THERE has been increasing concern in Australia about the quality of teacher education programs and the capacities of typical trainees. Many figures in public life, including politicians from both major parties, have decried low entrance requirements in teacher training institutions. They have also acknowledged the difficult conditions under which many teachers work. But relatively few people outside teaching are familiar with the underlying weaknesses in training and working conditions responsible for our failure to interest the most capable students in teaching as a career.
We cannot hope to improve schooling substantially unless we are prepared to recruit and train teachers in radically different ways. Trainees themselves report that much of their training time is spent on "busy work" which fails to meet their own needs as learners, or to prepare them for the realities of the most difficult classrooms; and many teacher educators agree with them. In the selection process for both trainees and supervisors, in program structures, in course content for pre-service training, and in methods of evaluating entire programs, there are formidable weaknesses which must be addressed.
Research on the qualifications of teachers working in central curriculum areas reveals huge gaps in their knowledge base. A national study of History teaching, completed in 1990 under the auspices of the Australian Curriculum Development Centre, found that 85 per cent of History teachers claimed to have taught a subject area in which they were not formally prepared. A major problem, according to the study, was that material covered in undergraduate programs was either scanty or not appropriate for prospective teachers. To research unfamiliar areas which they were expected to teach, many were relying on student texts and hand-outs from colleagues. (1)
On the qualifications of Year 12 teachers in the subjects they teach, figures released by the Australian College of Education reveal a sizeable problem. 20.4 per cent who teach senior History have completed only one or two years of tertiary history study. For the Sciences, the percentage with only one or two years of tertiary credit is 25.5; for Mathematics, it is 22; for the Social Sciences, 19.6; 17.8 per cent in Social Science teaching; 17.6 in Science; 19.3 in History; and 28.8 in Foreign Languages have not studied these subjects at the tertiary level. On average in these subjects, fewer than 11 per cent are honours graduates. (2)
As a result of a high resignation rate, over 41 per cent of our public school teaching force has less than three years' experience in the classroom -- an extraordinary waste of resources and a searing comment on methods of selection. (3) According to a report on teaching recruitment published by the National Board of Employment, Education and Training in 1991, only 5.5 per cent of 1987 Year 9, 10, and 11 students interviewed saw teaching as an attractive career; and 32 per cent of the staff responsible for them in Years 9 and 10 warned them against becoming teachers. Females -- who, the report said, take up most teaching jobs -- are being lured away into business, science and technology. (4)
Over 30 years ago, in an essay entitled "The Crisis in Education", the distinguished historian Hannah Arendt said that in education, "responsibility for the world takes the form of authority." After pointing out that "the authority of the educator and the qualifications of the teacher are not the same thing," she remarked that although a measure of qualification is indispensable for authority, the highest possible qualification "can never by itself beget authority." The teacher's qualification, she continued, "consists in knowing the world and being able to instruct others about it, but his authority rests on his assumption of responsibility for that world." (5)
The increasingly common cry that teachers lack authority is at bottom a consequence of the failure of teacher training institutions to assume appropriate responsibility for the persons in their charge. To be taken seriously again, teacher educators will have to reconsider the meaning of the term "vocation", and its connection with the idea that teaching, suitably anchored in a sound knowledge base, is a craft which can be taught.
ATTRACTING BETTER TEACHERS
RAISING SELECTION REQUIREMENTS
HSC and Tertiary Entrance Scores
When The Sydney Morning Herald announced early in 1990 that students were being admitted to teacher training programs with HSC aggregates of 210, well under the median score, there was an immediate hue and cry. In March of 1991, the Leader of the Labor Party in New South Wales, Bob Carr, told a national conference of teachers that Newcastle University had lowered its entry mark to 220. In the same year the Rusden campus of the Victoria College of Education accepted a student with a score of 201. (6) Unfortunately, practices of this sort are neither new nor uncommon.
Teacher Education in Australia, a report published in 1990 by the National Board of Education, Employment and Training, concluded that the quality of student intake was "probably the most serious problem encountered during the working party's enquiries." Later in the year a study of 30,000 students by the Department of Employment, Education and Training found that education faculties had the highest proportion of first-year students with very low tertiary entrance scores. Fifty-four per cent of first-year education students were from the lowest group of tertiary entrants. (7)
Throughout Australia, students are being admitted to teacher training programs with HSC scores, on average, 100 to 160 marks lower than those required for Medicine, Law, Commerce, and Chemical or Electrical Engineering. They enter Arts and Science programs, which provide an alternative three years of pre-service coursework for four-year-trained teachers, with scores 80 to 150 marks lower. In the case of Tertiary Entrance (TE) scores, the gap is even greater: as many as 280 marks can separate prospective teachers and doctors. (8)
In view of the enormous responsibility shouldered by teachers for the intellectual and personal development of children, it is clear that steps must be taken to ensure that the academic qualifications of aspiring teachers do not continue to lag so far behind those of other professions. Even if we are faced with a temporary shortage of qualified new people, minimal HSC and TE requirements will have to be raised. In Germany, where they are much higher than Australia's, many more students want to become teachers than can be accommodated; and the attrition rate among new staff is much lower than ours. (9)
Standards of Literacy and Numeracy
One large worry resulting from entrance requirements as low as they are at present is that many students who undertake teacher training have major problems in literacy and numeracy. Sixty per cent of the future teachers tested in basic mathematics at the University of Canberra last year failed. Many could not multiply 0.3 by 10 or 0.5 by 0.5. (10) Studies in Western Australia, South Australia, and New South Wales have shown that trainees often have equal difficulty punctuating simple sentences, using standard English diction correctly, and writing coherent paragraphs. (11) A majority read only what they are required to in order to complete their coursework. Yet most are allowed to graduate.
The related questions "How will teachers with problems as fundamental as these supervise their own pupils' work in English and Mathematics?" and "How will teachers who are not habitual readers be able to encourage children to read?" have not been seriously tackled in teacher training institutions. Although some colleges offer remedial instruction to trainees whose writing is gravely inadequate, there are at present no national or State policies or entrance requirements governing minimal standards of literacy and numeracy in beginning students, as there are overseas.
Professional Attitudes and Behaviour
It has long been recognised that although a high academic standard is desirable in incoming teachers, appropriate values and traits of character are equally essential. Only in the latter part of this century, however, has a concerted effort been made to select teachers on the basis of their attitudes towards children and learning, and not simply their minimal academic qualifications. In both America and England, mature-aged university graduates with a suitable commitment to teaching are now being encouraged to enter the classroom through alternative certification programs.
Unfortunately, the conventional selection criteria upon which traditional Teacher Education has relied from the start -- namely, passing grades, nicely expressed sentiments in interviews about broad professional aspirations, and passable performances during teaching practice in agreeable suburban schools -- have almost no value in predicting the suitability of candidates for teaching. Neither do conventional, exhaustive summaries of agreeable personal traits (e.g. humour, enthusiasm, creativity, warmth) or desirable actions which educational psychologists list for aspiring teachers (the list used in Wisconsin runs to 227 items!).
Statistically, the best means discovered so far of predicting success in difficult schools is the selection interview developed by Professor Martin Haberman at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee over a 30-year period. Now in use in a majority of American States, this interview discloses basic approaches to teaching and learning in prospective teachers, and distinguishes successfully between suitable and unsuitable candidates. Its questions concentrate on teacher behaviours, or functions, which reveal underlying attitudes to education. Answers reliably signal probable teaching failure or success in the most difficult schools.
Although no interview yet devised for aspiring teachers includes questions which assess their stamina and organisational ability, the Haberman interview has the great virtue of covering other key areas of teacher competence responsible for classroom success: discipline, planning, personal relations, creativity, teaming, and self-analysis. For three decades marked by major educational and social change, its predictive value has remained constant: close to 100 per cent accurate. Already, a small number of Australians have undertaken interview training with Professor Haberman and his staff so that the interview can be introduced here. It would obviously be desirable for our teacher selection procedures to bear a clear and obvious relation to behaviour and attitudes which are known to generate teaching success. (12)
IMPROVING WORKING CONDITIONS
At present, many teachers are required to do more than can reasonably be expected of them in schools. They are asked to be counsellors, social workers, and surrogate parents; to perform extra-curricular duties during lunch or after school; to discipline students too rebellious for other adults to manage; to attend countless meetings with parents and other teachers; to spend hours at home grading papers and preparing lessons; to redesign courses; and to keep up with current professional developments, including a mountain of literature. As a result, the incidence of stress-related illness in school staff is very high.
Even if, as recent research has shown, (13) many Australian teachers in first appointments are reasonably happy, the chief factors influencing their happiness (solid staff support and good relations with pupils) do not keep them in the classroom for the whole, or a significant proportion, of their working lives. (14) Other considerations, in the end, count for more. Their professional standing is low compared with that of other tertiary graduates. Their salaries do not begin to match those of other professional groups or of teachers in other parts of the world, notably Germany. They must live with the knowledge that there is a "values gap" between schools and local communities. And, all too frequently, they receive very little recognition for their accomplishments or on-the-job support for their efforts.
On top of this, promotional opportunities for teachers are limited, and can be unfairly affected by political considerations. Under the Advanced Skills Teacher, Grade 1 Award in Victoria, for example, teachers do not have to be seen in the classroom by anyone or "know" anything in particular except "current government education policy". Yet, at the behest of militant unions and the more politically radical ministry groups, they must develop "social justice strategies" -- for example, "action plans" designed specifically to aid "women". (15) Whether they treat individual pupils sensitively and knowledgeably in their ordinary, daily contacts with them may have no bearing on their professional advancement.
Overseas, where concern has long been voiced about working conditions inimical to sound teaching, a number of innovative reforms have been proposed. A controversial proposal of the recently formed National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in the United States is a certificate of merit with rigorous requirements for improving teachers' professional and financial status. Another controversial proposal -- put forward recently in the New Zealand report Better Teachers -- is that for positions difficult to fill, in "hardship" locations or in subject fields with salaries much lower than those offered by industry, differential pay rates should be offered.
Along similar, but less controversial lines, the idea that teachers should be encouraged by combined financial and leadership opportunities to meet major shortages, has been taken up in several Australian States. Education Departments have appointed "leading" teachers, or "mentors", whose classroom performances have been carefully monitored, to senior, better-paid positions in difficult schools. Since 1991 in New South Wales, "locality allowances" -- giving teachers transfer and medical benefits, housing subsidies, increased opportunities for professional development, and longer holidays -- have been attached to teaching positions in remote areas. (16)
What is clear about our situation is that we won't wean top students away from the other professions unless appropriate professional values replace "politically correct" ones, and unless teachers reclaim the status they once had. Throughout the country there will have to be fairer on-the-job expectations, more varied and just leadership opportunities, more flexible standards governing promotion, salary reforms, allowances, and bonuses. (17) Although it is too soon to know whether such incentives will work over the long term, in the short term they are attracting considerable interest.
A major reason German schools are doing so well is that good salaries and on-the-job incentives directly related to teaching capacity and leadership have made teaching attractive to able tertiary graduates. If more Australian teachers enjoyed comparable rewards, wider opportunities to frame school policy along educationally sound lines, more challenging supervisory work with aspiring teachers, and a greater chance to enjoy the fruits of daily teamwork and consultation, as teachers in the better German comprehensives do, it is likely that more top students would consider teaching as a career.
RECOMMENDATIONS Attracting Better Teachers Teacher training institutions need to raise entrance requirements, as some are now doing, to attract students with HSC scores of 325 or above. But HSC scores alone should not determine selection into teaching. Teacher training institutions should admit only those candidates whose standard of written literacy and numeracy is acceptable, and whose attitudes towards teaching, disclosed in a rigorous interview (preferably, the Haberman Selection Interview), are suitably professional. Throughout Australia, there should be more attractive incentives for teachers. Among the possibilities requiring fuller exploration, and already being implemented overseas or in some Australian States, are special certification procedures recognising the work of outstanding teachers; rapid promotional, leadership, and policy-making opportunities for able practitioners; salary reforms, with job-related responsibilities attached to differential pay levels; and improved transfer provision, greater in-service opportunities, and financial or other bonuses for teachers working in remote areas or particularly difficult schools. |
THE STRUCTURE OF PRE-SERVICE PROGRAMS
Around the world, existing teacher training institutions are seen as credential factories which do not prepare students for the realities of ordinary classrooms. Informally, our own best trainees have said for years that they have been bored silly by their program of study -- especially Education courses; and they have commented wryly on the difference between academic requirements for awards in Education and the major disciplines. Huge gaps exist between theory and practice in training institutions; and the programs of study do not adequately prepare trainees for the range of difficult problems commonly found in schools.
In 1990 a study of newly recruited teachers in Victoria, Queensland, and the ACT commissioned by an AEC Working Party on Teacher Education found that only 39 per cent considered themselves adequately prepared in the area of subject knowledge. Sixty per cent indicated the need for more practical training in their pre-service years. (18)
CURRENT PRIMARY DEGREE PROGRAMS
In Primary B.Ed. programs, a central limitation is that trainees spend, on average, less than 50 per cent of their time working on their teaching subjects. The bulk of their time is divided between lightweight electives with a sociological or recreational focus (e.g. "Family Studies" or "Physical Activity and Lifestyle") and Education courses concerned neither with cognitive development nor the systematic development of teaching skills (e.g. "The Socio-Cultural Context of Education"). Typically, first- and second-year students take courses in pedagogy which are not directly tied to curriculum subjects. Third-year students are often involved in designing the curriculum in core areas which they have barely studied.
What the time allocation for primary teaching subjects means in practice is that a core curriculum area as vital as English occupies only 10 per cent of the course. English is further subdivided into five or six subjects -- Reading, Writing, Language, Children's Literature, Drama, and ESL (English as a Second Language) -- which get no more than two per cent each of allocated time. Science gets eight per cent; Maths, seven per cent; and Social Science (History, Geography, Commerce, and Economics), seven per cent. This is pitifully inadequate. (19)
In 1989 the Discipline Review of Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science, written by a committee chaired by Graeme Speedy and published by the Department of Employment, Education and Training, reported that primary students in Maths and Science expressed anxiety about "their own knowledge in these areas and their competence to teach them." (20) Speedy and his colleagues also found that Science "in primary schools in Australia is a particular problem in that it is not recognised as having a major contribution to make to the education of children." (21) Clearly, there is a connection between poor teaching preparation and later neglect of Science in our primary classrooms. A recent study has shown that in Victorian primary schools only four per cent of classroom time is spent on Science. (22)
In other core subjects, a similar problem exists. At best, in current primary B.Ed. programs, students are introduced to key subject areas, and to topics commonly pursued within them in schools. They do not acquire a solid knowledge of a single curriculum area. Contrary to what is sometimes believed, teachers have to be very knowledgeable to teach well even at a simple level. Unless their knowledge base is secure, they have major difficulty seeing their subject in perspective, focusing on essential matter, explaining new concepts well, and formulating or answering questions clearly.
There is a ludicrous gap between what State syllabuses say should be done in primary schools and what can conceivably be accomplished, given the time allotted to core subjects in teacher education programs. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that trainees spend, on average, only four to six weeks per year in schools. The actual, as opposed to the stated, goal of four years of study is that teachers should learn how to teach on the job. Many can't, and don't.
NEEDED CHANGES IN PRIMARY DEGREE PROGRAMS
So that primary trainees have a proper foundation for working on the curriculum subjects taught in schools, they require a broad liberal arts base which includes coursework in child development and language (particularly reading and writing) taught by specialists. Rather than studying watered-down versions of essential disciplines (e.g. Educational Philosophy, Educational Psychology and History of Education), they need to work within the disciplines themselves in ways suited to their capacities and responsibilities.
In view of the amalgamations that have recently taken place between universities and CAEs, changing the curriculum in such an apparently radical way could readily be done. But such a change would require solid planning by academics with a sound grasp of both the essentials of their subject and their bearing on schooling. And it would require teacher educators to respond much more seriously than they have yet done to program criticisms offered by their students and by teachers in the Arts and Sciences.
If, instead of Education courses, pre-service programs contained a solid liberal arts component complemented by components on the primary curriculum subjects and cognitive growth in children, lecturers with a sound knowledge of schools and children could be much more fully involved than they are at present both in teaching core subjects with a school focus and in coaching prospective teachers in schools. Subjects like Literature, History, Biology, or Mathematics, approached in ways suitable to prospective primary teachers, could be taught by experts.
As well as serving an obvious educational function, such an arrangement could save schools a great deal of money, since teacher educators could be paid for their work in schools by their training institutions. It would have the additional advantage of enabling trainees to forego lightweight electives and spend much more time teaching in schools under the supervision of a wider range of able and experienced supervisors.
RECOMMENDATIONS PRIMARY DEGREE PROGRAMS The current primary B.Ed. course structure -- which allows trainees to spend, on average, less than 50 per cent of their time on their teaching subjects and on the discipline-specific skills needed to teach them -- requires a major overhaul. If Education courses (e.g. Sociology of Education, Philosophy of Education) were dropped, and if study of the common learning areas were combined with work on child development and language (especially reading and writing), trainees could receive the broad general education needed in their chosen profession. Teaching Practice in schools, under the supervision of outstanding teachers and teacher educators, should be a much larger component of Degree programs than it currently is. This could happen if current financial arrangements for practice teaching supervision were altered. |
SECONDARY DEGREE PROGRAMS
Although secondary B.Ed. students devote more time to their teaching subjects than do primary students, they are given too few courses in them, too many lightweight electives and Education courses, and far too little basic grounding in related subject areas. Often, aspiring Science teachers with a major in, for instance, Biology have done little or no tertiary work in the other sciences. Similarly, the program of study completed by graduates who are expected to teach English to senior pupils contains such huge gaps -- e.g. centuries of poetry -- that the perspective underlying a sound approach to literature is missing.
One reason why the time allocation for core subjects is so important is that trainees often have mediocre school records in the subjects they propose to teach. Most three- or four-year teacher training programs do not require tertiary entrance scores at the higher levels of proficiency in English or Mathematics. Admittedly, college and university departments warn new B.Ed. students that unless they have done well in the most demanding, rather than the easiest, English or Maths units, they will have difficulty passing a tertiary course in, respectively, the Humanities or the Sciences. Yet many with poor credentials manage to scrape through anyway.
Because secondary core subjects are subdivided even more thoroughly than primary ones, mastering each subject in the time allocated to it is especially problematic. Students preparing to teach English, for example, normally have to study Language, Literature, Drama, and Teaching Method for each of their first three years. In Method courses, as well as being given help in teaching Language, Literature, and Drama, they work on the English syllabus, ESL, Children's Literature, Special Education, and Remedial Reading.
At best, therefore, the understanding of subject area content acquired by trainees is patchy; and because it is, their pedagogical skills are normally shaky indeed. Since many choose not to read in their leisure time, their knowledge base is riddled with holes.
NEEDED CHANGES IN SECONDARY DEGREE PROGRAMS
Although in every teaching area the secondary B.Ed. program provides some solid work in aspects of the subject to be taught, a much more thorough training is needed. If that training were available, students transferring from B.Ed. to B.A. or B.Sc. programs might be awarded two academic credits for two years' work in, for example, Science, Mathematics, History, or English Literature, instead of the one academic credit more usually given.
Education courses and undemanding electives should be replaced by work in the subjects to be taught and in related subjects -- e.g. Philosophy, Social Psychology. As in altered primary programs, teaching practice should be more extensive, and more carefully supervised by teacher educators as well as school staff.
RECOMMENDATIONS SECONDARY DEGREE PROGRAMS Major changes in course structure are needed to give secondary trainees the solid knowledge of their teaching subjects required in schools. Education courses and undemanding electives should be replaced by: (1) more thorough work in the students' teaching subjects, and in related subjects (e.g. Philosophy, Language and Cognition), (2) more solid method work in every pertinent aspect of each teaching subject, and (3) more extensive supervised teaching in schools. |
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY Dip.Ed. PROGRAMS
When students undertake a one-year (full-time) or two-year (part-time) Dip.Ed. course after completing a first degree at university, it is usually assumed that they will know enough about their teaching subjects not to require additional work in them. This assumption is false. As Neville Webb of the University of Sydney has pointed out, "Graduates often find that their undergraduate studies bear little relation to the content that they are required to teach in schools." (23)
Ordinarily, Dip.Ed. students are given some solid work at university in two core subject areas before embarking on a year's teacher training -- an improvement over the situation of B.Ed. students. But, typically, university Pass degree courses are full of gaps in the subject areas required by school teaching. Science graduates expected to teach high school Physics and Chemistry often have "no background in one of these subjects since their school days." (24)
An additional problem is that many of the weaker Pass students, who are unable to get jobs outside teaching, go into Dip.Ed. programs as a last resort. Present entrance requirements throughout Australia for the Dip.Ed. stipulate a Pass degree and nothing more. Students with conceded or bare passes (25) in the subjects they propose to teach are admitted without question; and once they are admitted, most get through the course. The failure rate in Dip.Ed. programs in many institutions is remarkably low.
In primary Dip.Ed. programs, difficulties engendered by insufficient knowledge of subject matter or poor academic records can be particularly acute. (26) Present teacher training structures don't give trainees the broad familiarity with each teaching subject, the range of classroom materials suitable for them, or the imaginative ways of teaching them, which they need. Capable primary students can of course acquire from their training useful information and skills in areas they know little about; but most have to pick up essential knowledge through trial and error when they are teaching full-time.
The most obvious way of remedying basic deficiencies in our graduates' knowledge of their teaching subjects, and of the Liberal Arts more generally, is to restructure their entire courses of study. In their undergraduate B.A or B.Sc. programs, Arts and Science courses for aspiring secondary teachers could be offered along with courses intended for all students of the Liberal Arts. In the Dip.Ed. program, inessential Education courses could be replaced by courses in child development, language, and pedagogy; and all practical training could be done in schools under the supervision of outstanding teachers and teacher educators.
For trainees with a strong interest in learning-disabled pupils, special programs of instruction should be set up along lines already established in the better university programs here and overseas (a more detailed discussion of the programs required for learning-disabled pupils is found in Chapter 4). Although our traditional training institutions offer work in Special Education, many do not begin to provide courses that are thorough enough. More full-time programs of at least a year's duration, following first-degree courses, would help solve an Australian problem which, by international standards, has received inadequate attention.
RECOMMENDATIONS B.A./B.Sc. plus Dip.Ed. Entrance requirements for the Dip.Ed. program should be more rigorous, so that students with conceded passes in their proposed teaching subjects are not admitted. Graduates should possess at least one Credit in the major secondary teaching subject they propose to teach, and at least two Credits in the primary teaching subjects covered by their program. The structure of the first degree/end-on Dip.Ed. program should be reorganised so that trainees receive a sounder, more unified and thorough academic preparation, more useful pre-service training in pedagogy, language work, and child development, and more intensive supervised work in schools. For suitable candidates, programs in Special Education of at least a year's duration should be introduced more widely. |
METHODOLOGY IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS
At every level of formal education there are three methods of teaching and learning, each of which has clearly defined aims. (27) They are:
- Didactic instruction, which involves teacher talk and the use of textbooks. It is designed to create an organised body of knowledge.
- Coaching, which is one-to-one instruction or small group tutoring in the basic skills of learning -- i.e. reading, writing, speaking, listening, observing, calculating, measuring, estimating, designing, performing in the expressive arts, problem-solving, and exercising critical judgment. By means of questions, explanations, and practical assistance, able practitioners help pupils to acquire theoretical and practical expertise in the major curriculum areas.
- Socratic discussion, which is purposeful, analytical conversation about ideas and values. Its object is to illuminate perennially important issues raised in high quality imaginative and discursive literature.
Since teacher educators are rarely if ever observed in the classroom, the extent to which they rely on each of these methods of teaching is not known. Staff who come to class unprepared, or leave the room while students complete tutorial exercises, or regularly give to students the full responsibility for running "seminars" or small group work, develop reputations for laziness but do not risk demotion or job loss. And those who are habitually responsible for deadly boring lectures repeat their errors for years, undeterred.
THE DOMINANCE OF THE LECTURE
Despite the absence of research on methods of instruction in teacher training programs, reliable reports suggest that the dominant method by far, around the world, is the formal lecture. This is disturbing, not simply because it is well known that a diet of lectures produces passivity in students and fails to produce imaginative and flexible thinkers, (28) but because prospective teachers need teaching models to emulate. The lecturing model is the least suitable one for them, for a reason that should be, but has never been, clear to the organisers of teacher training programs: in schools, formal lecturing is inappropriate.
What happens to the vast majority of Teacher Education graduates, as John Goodlad's influential A Place Called School has shown, (29) is that they devote 85 per cent of their classroom time -- far too much, Goodlad says -- to informal lecturing: i.e., teacher talk. The obvious reason for this is that people cannot do what they have not been taught to do. Prospective teachers who have been trained primarily or exclusively through teacher narration, description, explanation, and demonstration rely heavily on these forms of talk themselves. When their performances are inspiring, they of course promote further, individual inquiry. But teacher talk cannot foster the spontaneous, habitual, active give and take among a group of learners long recommended for schools. Other instructional methods are needed for that.
In vocational areas directly and habitually concerned with human conduct, expertise which depends upon maturity and imagination, and which therefore requires training in the collaborative modes of instruction which inspire personal, relational growth, is needed. In vocations whose focus is much more abstract, impersonal, and technical, other forms of training are appropriate. Since so much of the work done by school teachers has to be highly personal and individual because of the developmental needs of children, it follows logically that trainee teachers should be instructed in ways which prepare them for habitual classroom interaction.
More and more, in countries with a serious interest in the Humanities as well as the Sciences, schooling has been organised along lines which encourage a high degree of personal collaboration, as well as didactic instruction and solitary reflection. Increasingly, educators with expertise in cognition are pointing out that strong educational achievement depends upon balanced human development. The reasoning skills required by computer programming and the study of poetry are very different, as are the problem-solving abilities demanded in defence research and infant school teaching. The blossoming of these skills presupposes substantially different modes of formal study -- each one valuable, and all of them, in their total effect, responsible for full cognitive growth.
"Covering" a great deal of educational ground is important at the higher educational levels, particularly in curriculum areas which require a very full and complex information base; hence in subjects like Mathematics, Computer Programming, Economics, or Chemistry, lecturing (balanced by some tutorial work) is suitable. But analysing ideas in depth, especially in Humanities subjects which require careful deliberation in handling issues and values, is equally important; thus in disciplines like Literature or Philosophy, regular small group work and discussion involving all students (balanced by some lecturing) are essential. Large classes are legitimate for lectures; but for more collaborative forms of instruction, they are nearly useless.
Already many amalgamated tertiary institutions responsible for teacher training are suffering under program changes, engendered by Commonwealth funding and enrolment policies, which have done away with all manageable groups of 25 or 30 students and generated, instead, groups of 300. This is a form of lunacy. Prospective teachers need regular tutorial work -- not an exclusive diet of lectures.
MORE APPROPRIATE TEACHING METHODS
Socratic Discussion
The term "Socratic discussion" derives from Socrates' habit of conducting dialogues in the streets of Athens with anyone willing to engage with him in the pursuit of truth. Its nearest contemporary Australian equivalent is the well-run tutorial: an essential program component for prospective teachers. For an extended period -- anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours -- teacher and pupils explore a single large issue, having first read assigned material substantial enough to promote solid analytical classroom talk. At every level of formal education, starting with kindergarten, this mode of instruction fosters highly active learning.
The aim of Socratic discussion is to illuminate the subject at hand by means of a leading question which leads to further questions and exploration. There is never a single "right" solution to the large problem posed, even though, at many junctures, there will be correct or incorrect answers (e.g. the question "What, exactly, does Plato say about the difference between the pleasant and the good?" has a correct answer which pupils can locate in the text). If the topic is of permanent interest, it will almost certainly inspire a variety of thoughtful reactions rather than a single definitive response.
Good discussion leaders do not commend every opinion expressed, or permit interminable digressions. They encourage everybody to participate, to think before bursting into speech, to pursue the implications of their own remarks, to produce evidence in support of their views, and to alter opinions which are demonstrably unsound. The habitual process of sharing ideas and refining them in an orderly and encouraging setting not only gives students a grasp of basic analytical procedures; it promotes a matter-of-fact reasonableness in handling conflict or oddity, and it builds tolerance for differences in point of view.
Coaching
In every educational setting, coaching is designed to give students essential skills. Among the skills needed by trainee teachers are the ability to ask good questions; give clear directions; set up experiments; explain new concepts; select interesting and appropriate material for study; generate interest in the task at hand; talk easily with children about their work; comment helpfully on pupils' writing; devise stimulating and reliable assignments, tests, and essay questions; assess written work; solve problems of all sorts; prevent disruption and interference; and make critical judgments in a host of situations.
Unfortunately, our present teacher education structures do not require prospective teachers to master specific skills of this kind. Because influential educationists believe in the importance of courses which are not content-specific, untold hours of training which should be devoted to pedagogical work in specific disciplines are almost totally wasted on general skills acquisition. In effect, trainees are told that if they master broad problem-solving techniques, they will be equipped to handle children. But when they are required to teach Music or Sport or Science in schools, they quickly discover that the skills required aren't interchangeable. It takes subject-specific work and, often, a great deal of assistance from able staff, to play a recorder, make jewellery, solve a problem in calculus, interpret a poem, or grade a test question on World War II.
The fact that teacher trainees are not usually given thorough, systematic instruction in evaluating, commenting on, and grading student work is particularly disturbing in the light of current assessment trends in most States. Because of the increased role of "continuing assessment" in schools, primary and secondary; the weight given to portfolios in the senior years of school, especially in Victoria; such new requirements for teachers as the preparation of literacy and numeracy "profiles" for all pupils (e.g. in Western Australia and Victoria); and continuing resistance to national and international testing (discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3), the need for ensuring that prospective teachers are highly skilled assessors is pressing. (30)
Only rarely, in existing teacher training programs, is sufficient time devoted to instruction in the systematic acquisition of essential subject-related teaching skills, with student teachers helping one another as well as being helped by the teacher educator in charge. And almost no time is set aside for instruction in the skills teachers need to handle unruly pupils, autocratic administrators, angry parents, or unco-operative colleagues. The common difficulties faced by professionals every day in school, in and out of the classroom, are put in the too-hard basket or left to chance. Traditional training institutions work on the assumption that it is sufficient for trainees to know something about the skills expected in schools -- they don't actually need to possess these skills before being licensed.
Trainees fortunate enough to work under able teachers during practice teaching periods are often given useful advice about how to handle difficult children, colleagues, or parents. But systematic teaching of the skills needed to handle commonplace difficulties effectively is not given to all prospective teachers, either in teacher training institutions or in the schools used for teaching practice. And trainees are not in schools for long enough periods to acquire essential skills. Radical reforms in method are therefore called for in order to prepare prospective teachers adequately for the jobs they are expected to do.
RECOMMENDATIONS MORE APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTION FOR PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS Socratic discussion, whose goal is to create a sounder understanding of ideas and values through the analysis of significant imaginative and discursive writing, should be a central activity in the pedagogy component of teacher education programs. Trainees should experience many first-rate Socratic seminars, and be expected to lead them successfully, so that they can carry on successful discussions in schools. So that prospective teachers can coach children in such basic skills of learning as reading, writing, problem-solving, and making critical judgments, and so that they are confident about the levels of mastery which they themselves possess, their training must include discipline-specific, closely supervised coaching in all the basic skills of learning and teaching. The bulk of the coaching program should be implemented in schools, but under-graduate or pre-service work in the subjects to be taught should include coaching/tutorial practice. Trainees must be taught the skills required for handling the typical conflicts which occur in schools, both within and outside the classroom, so that they can manage these conflicts in a professional manner before they are licensed to teach. Essential groundwork in these areas can be covered in method work undertaken while supervised teaching is being completed. |
ALTERNATIVE ROUTES INTO TEACHING
For some years, in Australia and overseas, authorities responsible for hiring teachers have experimented with alternative means of licensing new staff, especially those dissatisfied with their current work or anxious to rejoin the work-force after a protracted absence. Some of those means -- notably, six-week crash courses on subjects in which trainees have not majored at tertiary institutions -- are dubious indeed. But others, such as year-long apprenticeships/internships under the supervision of master teachers, or probationary internships overseen by department heads and heads of school (long in operation in non-government schools), have worked successfully for some time.
In America, through special retraining programs begun at major universities such as Harvard, mature adults working in areas suffering from an under-supply of teachers -- e.g. Mathematics and Science -- have been encouraged to enter teaching. In the better traditional courses for people seeking mid-career changes, trainees spend a semester on coursework and a semester as teaching interns. The emphasis in retraining programs of this type is on preparing people to teach in disadvantaged areas. Setting up networks, involving the university and local city schools, has been a cornerstone of reform effort. (31)
Of the more innovative overseas programs which could serve as useful models for Australia, Professor Martin Haberman's is attracting the most interest. University graduates who pass his rigorous selection interview, having already satisfied State academic requirements for aspiring teachers, undertake paid internships in tough inner city schools under the supervision of outstanding teacher-coaches who have themselves been carefully chosen and interviewed. The vast majority are successful, and remain in schools like the ones in which they receive their training.
THE A.C.P. IN HOUSTON
The largest, and by reputation the best, Alternative Certification Program (ACP) in the United States has been mounted by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which is responsible for 200,000 -- mainly black and Hispanic -- pupils. Twenty per cent of the city's teachers are now going through its program. In 1991 1,200 students, many of them of mature age, applied for 200 new ACP places; so those who were admitted received outstanding ratings on the Haberman interview.
Before they begin their internships, students accepted into HISD's training course are given six intensive weeks of pre-assignment training, including observation periods in schools complemented by obligatory written work on what has been observed. Once they begin teaching full-time, with pay, they complete a 10-week evening course at the HISD regional centre. Covering topics designed to prepare them for standard school tasks, outside as well as within the classroom, these sessions give them survival skills rarely provided in traditional teacher education programs.
In addition, all students admitted into Houston's ACP program must successfully complete two semester courses in specified subject areas at one of the State universities. Primary trainees work on Reading/Language and Child Development; secondary trainees work on Reading/Language and Assessment in the subject area which they teach; ESL trainees work on Reading/Language in the subject area which they teach, and on Instructional Design in the second language used. For those who train in Special Education, special instruction is provided. When HISD's candidates receive their teaching degrees, they are well-equipped to stimulate and encourage children with varied histories, but especially histories of failure.
Staff connected with traditional teacher education, instead of opposing the HISD program and its graduates as they did initially, are now involved in its implementation; for the excellence of ACP in action is not in doubt. So that every aspect of relevant professional development is suitably covered, the requirements agreed upon by ACP leaders in other parts of the State and the country are compared with those set by Texas bodies awarding credentials and university teacher education programs. Additional checks of program quality are provided at national conferences, supported by the US Department of Education.
Employment arrangements for ACP administrators can vary greatly, and constitute an agreeable job incentive. People who supervise interns and design some or all of their coursework can be employed jointly by universities and school districts, or separately by either, with varying degrees of responsibility and temporal commitment. Because of the wide range of work that needs to be done, all of it requiring expertise, a comparable range of rewards exists. As well as offering financial benefits, involvement in ACP training can provide leadership opportunities and forms of personal satisfaction for outstanding teachers unavailable in conventional teacher training programs or conventional schools. (32)
IMPLICATIONS OF THE A.C.P. FOR AUSTRALIA
At present Australia has no means of offering capable university graduates without teaching credentials a reliable entry into teaching. Nor are there any teacher training programs which give excellent, paid, on-the-job training and pertinent coursework in pedagogy and child development to aspiring teachers who possess a good knowledge of the subjects they want to teach.
A great advantage of introducing an ACP in Australia is that, like its counterparts in the US and the UK, it would enable us to attract into teaching qualified graduates who have worked in other professional areas or been out of the work-force for years. Mature adults who are unable to undertake traditional training programs would have a trustworthy way of becoming qualified teachers.
In action, an Australian Alternative Certification Program modelled on Houston's would be able to demonstrate the advantages of (1) well-supervised paid internships, and (2) concurrent coursework which prepares aspiring teachers to work effectively with all children, but especially difficult ones, by giving them the pedagogical and the interpersonal skills needed to create genuinely stimulating school environments.
Ideally, ACP concurrent coursework offered here would be taught, as HISD's is, by star teachers and star teacher educators. It would include solid work in the teaching of reading and writing, child development, and assessment, and substantial practice in Socratic teaching and coaching. School supervision, like Houston's, would ensure that networks of able teachers, school heads, and teacher educators were closely involved. Licensing would depend upon the successful completion of a year's program of study (internship plus coursework) approved by appropriate State accreditation bodies.
Although Australian teacher educators, teachers, and administrators have not been surveyed on the subject of Alternative Teacher Education, grass roots support for a good, reliable alternative to the Dip.Ed. program has existed for years. And we need more able teachers than we now have to work for substantial periods in difficult urban, or remote rural, schools. The Haberman interview, which small but increasing numbers of Australians are expressing an interest in being trained to use, is particularly good at predicting teacher suitability for these schools.
RECOMMENDATIONS There should be a dual licensing system in Australia to accommodate the graduates of traditional and alternative teacher training programs. Alternative Certification Programs (ACPs) should be instituted here, as they have been overseas, for tertiary graduates with a sound knowledge base and high scores on the Haberman interview (or its equivalent). As an alternative to Dip.Ed. work, year-long paid internships under the supervision of outstanding teacher-coaches should be set up. Interns should undertake approximately one night of coursework per week in pedagogy (incorporating Socratic teaching and coaching), language work, child development (where appropriate), and basic school survival skills. This coursework should be approved by accrediting bodies in much the same way that Dip.Ed. coursework has been approved over the years. |
ENDNOTES
1. This study, carried out by Dr Murray Print and described in the Melbourne Sunday Times on 22 July 1990, found particularly large gaps in history teachers' knowledge of Pacific, State/local, Renaissance/Reformation, South American and British Commonwealth history. According to Dr Print, teachers were not as concerned about problems in their lack of knowledge as were teacher educators.
2. Australian College of Education survey figures cited in "Calculations", Education Monitor, Autumn 1991.
3. Ibid.
4. These facts about "Student Images of Teaching: Factors Affecting Recruitment" were published in the Melbourne Herald-Sun, 29 May 1991.
5. See Hannah Arendt, "The Crisis of Education", Between Past and Future, Faber, 1961, p. 189.
6. On 23 July 1991, the Melbourne Herald-Sun said that the median HSC mark for entry into the Rusden branch of the Victoria College of Education was 229 out of a possible 410. At Melbourne University in the same year the cut-off for Medicine was 368; for Arts, 347; and for Agriculture, 279. At La Trobe, 261 was the minimum required for Nursing.
7. Luke Slattery reported these facts in The Age, 18 December 1990.
8. The Tertiary Entrance scores cited here refer to Queensland. More detailed information about admissions policies can be found in Susan Moore, Teacher Training: Entrance Requirements, Education Study Paper No. 21, September 1990.
9. "The Best Schools in the World", The Bulletin with Newsweek, 3 December 1991.
10. See Lauchlan Chipman's discussion of this test in the Melbourne Herald-Sun, 29 May 1991.
11. See further Moore, Education Study Paper No. 21, op. cit. According to The Australian, 24 September 1988, 40 per cent of graduates failed to pass an undemanding literacy test at the University of Western Australia in 1988.
12. A much more detailed discussion of the Haberman Selection Interview can be found in Susan Moore's "A Beacon for Teaching: Houston's Alternative Certification Program", Education Monitor, Autumn 1992.
13. See especially Watson, Hatton, Squires, and Soliman's "School Staffing and the Quality of Education: Teacher Adjustment and Satisfaction", Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 7 No. 1, 1991, pp. 63-77.
14. Australian College of Education figures ("Calculations", Education Monitor, Autumn 1991) show that 4.3 per cent of state school teachers remain for over 15 years; for Catholic schools, the percentage is 4.27; for other non-government schools, 7.34.
15. See Geoffrey Barker's article on the AST1 award in the Melbourne Age, 25 July 1991.
16. On the subject of "locality allowances", Geoff Baldwin of the NSW Ministry has been very helpful.
17. Worth mentioning in this connection is the widely publicised salary-leadership package introduced two years ago at a major independent school by its new headmaster. See R.D. Townsend's "The Restructuring of Salaries at Sydney Grammar", Education Monitor, Autumn 1990.
18. "The Provision of Professional Development in a Devolving Education System", Research Services, Department of Education, Queensland, 1991, cited in National Overview. The problem is not confined to Australia. In America, a recent study of teacher attitudes and job satisfaction, published by Emily Feistritzer of the National Center for Education Information in Washington DC, reports that well over half of the teachers interviewed considered their initial academic preparation inadequate. The vast majority felt that they did not know enough about their teaching subjects, or subject areas closely related to them, to perform well in the classroom. See C. Emily Feistritzer, "Conflicting Reports Concerning Teachers", Network News and Views, November 1990.
19. For a more detailed discussion of the amount of time spent on teaching subjects and on other courses, see Susan Moore, Teacher Training: How Students in Primary Courses Spend Their Time, Education Study Paper No. 18, May 1990.
20. See Discipline Review of Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science, Volume 1: Report and Recommendations, Department of Employment, Education and Training, AGPS, October 1989.
21. Ibid.
22. See Curriculum Provision, Victorian Ministry of Education and Training, State Board of Education, 1991.
23. See Neville Webb, "The Effect of the Movement of Teacher Education from CAEs to Universities", Australian College of Education Special Interest Article, March 1991.
24. Ibid.
25. A conceded pass is awarded on condition that the student not repeat the subject at a higher level.
26. In Alternative Teacher Certification programs in the United States, notably the best ones like Houston's, trainees are not eligible for admission to primary programs unless they have done a year's work in Reading, three semesters of English, and at least one semester each of Maths and Science.
27. This definition of the three basic modes of teaching and learning is provided in Mortimer J. Adler's The Paideia Proposal, Macmillan, 1982.
28. These negative effects of lecturing are particularly marked in Japan, as is well known. See further Susan Moore, "Does Class Size Matter?" Education Monitor, Spring 1989, reprinted in Network News and Views, November 1989.
29. Reports on the percentage of American class time given to teacher talk regularly refer to Goodlad. See, for example, Tommy Tomlinson's Class Size and Public Policy: Politics and Panaceas, United States Department of Education, March 1988.
30. In the newer and better alternative certification programs set up in America, secondary trainees are expected to take at least one semester course in Assessment alone; for the complexities of handling varieties of student work are well understood.
31. For a more detailed discussion of mid-career and other retraining programs in American inner city schools, see the Alumni Bulletin of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Spring/Summer 1991.
32. The information about Houston's Alternative Certification Program contained in this report is also provided, but in greater detail, in Susan Moore's "A Beacon for Teaching", op. cit.
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