Course content is under pressure
With the intended curriculum reform, the teacher shortage and the plea for broader employability of teachers, the division of education into subjects is under discussion. "If I have to teach anything and everything, I'll quit."
Picture: Type tank
The plea of the Education Council for broad employability among teachers. A curriculum revision that is primarily intended to strengthen the cohesion between subjects. Teacher training courses that close their doors. A relatively large group of first-graders who are retiring and unauthorized teachers who are more often in front of the class due to the teacher shortage. Is professional knowledge under pressure with all this?
“In the suggestions for a new curriculum, Curriculum.nu demands more attention for cross-curricular skills,” confirms professor of educational innovation Rob Martens. "And the Education Council is focusing on more pedagogical skills for teachers, so in that sense the focus on subject knowledge is declining."
With the pressure on the availability of teachers, there is automatically also pressure on the subject content level
Professor of education and pedagogy Jan van Tartwijk adds:
“The pressure on the availability of teachers automatically puts pressure on the subject content level. And that poses a risk to the quality of education. ”
Van Tartwijk is involved in Curriculum.nu as a member of the scientific advisory group. Within this project, approximately 150 teachers and school leaders in development teams made proposals for 'a contemporary curriculum'. The teams have developed a basis of knowledge and skills for each learning area. They reflected on themes such as globalization, sustainability, technology and health. In recent months there has been an internet consultation, a feedback round, about the plans. This feedback will be incorporated into a final proposal that will be sent to the minister in October.
“I sense that people fear for the professional knowledge,” says Bertho Busink, economics teacher and member of the people & society development team. “That is also in the jargon of Curriculum.nu. It does not help that different subjects are bundled in one learning area. The word 'learning area' alone already arouses resistance. If they had just talked about 'geography, (business) economics, history, philosophy and social studies', instead of 'people & society', it would have sounded less threatening. ”
Schools can choose to teach in learning areas, but that is absolutely not necessary, there is such a thing as freedom of education
Jargon aside, Busink understands the fear of erosion. But about his own subject, economics, he says reassuringly: "If you dive deeply into it, you discover that economic knowledge is more anchored within the concept proposals of the learning area people & society than within the current core objectives." Moreover, the fact that subjects are divided over learning areas when thinking about curriculum revision does not mean that they will soon be absorbed into them. “Schools can choose to teach in areas of learning, but that is absolutely not necessary, there is such a thing as freedom of education. I think that you can still best transfer knowledge within the current subject lessons. In fact, that seems best to me. I myself would not apply to a school that works with areas of learning. I want to continue to give my lessons in the field of economics. ”
Busink just means: making optimal use of the common denominator does not have to be at the expense of professional knowledge. Or, as math teacher and member of the arithmetic & mathematics development team Marco ten Hoff puts it: "More cohesion is not the same as merging."
Chicken and egg
Curriculum.nu elaborates on the Education 2032 project, from which in 2016, under the leadership of Paul Schnabel, a recommendation was issued for a single curriculum for primary and secondary education with more attention to digital and cross-curricular skills. “By 2032, the idea was indeed to abolish the courses and lump everything together,” Ten Hoff reflects. “But we have received an explicit message from the House of Representatives to look at the curriculum revision from within the subjects. We see an opportunity for greater cohesion from those subjects. ” At Ten Hoff's VMBO-T / HAVO / VWO school, calculating with percentages is offered in mathematics, physics, chemistry and economics, for example, but in different ways. "There is quite something to be said for approaching this in the same way."
It has been established that students must be able to manage themselves in everyday situations. What the hell are those?
“For my own subject, I don't really see how to offer it within a broader context”, Martin Ringenaldus, a German teacher, countered. "For example, in literature you could treat some general terms that fit all three foreign languages, but if you are talking about schools of thought, that is no longer possible." Ring balance lacks concrete recommendations. “For example, nowhere is there a glossary or grammar principles that students should learn. However, it has been established that pupils must be able to cope with everyday situations. What the hell are those? Is that in the supermarket or also at the doctor? "
Moreover, he says: "Before you can see the relationship between subjects and disciplines, you need to have knowledge." With that comment, Ringenaldus comes up against a chicken-and-egg discussion.
“Perhaps a student should first deal with cross-curricular issues in order to experience the importance of the subject content,” suggests professor of educational innovation Martens. According to him, we should not fear that professional knowledge will be lost. “The current curriculum is completely overloaded: every time a social problem demands attention, attention is drawn to education, whether it concerns obesity or dealing with money.
The curriculum needs to be overhauled and it is time that we first looked at the interests of the students and only then at those of the teachers
At the same time, you see a growing pressure on young people, they have too much to do. And you see a decrease in the intrinsic motivation of students, which is the biggest problem in my opinion at the moment. That curriculum needs to be overhauled and it is time we first look at the interests of students and only then at that of the teachers. ”
Study house
Another plan further tightens the relationships: the advice Make way for teachers that the Education Council announced at the end of last year. In it, the advisory body proposes to cluster the large number of subjects in secondary education into, for example, beta (physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics), gamma (geography, history, economics and social studies) and care & welfare (disabled and social care and nurse). When the divisions between the powers are removed, the employability of teachers will increase and the teaching position will become more attractive, according to the Education Council.
Teachers in the upper years of HAVO / VWO in particular are not very keen on the broad employability
But: from research under 6324 AObmembers show that 55 percent only wants to teach in their own subject. Teachers in the upper years of HAVO / VWO in particular are not very keen on the broad employability. 'If you start clustering courses, the teacher loses in-depth knowledge about a field', one respondent writes in the open answers. "If I have to teach all kinds of things, I will quit," notes another. And: 'Another unfortunate plan that only aims to quickly get more teachers who, due to insufficient depth of knowledge, can transfer less, which will further deteriorate education.'
“Dutch education is almost traumatized by the innovations of the nineties,” responds professor Jan van Tartwijk. “In the study house, a lot has indeed gone wrong in the implementation. But fear should not be a barrier to any kind of innovation. Within teacher training there are common documents, especially in related domains. We can handle that in a smarter way. ”
Van Tartwijk proposes that there should be a substantial common body in teacher training and that in-depth subjects for specialization should be offered. “That is also the call of the Education Council. The council is asking an English teacher not to teach physics from now on, because that is indeed a very complicated one, it really concerns related subjects, such as biology and chemistry, and social studies and history. ”
If everyone can become a teacher in all those subjects, I don't need to belong to that club of teachers anymore
“I think that broad employability is not desirable,” says economics teacher Busink, who is affiliated with Curicculum.nu. “Some teachers can do it quite well: teaching in multiple subjects. But the average teacher has enough trouble with that one subject. Moreover, the broad employability, paradoxically enough, has the effect of lowering status. If everyone can become a teacher in all those subjects, I no longer need to belong to that group of teachers. That may sound very elitist, but I fear that is how it works. ”
'This is only an emergency measure by the Education Council that will cause more quality loss throughout education,' another responds AObmember of the Education Council advice. 'I would like to be proud of my profession.' There is a fear that the idea of broad employability did not arise from vision, but from teacher shortage panic. The same fear exists with the curriculum change. Busink: “I would find it really disastrous if the revision was not prompted by idealism, but by a shortage of subject teachers. You can't rule out anything, but fortunately I have not found any indication for this. ”
