blogspot.ca/2013/05/my-interview-with-pasi-sahlberg.html
[in Tyee http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/05/10/Enviro-Ed-Not-Taught/ May 10, 2014]