Jacqueline Blaak

· 15 Mar 2020

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Towards new foundations in education.

The teacher shortage, the educational strikes, home seaters, lack of appropriate education, unmotivated pupils and warring parents and the large offer to teach online lessons are all symptoms of an education system that turns against us from my perspective.

It #coronavirus is the “silent shifter “and accelerates the viscous discussions in education, in this change of the era.

Closing schools means slowing down, thinking, working together, making creative and out of the box choices in what really is of value. Show leadership.

By closing schools, the system can be reset; what keeps education, what does education say goodbye to, and what needs to be built new in line with the context?

From my perspective, closing education has the following effects:

1. Parents are again given the task of taking on part of their child's development. More involvement with their child. Consequent: insight into the learning and personal development of the child. Respect for the teacher's expertise is created, lack of social contacts with peers, thereby increasing the desire for school to reopen.

2. Students receive online lessons. Consequence; Develop discipline, responsibility for own learning process. Students can take lessons at their own pace and choose to repeat instruction. This creates personal development routes, one child learns easier and faster than another. One has more prior knowledge than the other. Missing social contacts and personal development due to lack of coaches. For young children, more attention is paid to playing learning and biological development and more intensive connection with parents. For a part of the parents, it means stress, due to lack of resources or education. They now feel the urgency to move themselves and to stop adopting a dependent attitude.

3. Teachers are mainly confronted with their own values, standards, knowledge, skills and competences. What about their own digital skills, their presentation skills, their human image and their apprenticeship? How can they do justice to the personal development routes of pupils?
Consequent; fight to daring with yourself, develop yourself personally. Do you see man or student as a subject
- that constantly “comes into the world. “
- is guided by values and norms, knowledge brought to the table by the teacher or coach (including parents).
- is responsible for own development in relation to others.
-contributes to the further development of the environment and the world.

Or do you not see that (yet)?

4. Leadership is now expected from school leaders and administrations and politics, but can they and are they? Or are many of the current leaders actually managers?
Leaders take the lead, often see opportunities where others don't see. Thinking out of the box A born leader knows how to steer things that aren't there yet. He/she is visionary, thinks ahead, anticipates the future. Moreover, a leader knows how to involve people in it, to take them into the process. He/she lets them participate, gives them a role, trust and is clear what is expected of them. Leaders usually force respect and radiate a certain power of persuasion.

A manager controls the existing situation that is actually already present
Managers build on something
Managers are more indirect in their style of leadership
Managers are more strategic (based on ratio)
Managers follow their minds more
Managers achieve results by focusing on objectives, appointments and procedures.

Both types of people or sometimes it is necessary to be one person in education. It is now about the informal and formal leaders and managers who will use each other's talents and work together. Ignoring pride, egos and titles, but looking at the talents of the people.

5. When all schools open again, nothing is as it was.

Exams are resisted. It is possible to change to customized diplomas, holidays will be planned differently, school hours will be extended to make up for apprenticeship. Teachers have gone through a development, positive or negative. Human images and apprentice images are different. Values have been restored or reformulated. Autonomy is strengthened, relationships are weakened and competences will be strengthened in one and the other weakened, resulting in greater differences between pupils when they enter the school again.

In order to continue education, this means changes in the education system, new foundations on which we can build. That takes courage and courage not to fall back into the old. Grab opportunities.
From my point of view, this can only be done from a more developmental and less result-oriented approach to the system, the teacher and the student.