Recently, there is much buzzing about teacher competency and the impact on teaching, learning and school conditions. To maintain diversity and high quality education will require more support and appropriate professional development for teachers. Good teachers cannot be replaced with technology or charter schools. We must bring teachers forward by helping them to redefine themselves in an age of constant change. Teachers must be encouraged to develop a fearless and confident approach to teaching in new ways. I have never met one teacher that intentionally wanted to fail or see their students fail. So what is the answer? Every teacher and student has a right to learn. Lets help teachers become learners again using the tools, strategies and habits of mind that support success in the classroom. We must get teachers involved, hear their voices, let them share with leadership in decision-making about their future.
Teachers’ Role in a Changing World
ReplyDeleteDr. Joyce Pittman
"It is important to create an environment that will allow parents and educators to learn more about how our children get their information, how teachers can use new technologies to advance learning and how parents can stay better connected to their child's education,"----Her Excellency Sheikha Ahmed Al Mahmoud, SEC Secretary General and Minister of Education during her address at the symposium.
Worldview
In this commentary the discussion focuses on developing a conversation about the connection between the aim of education and the teacher’s role in a changing world. You are invited to offer your thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter debates about how to improving teaching and learning to reform education to achieve excellence.
Proposition: Teachers have crucial roles to play in preparing learners to face the future with confidence and to shape their lives with purpose and responsibility in a global environment.
The ideas put forward consider the situation of the world’s teachers. I have taken into consideration teacher voices, world reviews, recent trends and developments in education and educational policies affecting the status of teachers, the contexts in which they work and the pressures they face, and their education and training, and mainly in the USA and in the GCC regions. The region share a common goal, which is to rekindle education for social and economic improvement in systems that will experience a need to increase the teaching workforce by millions retraining or hiring millions of teachers in the next decade. The question that is being asked is what qualities will be required for the new age teacher? And how do we get there?
The role that I will define for teachers in a changing world also considers the emerging challenges for teachers and teaching posed by the introduction of the new information and communication technologies into education, home, government and community. Five key messages (KM) follow and are proceeded by more discussion.
Key message 1: The importance role of the teacher is to be an agent of change, promoting understanding and tolerance, has never been more obvious than today.
It is likely to become even more critical in progression from the twenty-first century into the next century.
Key message 2: The need for change, from narrow nationalism to universalism, from ethnic and cultural prejudice to tolerance, understanding and pluralism, from autocracy to democracy in its various manifestations, and from a technologically divided world where high technology is the privilege of the few to a technologically united world, all create a plethora of responsibilities on teachers.
Should education be driver of change in the world or the outcome of change in the world? Is the teachers’ role to prepare minds for the changing world or to prepare minds that can change the world? Teachers must engage in reflective practice asking the question, “What is my role as a teacher in a changing world?”
A well-known author once said, “We teach who we are”. Who were the teachers of yesterday? Who are they today? And who will they be tomorrow? How is the world changing? Change has come to the world.
Keep watching this post for more on this topic.