Returning teaching to the top of the class

Why is teacher training an issue for research universities?

All universities have as their mission serving the society that supports them, directly or indirectly. So we owe it to the generations of new citizens -- who are also taxpayers’ children, generally speaking -- to ensure that they can fully benefit from what education has to offer. But there's also a self-interest here, since universities will recruit their future students from these generations of new citizens. They represent the scientists and scholars of the future.

What can universities do to fix shortcomings in school teaching? 

The simplest answer is to help whichever way they can to boost the number of teachers. Partly this is a matter of restoring societal prestige to the teaching profession, and obviously universities cannot do this alone. But there is also much that universities can do to make teacher training a more attractive career choice for their students, by giving more full-hearted support to teacher training programmes, and by improving the deep integration of teaching and communication in basic academic programmes of study.

Is this a task for education specialists or all academics?

Both, but we feel that what is most needed now is visible support and active participation from academics throughout the university.

Universities cannot fix this alone. What do you need from other stakeholders?

Educational authorities should see to it that teachers regain autonomy and are not subjected to punishing inspection regimes micromanaging the delivery of unworkably numerous and pedantically differentiated learning outcomes. 

Your paper talks about academics becoming 'teacher educators'. What do you mean?

The term 'teacher trainer' immediately puts the emphasis on people working in programmes dedicated to training students to become teachers. We want to have an educational ecosystem in which all academics are, in a sense, educators of teachers, just as they educate scholars and scientists, and transmit their knowledge to society more broadly. It's similar to the idea that all scientists have a role as science communicators.

What can be done to foster teacher educators?

The first requirement is for universities to actively reclaim a sense of shared responsibility for pre-university teaching and reflect this in the internal assessment of their academic staff. This will encourage academics to get involved in teacher education and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) initiatives. But we should aim higher and integrate teaching outreach in all academic programmes. In short, universities should applaud and facilitate the entanglement of teacher education and academic practice throughout the research and education ecosystem.

How can a research university help empower teachers?

The most obvious way is by promoting and supporting the participation of academics in CPD activities for practising teachers. School teachers should be invited for regular update sessions in the disciplines they graduated in, before they started their teaching careers. These sessions should be open discussions with academics active in the discipline, not (or not only) with people in charge of CPD who are not working within the discipline. It is essential that teachers feel they are still part of the academic community from which they received their degree.

And what can you do to make teaching more attractive as a career?

Much depends on local circumstances: teacher education is organised very differently from one region or country to the next. But in general, universities can promote alternative teaching careers, such as retraining as a teacher after time spent in another profession, and help to reopen teaching career paths rarely followed of late.

Which career paths are you thinking of?

A couple of decades ago, it was not unusual for people with PhDs to take up teaching in secondary education. Today, this happens much less frequently, even though the number of PhDs has increased dramatically and only a minority remain in academia. Doctoral training programmes increasingly reflect this by introducing alternative training modules fostering transferable skills, and teacher education should be an obvious addition to this. If the population of teachers in the future were to consist of a healthy mix of career teachers, PhDs and professionals turning to teaching later in life, the teaching community as a whole would benefit, and so would pupils.

How can you convince a graduate who loves their subject that teaching is not a waste of time?

One answer is by asking them to translate their master's thesis research in such a way that it can travel to the pre-university classroom. This will certainly take time, but it will not be wasted, as it generates an understanding of the subject often never reached by academics who remain within the relatively safe bubble of their discipline. And graduates who love their subject will surely come to love aspects of it they didn’t realise were there. Another, complementary answer is to encourage dialogue between graduate students and inspiring pre-university teachers. Break down the walls.

Read the LERU paper 'Tomorrow's Teachers Today: What Universities Can Do for the Teaching Profession'.

Ortwin de Graef is Professor of Literature and Director of the Doctoral School of Humanities and Social Sciences at KU Leuven.

©LERU: Text by Ian Mundell. Picture by KU Leuven/Rob Stevens.