Pasi Sahlberg doorprikt mythe over excellente Finse
leerkrachte n waarvoor hij mede
verantwoordelijk is
Michael Shaw 17th May
2015 at 17:40 TES
Samenvattende citaten: Professor Pasi Sahlberg told the Oppi
education festival in New York this weekend that neither Finland nor Singapore
take an academically elitist approach to selecting teachers, recognising that
under-performers at school could be the best later at explaining ideas to
pupils. Mythe over 'excellente' (superintelligente) leerkrachten in Finland
. Pasi Salbberg said he feared that young people
with the right skills would be put off going into teaching if it were only for
the academic elite. "That's why this myth, that we only select the best
and the brightest, is a dangerous one. It's changing the whole idea of what it
is to be a teacher."
"That's
why this myth, that we only select the best and the brightest, is a dangerous
one. It's changing the whole idea of what it is to be a teacher."
The idea that top-performing school systems only select the
most academically successful to become teachers is a "dangerous
myth", a Finnish education academic has warned.
Professor Pasi Sahlberg told the Oppi education festival in
New York this weekend that neither Finland nor Singapore take an academically
elitist approach to selecting teachers, recognising that under-performers at
school could be the best later at explaining ideas to pupils.
England has been among countries that have attempted to
emulate high-performing nations in recent years by restricting entry to the
profession to those with better degrees.
The Harvard education academic acknowledged that fewer than 10
per cent of applicants for teacher training places in Finland were successful.
But he said that, of the 120 students accepted by the
University of Helsinki for teacher training, only a quarter came from those in
the top 20 per cent for academic results. Another quarter were in the bottom
half.
"Why does the university want to have someone who
hasn't got the highest marks in reading, maths and science when there are so
many applicants they could easily fill the 120 seats with the best kids there?
"It's because in my country - and also in Singapore,
and, as far as I know, in many other places where they are doing well with the
teaching profession - the teaching profession is for everybody. It's a
completely different idea to saying teaching is only for the best and the
brightest who had the highest test scores."
The students with the lower academic results were "the
young people who have the heart and mind to pick up teaching but they are not
necessarily good students in a school because they've often had something else
to do".
"Typically many of those students are the ones that
have been doing youth work, sports and arts or community service or something
like that and that's why they didn't go to school properly. But they can
explain - and that's what makes them good teachers."
Professor Sahlberg said teacher education in Singapore took
the same approach, although he had yet to obtain comparative data.
He said he feared that young people with the right skills
would be put off going into teaching if it were only for the academic elite.
"That's why this myth, that we only select the best and
the brightest, is a dangerous one. It's changing the whole idea of what it is
to be a teacher."
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