The key to improving educational quality is in the classroom and teachers are the cornerstone of the entire system,” explains Anna Pons (Manresa, 1986), OECD analyst. She considers that there may be all the resources in the world (time, spaces, templates), but it is the teachers who make the difference. What do other countries do and little is done here? How do you invest in your teachers? They open the classrooms and fellow teachers come in to observe to obtain a return on their practice. They provide mentoring to teachers who take their first steps in the workplace. They spend more time preparing for classes and use technology to transform their practices. “What we know works, little is done in Spain,” says Pons, who was in Barcelona last week, invited to the Quórum23 congress, organized by the Fundació Escola Cristiana de Catalunya. The analyst also finds worrying how little recognition there is for the profession.
Lack of recognition
The Talis study (International Study of Teaching and Learning) indicates that only one in five teachers feels their work is valued. “These are very worrying data. In Spain, the profession is not valued nor does the administration recognize those who do it best.” There are no, as in most countries, teacher and principal evaluations. And there is no talent management policy. However, 90% entered the profession because of their commitment to children. “We are facing a profession that is truly vocational. And if you have truly committed professionals, in any organization, you have great strength and we must recognize it.”
Teacher well-being
“Two weeks ago, an international meeting of directors shared an American study on the stress level of directors and this is similar to that of immediate response professions (firefighters, police officers…).” There are other similar studies carried out in Finland, Australia and Canada. There is a part attributable to the pandemic in which “the work of principals and teachers changed overnight,” but another part is attributable to profound social changes. “We are moving from a world of certainties to a world in constant change, in which the important thing is to adapt and know how to find opportunities in the difficulties and complexities we face. For this we don’t have a compass.” In his opinion, teachers are also in a beta state and what they need is confidence. The transition from a school that transmits knowledge to another that transmits skills is also key.
It works
Classroom observation is one of the most powerful tools to improve teaching quality, according to the OECD. In Japan, for more than 100 years, two teachers enter a classroom and observe the teacher’s practice. Then their impressions return. “In most countries there has already been a cultural change and there are organized, structured visits to classrooms. But not in Spain nor in France where it is difficult to distinguish between the person, the teacher, and the pedagogical practice.” It is not about criticizing the teacher but rather using a practical, tangible example to discuss how it can be improved. For this, trust is basic. Now, he believes that changing that culture will be very difficult. Who must generate trust is the management team.
Mentors
Have a mentor to consult with, especially in the first years of teaching or teaching. And not just once and informally, but in a structured way, with a specific objective. Another aspect that the OECD considers important is being part of a learning community, with shared challenges and exchange of practices. “Today’s improvements in education involve all that knowledge that many systems are trying to make explicit, but that is not done in Spain. Here, the teacher is alone, the director does not know how the teacher works in the classroom and cannot help him improve. The knowledge remains with each teacher individually.”
Professional directors
In other countries, he points out, the director is a trained professional. There are powerful directors’ associations that ensure the improvement of pedagogical leadership and their well-being. In Spain the role is not that of a pedagogical leader but rather that of a manager. The traditional and hierarchical system has not yet been changed to a horizontal one involving knowledge professionals. “That change is very necessary.” You can have fantastic debates about what to teach, he argues, but if you don’t then have teachers and administrators implementing that they are of no use to you. When the challenge of education was access, more classrooms had to be provided. But if it is a quality issue, you have to invest in teachers who will be able to implement your objectives and will go further depending on their contexts.
Teaching innovation
“Without an end it is useless.” In this country we thought it was very cool. The debate is not about being innovative and using only radical methods, nor about being traditionalist and using only frontal methods, but rather it is about the teacher having the entire repertoire of practices and adapting it according to his or her objectives. Pons illustrates this with an example. “90% of teachers teach their students face-to-face in the classroom. This can be very effective for certain objectives, but it is not as useful for addressing diversity and improving socio-emotional skills. The change happens because the teacher feels safe in any position and acts based on his objective. That’s what we have to support.”
Time in the classroom
Spending more time in school does not improve results. In fact, the countries that participate in PISA, the ones that obtain the best results, are not the ones where students spend the most time in classrooms. Lesson preparation time is much more important. They plan and prepare materials. And they collaborate with each other. Not sharing specific problems about a material or a student, but to learn together. Obviously, time is resources. And, on a comparative level, Spain does not allocate enough resources to education.”
The technology
“In PISA we see that students who make more use of technologies obtain worse results than average. This should make us consider how we are using it,” he says. Putting tablets in schools, if they are not integrated into the educational process, is of no use, she points out. Nor if they are used only for communication purposes. “At the same time as I say this, I also want to emphasize that there is technological software that helps students achieve better results, such as that which helps personalize math homework.” Regarding artificial intelligence, “they have exploded in our faces.” The teacher can decide not to use them, but the student is already using them, she says. “This is going to mean a new phase of experimentation of how to use or how we can coexist and how we can take advantage of this artificial intelligence that is here to stay and that is only going to become more and more powerful.” He believes that it provides a great advantage, the elimination of the most administrative and bureaucratic tasks.
Machines by teachers
Education is something relational. One of the big research topics now is what impact new technologies have on the development of socio-emotional competencies, Pons indicates. “Those socio-emotional competencies, so necessary, are obviously purely related.” In some Asian countries it is very common to hire or access teaching gurus who teach through YouTube. They are inspiring classes. But that does not replace, according to his knowledge, the teacher who follows the day to day.
“Now, the role of the teacher is a facilitating role, of accompanying you in the learning process.”
ChatGPT passes PISA
The results are very good for reading. For mathematics not so much. “As we know, chatGPT is a language-based module, therefore, it does not respond as well to mathematical tasks. But it will improve and get the highest grade,” he says. Again, this pushes us all to rethink what it is we want our students to learn, she continues. “First of all, that a machine is capable of answering all the PISA reading questions with a score of 9 out of 10, I think it is great news, because that means that we can use machines for many things that we could not use them before.” . Now, from his point of view, this also means that humans have to be intelligent and know how to identify how to use these machines if we do not want to be their slaves. And that means strengthening skills, especially critical thinking. These machines are also opening up spaces for experimentation that we did not have before. Not everything is negative
Critical thinking
And here comes one of the most important alarms. “We have learned to develop critical capacity. And we can distance ourselves from machines. A child who has not grown up developing that critical capacity, how are we going to teach him to develop it?” According to an OECD study, only 9% of students are able to discern between information and an opinion.
Rethink learning
Pons gives the example of the mobile map navigation application. “Studies show that since we use these types of applications we have lost cognitive ability to know our way around. Is this acceptable? Or do we have to ban navigation applications from our phones, our cars, etc.? The machines are driving us to social level, they are posing ethical challenges to us that we did not have before and we are taking a long time to respond to these challenges.
