Train Scottish teachers or educate them? The answer matters

Teachers aren’t robots. Experts have told me at every turn that the success of any reform agenda depends on empowering classroom teachers to grow and adapt, rather than prepping them to execute a script.

In my recent conversation with Professors Chris Chapman and Graham Donaldson, two University of Glasgow researchers, former teachers, and authors of ‘Where Next for Scottish Education: Leading from the Classroom’, one comment caught my attention.

“We need to move from talking about ‘teacher training’ to ‘teacher education’”, Professor Donaldson said.

“Teacher training is based on an assumption that we have something specific that we want, so now we need to train teachers to do it. We’re now talking about having teachers who themselves are growing professionally and taking responsibility, to engage with each other and external evidence to grow throughout their career.”

University of Glasgow Professor Graham Donaldson believes teachers can drive education reform. They just need to be allowed to unleash their potential. (Image: Graham Donaldson)
This idea that a shift in vocabulary can trigger a cultural change is not a new one.

When I spoke with Professor Louise Hayward in the early days of her review of Scottish qualifications, we discussed something similar.

We need to stop saying “training” when talking about certain technical qualifications and courses, she said. The word wrongly implies a lower tier of achievement, something separate from “real” classroom learning.

Instead, we need to talk about them as equally valid education. Doing so could be an essential step in giving equal weight to all types of student achievement.

Moving away from “teacher training” and toward “teacher education” is key to Prof Chapman and Donaldson’s vision for putting teachers at the heart of Scottish education reform.

Professors Chapman and Donaldson believe Professor Hayward’s and other national reviews have done well in engaging with teachers. 

But putting teachers at the heart of reform is about more than just listening to them, Professor Donaldson said. Teachers need to be treated as capable of implementing reform and adapting to shifting circumstances, rather than robots at the very end of a long chain of command.

“The kind of things that we are proposing are only possible because we have a very good teaching force in Scotland,” he said.

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“We have highly professional teachers, and now we need to create a context within which we can capitalise on the potential that is there.

“We are very conscious that we are suggesting something that is potentially quite revolutionary in the way the Scottish education system operates. But our judgment is, that’s what’s needed.”

The type of shift that Professors Chapman and Donaldson described to me can take shape in a number of ways, but Professor Chapman emphasised that it won't be easy and is about much more than foisting more professional development seminars on teachers.

“This isn’t an add-on, another thing to tick off the list. This is about rethinking the way that we do things.

“If you only train someone to do something specific, they can't always adapt and flex and learn as things change.”

Instead, teachers need natural opportunities to collaborate and to engage with research and evidence from outside the walls of their school. And they need to be empowered to recognise and react to the needs of their unique classroom contexts, Prof Chapman argues.

University of Glasgow Professor Chris Chapman argues that leaders need to be more courageous about supporting and empowering teachers in Scotland. (Image: Chris Chapman)
“This is not a one-size-fits-all model. Almost everything works somewhere, some of the time. We need to have a really detailed understanding of our individual classroom contexts, and the individual social interactions between teachers and children.”

That’s why teachers need to be given the freedom to take the lead and be responsible for rolling out reform locally, Prof Donaldson said.

“They need the skill and capacity to look at the evidence of what works elsewhere but relate that to their children and the very wide range of needs that they have in front of them.

“It’s about building well-rounded individuals rather than training somebody to just do something specific.”

Both professors feel that there is some hope in the idea of a Centre for Teaching Excellence, as recently proposed by Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth. Although we are still waiting on details for how this will function (and a lot more), Professor Donaldson believes the concept is a step in the right direction.

He suggests, however, bringing the idea closer to the classroom.

“A counterpoint would be having local learning hubs. Having mechanisms that bring together teachers across relatively small areas and engage with ideas from the Centre for Teaching Excellence in the context of their schools.”

Beyond all the talk of professional learning and increased autonomy for teachers, another theme formed the backbone of our conversation: Teachers need more protection at the most basic level.

And yet, teachers and the support systems around them are currently at risk across the country, as budget deficits force local authorities to take a hard look at their priorities.

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In Glasgow, 450 teaching posts are to be cut over the next three years. In Aberdeenshire, experts tell us that cuts to in-school speech therapy services threaten to add to teachers’ already strained workloads. And ongoing behavioural issues across the country – exacerbated by underfunding for additional learning support and budget cuts (see above) – continue to drive qualified teachers away from the classroom.

All this flies in the face of what evidence tells us we should be doing with our money, Professor Chapman said.

“Investment in professional learning has twice the effect on student learning than any other leadership activity. It’s at this exact time that we should be concentrating the limited resources that we have in our teachers and investing in our teachers.

“This takes quite courageous political and professional leadership, and it's about bringing those two communities together.”

Because if teachers aren’t robots, neither are they lambs that we should drag to the altar when money gets tight.