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A global perspective
Richard Goslan
Ahead of the Chartered Teacher and National Education Conferences, keynote speaker Andy Hargreaves introduces his perspective on the strengths, issues and challenges facing the teaching profession both here and abroad.
From Finland to Tower Hamlets, Professor Andy Hargreaves has studied educational success stories around the world which have just as much relevance right here in Scotland. Professor Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, and an internationally renowned speaker on education issues.
And he's bringing the key messages from his latest publication, The Fourth Way, to Scotland, when he addresses both the GTCS National Chartered Teacher Conference and the National Education Conference in the spring.
Positive practice
"The Fourth Way portrays four clear pictures of what really positive practice might look like," said Professor Hargreaves, who co-wrote the book with Boston College colleague Dr Dennis Shirley.
He identified Finland as one of his examples of what he calls a "horizon of hope", after taking an OECD team there to report on how the country has turned around its education system.
"In Finland, education now draws in high-quality teachers within a more flexible curriculum, but which still has clear standards," he said.
"It has built a culture of trust, co-operation and responsibility, where strong schools help their weaker neighbours in the common interest of the community."
One of the things I've picked up from Scotland is the strong importance of professionalism for teachers...Scotland wants to teach children how to change the world
Educational standards
Professor Hargreaves has also studied the transformation of educational standards in London's Tower Hamlets. It was England's worst performing school district in 1997, but now scores at or above the national mean level on every indicator.
"You can't get two places as different as Finland and Tower Hamlets, but the principles are exactly the same," he said, and promises to explore those concepts in his presentation.
Professor Hargreaves also brings in examples of organisations that have performed above expectations in the fields of health, business and sport, to see how their principles can be applied in a positive way.
"We often transpose the wrong ideas or misunderstood ideas from business, but the best business practice actually reflects the best educational practice," he says.
The key to improvement
The key to improving our schools is also to avoid the pitfalls, which have distracted us in the past from our ultimate goals, which he categorises in three ways.
"The first is autocracy - the idea that government still knows best and dictates to everybody else what the goals and targets and focus should be.
"Second is the obsession with data, with spreadsheets, information, achievement gaps, and focusing on immediate targeted areas for improvement where very quick gains can be made.
"And the third distraction is what a group of teachers we researched in England called 'short term gimmicks' -things that teachers enjoy that may have a quick impact but don't really challenge the basis of what they're doing and the outcomes of what teaching and learning are."
Professionalism in Scotland
Professor Hargreaves is a regular visitor to Scotland, and takes encouragement from the most recent reports he has read from HMIe.
"One of the things I've picked up from Scotland is the strong importance of professionalism for teachers," he says.
"Testing is not as pervasive as it is south of the border. And education seems to have more humanistic goals - Scotland wants to teach children how to change the world.
"There are some disturbing positionings on PISA [the OECD's programme for international student assessment] but maybe that's because you're not teaching to the test in the same way that England is."
Ultimately, Professor Hargreaves hopes to galvanise the profession through The Fourth Way, by giving teachers more scope to use their talents within targets which they help to set themselves, in a combination of democracy and professionalism.
Now that has to be a message worth listening to.
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Related websites
For more information and to download videos and presentations from the National Education and Chartered Teacher Conferences, please visit www.gtcs.org.uk/events
37% OF VOTERS SAY
they do feel that fostering a sense of global citizenship in the classroom can have a long-term, positive effect on the wider world?
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would like to knowthe GTCS view on this scenario. I agree with Steve its a last option!
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