The Good School
<<< Back Article by Sven Cederberg The good school ... has the curriculum, the organization, and the working methods that make up a learning environment where the individual student is given the opportunity to fulfil her individual goals. The good school ... has a curriculum that is goal-referenced, clear-cut, and brief. The good school ... is continuously striving for decentralization and seeking the optimal organization. The good school ... is continuously questioning its working methods, and has the ability of renewal.
In the good school the individual needs of the student make up the working platform
This means that the student is ...   assisted in setting her own realistic goals allowed to start at the right level given reasonable time to succeed given guidance and positive feedback provided with the right learning materials It ought to be obvious that each and every student should be allowed to work towards clear, concrete, and realistic goals. The observant teacher helps her readjust goals when necessary. Placing a student at the wrong level is not only gross irresponsibility with funding, but also profoundly depraving for the student. Reliable placement tests and interviews should be used. The individual time factor is often overlooked when planning a course. There are great differences between students, and their overall situation must be taken into account. Adult students often take on too many courses at the same time, usually for economic reasons. They need help to set realistic goals. A continual dialogue between tutor and student is the key to good guidance and evaluation. Learner autonomy must not be interpreted as shifting all the responsibility to the student, and leaving them alone to "seek their own knowledge". They need continual guidance and their progress will benefit from continual positive feedback. Selecting the right learning materials must be based on individualization, and should be done in student tutor co-operation.
In the good school everybody understands the importance of interpretation and concretion of goals
A very good textbook may do part of the job for you, but such gems are rare. It is unbelievable that so many educators rely indiscriminately on textbooks not only to interpret curriculum or syllabus goals, but also to plan the whole course for them. Few textbooks allow for individualization and across-the-curriculum studies. If we fail to make our goals concrete, how can we plan for and reach them?
In the good school everybody understands the importance of planning
Planning is by far the best way of spending valuable time. In a school striving for individualization and self-pace studies the students must be included in the process. Generally speaking too little time seems to be set aside for planning, and it is rather unusual with real student participation. This seems to go hand in hand with the fact that few schools manage to realize individualization even if they have it on their agenda.
In the good school everybody understands the value of evaluation
Evaluation is difficult, but together with the concretion of goals and planning it makes up three basic cornerstones in the house of learning. Sometimes external professional help is needed, but the platform must be continuous evaluation in the classroom. In most schools evaluation doesn't seem to be part of normal classroom work. It is rather seen as something 'extra'. Evaluation should be seen as part of the student's learning process. If students learn to evaluate their work continuously progress is speeded up.
In the good school everybody understands that its most important resource in research and development is the fact that teachers must have the time, the will and the energy to reflect upon, follow up, and evaluate their classroom work
For pedagogical ideas to be worth the paper they are drafted on, they must be scrutinized in the interface between tutor and student. Ambitious headmasters send their teachers to interesting seminars without realizing that this may do more harm than good. Many teachers are so overloaded with work that they only get frustrated when they see the potential of new ideas and realize that they don't have the time or energy to try them in their classroom. Computers, data bases and teamwork over the net will help taking some of the burden off their shoulders, and in the good school also the principal understands this.
In the good school everybody readily takes in new ideas and tries new methods
Obviously this doesn't work if there is no time set aside for reflection and no funding for research and development. Creating an atmosphere of entrepreneurship is one of the principal's main tasks.
In the good school there is competent pedagogical leadership with time to take active part in the development of working models
The pedagogical role and responsibility of headmasters must be clearly phrased in curricula and other guiding documents. From experience, however, we know that principals are overburdened with funding and other practical problems, and rarely take active part in the development of pedagogical models. Pedagogical leadership is therefore usually delegated to heads of departments. This means that nobody takes responsibility for the general goals of the curriculum, and also across-the-curriculum activities suffer.
In the good school the teachers are not lecturers but planners, models, and mentors
The role of the teacher, as well as that of the student, is changing - due to emerging school democracy, a spreading debate, and also due to the rapid development of information technology. The process is still slow but it is gaining momentum. Unfortunately it is not simply a question of in-service training but actually retraining. Traditional classroom lecturing is still the fashion in a vast majority of schools around the globe. Teachers still lock the classroom door behind them, and probably resort to Lipsky's survival strategies. Few teachers are prepared to let the students participate in planning and evaluation. The greatest challenge for educational institutions on the eve of the twenty-first century is to retrain their staff. Far more money is spent on technology than on actually teaching the staff to use it.
In the good school the teachers are trained to understand how their students think, and how learning strategies develop
Traditional teacher training does not lay adequate stress on the function of the brain, the development of learning strategies, and it doesn't really prepare the teacher-to-be for the role of guiding the student through the development of individual strategies in her learning process. A good way of coming to terms with the problem is to arrange teacher in-service training (retraining) as distance education. The teacher will then have to assume the role of the autonomous student. She keeps a diary of her thoughts and experience of the development of her own learning strategies. In an on-line forum she discusses all this with her colleagues and a professional researcher in the field.
In the good school the students learn to be independent and creative individuals, thirsting for and seeking knowledge
We know from experience that upper secondary school students are not particularly autonomous. They like the freedom, but they usually can't take the responsibility that is required to work independently. Therefore autonomy must be part of the learning process, and one of the major general goals of education.
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