Some%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Aspects%20of%20Multigrade%20Education:%20Teacher - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Some%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Aspects%20of%20Multigrade%20Education:%20Teacher

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Title: Some%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Aspects%20of%20Multigrade%20Education:%20Teacher


1
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Some Social and Cultural Aspects of Multigrade
Education Teachers possible innovative
leadership roles in small rural schools (The
example of Greece)
  • Pavlos Koulouris, pkoulouris_at_ea.gr
  • Ellinogermaniki Agogi
  • Athens, Greece
  • NEMED Conference MULTIGRADE EDUCATION PAST,
    PRESENT, FUTURE?
  • University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania
  • 18 September 2007

3
Remote multigrade schools in Greece valuable
service to the nation
  • Abundance of remote and less accessible
    mountainous and insular areas
  • Small rural schools fulfilling a crucial
    function
  • Providing the children of these areas with the
    access to education which all children of Greece
    are entitled to.
  • Thus keeping small remote and aging communities
    alive.

4
Facing problems and dangers
  • Consequences of a widening rural-urban divide
  • urbanisation tendencies
  • abandonment of the countryside by younger
    generations (brain drain)
  • digital divide, disadvantage in the access to
    services and opportunities of the contemporary
    Information Society

? ? ? ? ?
5
Multigrade schools more challenges
  • Significant challenges of the multigrade
    classroom
  • Insufficient initial professional training
  • Inexperienced, newly-appointed teachers
    (typically)

??????????
6
Teachers need for professional development
  • To acquire knowledge and skills
  • To develop personal competences falling beyond
    the established teacher training curricula.

?? ? ? ? ? ?
7
Teachers need for professional development
  • Not easy to offer conventional professional
    development provision (in-service training
    seminars)
  • Distance
  • Costs
  • Lack of substitute teachers

?? ? ? ? ? ?
8
Our background
  • Projects addressing the needs of the small rural
    schools, tackling their isolation and bridging
    the digital divide

9
Our response to the challenges
  • Efforts to alleviate the isolation of teachers
  • Our main tool
  • Provision of distance training, support and
    networking through ICT

?
?? ? ? ? ? ?
10
Our focus here
  • New leadership roles teachers can take in such
    schools, as investigated in the projects NEMED
    and RURAL WINGS

11
Inviting the teacher to work with, and for, the
local community
?? ????
12
Linkages between the community and the school
  • Miller (1995)
  • We should build and sustain strong linkages
    between the community and the school
  • Rural communities may have a head start in
    developing these linkages
  • schools have traditionally played a central role
    in the life of the communities

? ?? ?
13
Rural schools promoting personal and community
development
  • Diverse roles that the remote rural school can
    play
  • recorded in the literature

14
Diverse school roles
  • Salant Waller (1998)
  • non-educational impact of schools on rural
    communities
  • multi-faceted school-community relationship
  • positive economic and social impacts
  • a resource for community development
  • offering a delivery point for social services.

15
Links between education and rural development
  • Educational attainment is seen as a rural
    development strategy through which a better
    educated rural population leads to greater
    economic growth
  • Barkley, Henry, Haizhen, 2005 Beaulieu
    Gibbs, 2005

16
Links between education and rural development
  • Recent studies in the USA
  • more rapid earnings and income growth in rural
    counties with high educational levels
  • improving local schools can reverse the tendency
    of loss of young adults through outmigration
    (rural brain drain)

?? ? ?
? ? ? ? ?
17
Community development not only economic
  • Economic well-being
  • Social well-being
  • Environmental well-being

18
Social capital a crucial concept
  • Social capital
  • social organization and resources embedded in the
    social structure of the rural communities, which
    can facilitate coordination and cooperation for
    mutual benefit, and thus community development.

?????
19
Social capital a crucial concept
  • Woodhouse (2006)
  • Social capital exerts a positive causal influence
    on economic development.

? ?
?????
20
Social capital a crucial concept
  • Miller (1995)
  • The school is an important element in the
    creation of communitys social capital.

? ?
?????
21
This remains a challenge
  • A strong school-community partnership remains a
    major challenge
  • this is not generally viewed as a traditional
    element of schooling
  • Approaches are needed that cross the boundaries
    traditionally separating the community as a place
    of learning from the school

22
Community-based learning
  • Miller (1995)
  • Teachers working in partnership with local
    leaders and residents
  • Giving students meaningful opportunities to
    engage in community-based learning that serves
    the needs of both the community and the students.

23
Three approaches (Miller, 1995)
  • The school as a community centre
  • The community as curriculum
  • School-based enterprise

24
Three approaches (Miller, 1995)
  • 1) The school as a community centre
  • a resource for lifelong learning
  • a vehicle for the delivery of a wide range of
    services
  • school resources (facilities, technology,
    well-educated staff) can provide educational and
    retraining opportunities for the community.

25
Three approaches (Miller, 1995)
  • 2) The community as curriculum
  • Study of the community in its various dimensions.
  • Students generate information for community
    development
  • conducting needs assessments
  • studying and monitoring environmental and
    land-use patterns
  • documenting local history through interviews and
    photo essays.

26
Three approaches (Miller, 1995)
  • 3) School-based enterprise
  • Developing entrepreneurial skills
  • Students not only identify potential service
    needs in their rural communities, but actually
    establish a business to address those needs.

27
Inviting the teacher to become a change agent in
the community
  • He/she will catalyse innovation and development
    in the school and the local community
  • He/she will turn the declining school into a
    lively node supporting lifelong learning for
    everyone
  • The rural school will become more responsive to
    the growth and survival needs of its community
  • Education will develop responsible citizens and
    create opportunities for tomorrow's rural leaders
    to emerge

28
Being inspiredConvincing and leading the others
  • ?

??
??
? ?
??
29
The change agent
  • Challenges the status quo by comparing it to an
    ideal or a vision of change
  • Accepts, communicates and defends the need for
    change
  • Defines and initiates change
  • Translates the vision into the context of a
    specific change initiative
  • Causes crisis in order to support dramatic
    actions and change efforts
  • Leads and manages change
  • Understands the cultural dynamics

30
The case of satellite broadband internet
  • Satellite broadband connectivity is made
    available to the school
  • The teacher is encouraged to
  • turn it into advantage and opportunity for all
  • promote the development of a new culture among
    local citizens

31
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Teachers multiple roles
  • Typically, the teacher is already
  • acting as the head of the small school
  • considered a prominent member of the isolated
    community

33
Additional leadership roles
  • Manager of change in an informal local reform

34
Additional leadership roles
  • Instructional leader exploring new ways to
    improve the quality of teaching and learning

35
Additional leadership roles
  • Developer of links and synergies between the
    school, the community and other schools in the
    area

36
Additional leadership roles
  • Facilitator of communities of learning in,
    around, and outside, the school

37
Additional leadership roles
  • Former and implementer of innovation matching
    local needs

38
Questions arising
  • Obvious need for corresponding professional
    development
  • Which form?
  • What content precisely?
  • Which competences?

39
Possible professional development content
  • Pedagogies specifically adaptable to the
    unusual settings of the small rural school
  • Solutions and opportunities of the Information
    Society
  • Innovation
  • Change management
  • Local and rural community development, etc.

40
Questions arising
  • Possible conflicts within a highly centralized
    educational system

41
Possible conflicts
  • The teacher in this context is encouraged to
    initiate and implement an informal local
    educational reform
  • Little decentralisation and autonomy of school
    units is encouraged by the system
  • This discrepancy may be a source of interpersonal
    and interinstitutional tension
  • Even in the intrapersonal level
  • internal conflicts between the teachers
    formal/recognised and informal/self-initiated
    leadership roles.

42
Possible conflicts
  • Even in the intrapersonal level
  • internal conflicts between
  • the teachers formal/recognised roles
  • and
  • informal/self-initiated leadership roles.

43
  • Barkley, D, Henry, M, L Haizhen (2005). Does
    Human Capital Affect Rural Growth? Evidence from
    the South. In Beaulieu, L J, R Gibbs (eds),
    The Role of Education Promoting the Economic and
    Social Vitality of Rural America. Southern Rural
    Development Center and USDA, Economic Research
    Service.
  • Beaulieu, L J, R Gibbs (eds) (2005). The Role
    of Education Promoting the Economic and Social
    Vitality of Rural America. Southern Rural
    Development Center and USDA, Economic Research
    Service.
  • Miller, B (1995). The role of rural schools in
    community development Policy issues and
    implications. Journal of Research in Rural
    Education, 11, 3, 163-172.
  • Salant, P, A Waller (1998). What Difference Do
    Local Schools Make? A Literature Review and
    Bibliography. Annenberg Rural Challenge Policy
    Program, The Rural School and Community Trust.
  • Woodhouse, A (2006). Social capital and economic
    development in regional Australia A case study.
    Journal of Rural Studies, 22, 8394.
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