The training offer must integrate the diverse modes, be very flexible, respecting the personal and institutional situations, although linked to the needs of a reflection and creational practice and a committed institutional context. The proposals must concentrate on the plans for self-development and joint professional development, on the demands by schools and the specific needs of the teaching task. The methodology preferred is that which conjugates theory and practice, presents successful experiences and their grounds, provoking the initiative and creative spirit of each teacher.
For the innovative mode of ongoing training at schools, Villar Angulo (***) provides a set of strategies which we sum up as follows:
(***) At the initiative of Committee IV of the Diagnosis, the INCE commissioned L.M. Villar Angulo, a Professor of Didactics and School Organisation at the University of Seville a study titled Formación permanente del profesorado (Teacher ongoing training), which has been used by the Committee and will shortly be published.
- Describe the knowledge, beliefs and principles of the practice.
- Train from theories with explanatory-comprehensive potential.
- Compare ideas, experiences and values, characteristics of several social contexts.
- Reconstruct, criticising and emphasising the existing theories in the practice work and with the contexts.
- Present a written or recorded version of the practices evaluated.
Vaniscotte (****) presents other modes:
(****) La formación continua del profesorado (Ongoing teacher training), a Report also prepared at the initiative of Committee IV on Diagnosis, which the INCE commissioned to Francine Vaniscotte, a researcher at the Centre National pour la Recherche Pédagogique, Paris, France.
- Theoretical university orientation, long term on specialisation courses.
- School type orientation, taught by a recognised institution, adapted to the political changes, linked to public institutions, or which recognise the training given.
- Contractual orientation, given by the training institution, according to the type of training.
- Interactive-reflection training, linked to solving a problem and to professional practice.
- There is a trend for ongoing training to be provided outside the University, at specialised centres, very much linked to practice.
CONTENTS, INSTITUTIONS, TIMING
The contents cover the different fields of teaching and professional activity, and they must contribute to the teaching staff learning to be and to feel like such, to share their feelings and to find satisfaction in their task. Specifically, training should be provided for:
- the function of diagnosing prior student knowledge;
- individual attention to the students and educational integration of the students in a climate of equality;
- application of cross-curricular and interdisciplinary factors;
- student orientation to integrate and apply the contents learnt;
- utilization of innovating resources in teaching;
- personalisation of values according to the student groups and achievement of coherent behaviour by them;
- development of curiosity, creativity, spirit of dialogue and careful critical listening to arguments;
- achievement of habits and attitudes where will, the ability to make an effort and the spirit of personal and academic striving are positively valued.
As to the institutions, one must remember that ongoing training is a responsibility shared by the Educational Authorities, the University, schools and teachers.
The Educational Authorities are competent and responsible for the design of the training plans, after consulting and valuing the parties involved, and in removing the existing administrative and financial obstacles. Development of these plans shall be due to the actual Administration and to all public and private institutions and bodies recognised such capacity. On the other hand, the Administration itself is asked to ensure that the schools decide what training they need, and on what basis they require it, according to items lacking, expectations and projects, to articulate the necessary measures to put all this into practice.
The University carries out ongoing training through the ICEs and the respective Faculties, which act in parallel and sometimes divergent to the Teacher Training Schools. A thorough review of teacher training is required, especially of the teaching staff in middle education.
Teacher Training Schools, as a support to performance of teaching activity, have been positively valued by 28% of the teachers, and very negatively by 24%. The management team and board of teachers have been more positively valued than Teacher Training Schools in this sense.
The experts consider that it a greater problem in determining the times when training may be carried out. This matter was raised by the participants in the Debates. "One of the most important problems is not finding common times and spaces with the rest of the colleagues, as we have proposed ongoing, collaborative training and reflection on practice, but it must be taken from leisure time and this makes it very difficult for colleagues to accept". The moment must be "at least in working hours, because many do not dare to say in teaching hours".
THE TRAINERS
Someone who trains trainers must have a profile in which the most important feature is to cause self-confidence and autonomy in updating the potentials trained, and to deal with the matters raised combining practical and theoretical aspects.
The role of trainers is to create space for dialogue, reflection and personal, professional and institutional innovation, so the teachers may be fulfilled as human beings and committed professionals, while the teaching work and educational task, overall, is shared, improved and turned into yet another hope for social progress.
In general, teachers with consolidated, creative experience, knowledge of classroom dynamics, practical training in adolescent psychology, ease of communication, mastery of general techniques and teaching resources, as well as the specific ones of their subject, may be trainers. Moreover, for particular, specific aspects, support must be provided by prestigious experts from other fields (sociologists, company owners, researchers, etc.).
INCENTIVES TO IMPROVE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION AND UPDATING
To research to what extent the teaching profession is attractive, the first thing one must analyze is the social consideration of education in general nowadays, the image of the teaching staff, and that which the teaching staff has of itself. As, moreover, the aim is to reflect on the initiatives that encourage it to improve exercise of actual teaching, one would also have to see what incentives are available at present, concluding with a proposals for incentives that especially take into account the results obtained through the Questionnaire and the Debates. We shall begin with the first section.
SOCIAL CONSIDERATION AND IMAGE OF THE TEACHING STAFF
Diverse surveys performed recently by the Centre for Social Research (CIS) has shown that citizens value education highly. 87% of them show that study is fairly or very important in their life, and there is also a majority opinion that investment in education must be high. The image of Spanish education is not, however, very positive, as less than half of the citizens classify it is good or very good, although more than half consider that its quality has increased in recent years.
According to data collected in chapter 6 of this Report, 88% of parents consider the professional work by their children’s teachers fairly satisfactory or very satisfactory. This data coincides, in general terms, with that previously obtained in the evaluation of primary education performed by the INCE in 1995, according to which 80% of the parents had a fair or high appraisal of the professional work by their children’s teachers. In the same sense of good assessment of the teacher’s work, in chapter three of the Spain Report 1996 by the Encuentro Foundation, on family and school, parents classify several aspects of the educational activities by the teaching staff on a scale from 1 to 10, all valued above 7, with a variation between 8.2 for academic preparation and 7.4 for individual treatment.
However, as J.M. Esteve (*****) concludes in his analysis of the social image of teachers in the press, "when speaking of teachers and teaching, two strongly contradictory, equally stereotyped discourses overlap: in the first discourse (...) an ideal image is used, which I prefer to classify as idyllic, of the teacher and education. (...) To sum up, they are required to be perfect, or more specifically, to match the current social stereotype of all the qualities considered positive. The second discourse, which it easy to find in the daily media, reproduces a disastrous - equally stereotyped - image of the reality of teaching and the action of numerous teachers: statistics of academic failure, situations of physical violence in class, etc.".
(*****) J.M. ESTEVE. «Las expectivas de la sociedad y la imagen social de los profesores» (Society's expectations and the social image of teachers), Psicología Educativa, I (1995), p. 46.
The image the teacher has of himself is perhaps somewhere between both stereotypes: feeling that his teaching and social role is important, while considering himself undervalued by society. Thus, the Debates gave rise to such expressions as, for example, "appreciation of the teaching role is low in society", or rather, "the Administration does not value teachers enough". In any case, the deprofessionalised view some citizens have is regretted, specifically that some parents seem to have of their children’s teacher, considering in fact that what he does is "something everyone could do".
PROFESSIONAL INCENTIVES AT PRESENT
As may be seen in table 4, the measures the civil servant teaching staff members consider affect them to a fairly or to a great degree are as follows: introduction of six year periods in remunerations (60%), transfer selection (46%) and sabbatical leave (45%); on the contrary, what would affect them to a lesser extent is accreditation to act as principal (22%). However, there is a very significantly high percentage of teachers in private education who have answered that some of these administrative measures effect them "fairly" or "a lot"; thus, 30% in the case of the six year periods and 28% in the case of sabbatical leave. A possible explanation of these answer percentages lies in that these teachers have answered according to what they would like to happen rather than what really happens.