Interessante bedenkingen van 2 Finse leraars over tegenvallende PISA-score

1. Vooral beleidsmensen  (o.m. Pasi Sahlberg) hebben jarenlang uitgepakt met de goede PISA-score, en zijn nu bij een tegenvallende score geneigd om PISA sterk te relativeren.

Reactie van Toby:
"Jere hits the nail on the head here. It may well be that PISA scores are a limited marker of achievement of an educational system BUT Finland has been promoting its education system hard for numerous years on the basis of doing well in those very tests. This of course isn't something that teachers in classrooms are doing; but at the state administration level, much has been made of Finland's PISA success in promoting the country. I remember friends working for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs saying there was a specific office within the ministry for arranging visits from foreigners who wanted to study the Finnish education system. Hence on a reputational level at least, there something of a 'live by the sword, die by the sword' problem in these results.

2. Jere: problemen met leerkrachten wiskunde voor de lagere cyclus s.o.

Vooraf: de hoge PISA-score van de Finse 15-jarigen werd in het verleden  door de Finse beleidsmakers en Sahlberg vooral ook toegeschreven aan de universitaire opleiding van de leraars lager onderwijs en lagere cyclus s.o. Ook Vlaamse beleidsmakers, Dirk Van Damme (OESO), universitaire lerarenopleiders (Martin Valcke en co), koepelmensen, kranten, Klasse ... namen dit refreintje graag over en suggereerden dat onze leraars - en vooral ook de regenten- veel zwakker presteerden. 

Een Finse leerkracht wiskunde wijst er op dat er vooreerst voor de lagere cyclus al te weinig leraars wiskunde voorhanden zijn. Leerkrachten die na de 4 jaar wiskunde kiezen voor de lerarenopleiding doen dit meestal  ook maar omdat ze de verdere wiskunde niet aankunnen. Andere waarnemers wijzen er op dat de universitaire opleiding niet afgestemd is op lesgeven in de lagere cyclus: 4 jaar 'hogere' wiskunde waarmee ze weinig kunnen aanvangen in de lagere cyclus en slechts 1 jaar lerarenopleiding. Te weinig praktijk ook en te veel pedagogische hypes.  
 
Leraar Jere drukt het zo uit:

*We can't have it both ways. We can't say "look how great we are doing" when we are at the top in PISA and then say "PISA really don't matter" when we fall from the top’"While I agree that standardized tests usually measure only how well students do on standardized tests and little else, we need to own up to the fact that the results have dropped and we have lost some bragging rights. It was a great opportunity to say "even if we don't play by your rules we still win everyone in their own game".

*Also, when it comes to teaching math in Finland, there are real issues. While there's lots of applicants for other teacher positions and training, we don't have enough applicants to apply for study to be a math teacher. This is because you have to go through the university (4 years of high-end theoretical math + 1 year of teacher studies) to be a teacher. Most of people who get selected to study pure math at the uni are people who wanted to study to be a doctor but didn't get in. So they try to apply each year and if they still haven't gotten in, they might change and apply for the 1 year teacher training.

This is why we have some really theoretical and maybe not so social, I'm sorry to say based on my own experience, math teacher coming out of the university and teacher 13+ year olds basic math concepts. There are of course great exceptions and I know some EXCELLENT math teachers but I think generally this is starting to show now."