By Stephanie Gottlieb

During the first session of the teachers' reading club at the Luiz Freire Center in 1992, excitement and apprehension gingerly mixed in the air. Each teacher awaited a turn to read a page aloud and then pass the book to the next. The aim was to enrich their skills through group readings of the classics of educational theory, Piaget, Montessori and others. Although the texts were certifiably dense, the challenge seemed achievable, with the teachers' support of each other and the help of the staff at Luiz Freire.

But as soon as the first teacher began to read, it became apparent that not only were the theories difficult to decipher, but the act of reading itself was a formidable task. At first the teachers were embarrassed by their poor skills, but soon they found a degree of comfort in knowing that they were not alone. For most, their own educational experiences had fallen short. They had learned basic literacy and math, but school had not nurtured or empowered them. They associated their own scholastic careers with frustration and thus avoided activities like reading simple novels. What began as a reading club became a cathartic outpouring of their painful experiences as students.

Statistics illustrate these teachers' experiences on a broader scale. In the 1980's, only 55 to 58 percent of elementary students in Brazil were promoted to the next grade. Repetition rates were between 35 and 38 percent, while drop-out rates fluctuated between 6 and 8 percent¹. Such figures draw a picture of the educational experiences of those tenacious students who manage to complete their schooling despite the odds.

More Schools Need More (and Better) Teachers

Brazil's national government, together with international development agencies, has devoted a considerable amount of effort (and money) to improving the educational system with a sharp focus on literacy, a primary indicator of a country's development. As a result, access to primary education has drastically increased. From 1970 to 1994, enrollment of children between the ages of 7 and 14 increased from 67 percent to 96 percent. Primary school graduation rates doubled between 1980 and 1994, to 24 percent². Much of these improvements were due to a proliferation of schools – indisputably a good thing.

But the increase in the demand for teachers brought with it an inevitable decline in standards.

The teachers flowing into today's rapid expansion in the school system are products of yesterday's problematic schools, in which the average pupil took 12.2 years to complete nine years of schooling. Because star pupils in developing countries tend to make the most of the business opportunities their countries' development has created, the sad fact is that these teachers were often students who did not perform sufficiently well to go into law, medicine or engineering.

Their educational experiences have been characterized by failure and repetition. The result is far from being a love of learning; school was something they had to endure. And now society expects them to engage their students in learning so much more than they themselves ever absorbed. What are the chances that students will develop a love for literature if they are taught by people who have difficulty reading simple novels? Or become interested in their national history if their teachers have never visited nearby historical sites?

'Competency' – A Euphemism for 'Mediocrity'?

Britain has adopted a model of teacher training in which teacher-trainees must master no fewer than 90 separate "competencies" during their training. The Brazilian Ministry of Education took a similar path by instituting National Core Curriculum Standards, among other steps. In one of its first moves, the Ministry sent each of 600,000 teachers 10 books explaining the new standards and how to teach them. But how helpful will these reference books be to teachers like those in the Luiz Friere reading circle?

These programs place sole emphasis on facts to be memorized, and nothing on how to teach them in an engaging way. In reducing learning to memorization, such education fails to promote the ability to think analytically, to understand, to apply one's knowledge to the world, to seek knowledge throughout life.

Jude Collins, professor of teacher training at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, says the problem with competency-based curriculums is that "learning becomes a matter of being able to perform certain tasks efficiently, and so does teaching. And the importance of looking at a wider horizon – the relationship between what's being taught and social matters, political matters, matters of value and worth – become not just beside the point, but not even thought about."

In order to engage students in learning, the teachers themselves must be engaged in learning.

In short, these attempts to improve education fall short because they fail to see teachers as individuals, fail to provide experiences that make teachers eager consumers of culture, and thus cultural emissaries to their students. In Collins's words, "The term 'competency' stinks of a devotion to the mediocre, to the functional." Teachers need more than rote technique; they need to fundamentally understand and appreciate the subjects they are teaching, and how they are related to the world around them.

Three Programs That Work

Enter the social entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurs distinguish themselves by lending a different perspective to chronic problems. Where a society has reached a consensus that education must improve, social entrepreneurs excel in innovative answers to "how to" questions.

This issue of the Changemakers.net journal examines three programs that create new paradigms in teacher training. They have realized that the role of being a teacher involves much more than imparting facts. Successful teachers do more than teach their students how to read, to solve math problems, to memorize historical facts. Rather, they instill a life-long love of learning and an irrevocable quest for knowledge.

Just as good teaching is a rather elusive principle, so is teacher training. National educational standards, increases in teachers salaries and more training in technique – these steps fail to address the teachers' core need: to be well rounded individuals who seek out knowledge to understand the world around them.

Answering the 'How to' Question

What began as a reading club in Recife, Brazil, has become a multi-faceted learning experience for close to 3,000 educators in 865 schools. The participants still celebrate the first "big book" (i.e., novel) that a group completes, but the program is not limited to reading. Through learning more about the teachers' lives and challenges, staff members have been able to nurture other aspects of the participants' personas. Teachers go on field trips to nearby historical sites; they ask artists to explain their work while giving a tour of a local museum; they go backstage before a play and learn about the genesis of a theatrical work. The predictable by-product is a enthusiasm that the teachers cannot help but impart to their students.

Also in Brazil, Silvia Caravalho is working with pre-school teachers. A traditionally neglected area, their training has focused on basic child care, with no attention paid to early childhood development. Now she uses the arts extensively to stimulate the teacher-trainees and expose them to a side of culture that had previously been a mystery to most.

Silvia has also altered the training syllabus to include self-reflection as a principle ingredient. Rather than just being lectured for hours on didactics, teachers-in-training are taught how to learn from their classroom experiences, to discuss problems and brainstorm solutions with colleagues.

Our third article comes from South Africa, where Cynthia Mpati has developed a correspondence course that provides rural teachers, a previously unserved sector, with access to quality professional development. South Africa has relatively high illiteracy (estimated at 15 million adults,³), and suffers many problems similar to Brazil's in terms of teaching efficacy. A great number of teachers lack certification and, historically, school administrators took advantage of them. Cynthia has been able to empower teachers through periodic on-site trainings in her center, together with the ongoing correspondence learning.

There appears to be no better way to invest in a country's future than by improving education, the heart of development. Unfortunately, reform programs generally fall short because they fail to address effectively the most important component of education – the human factor. The adage holds true: Better teachers make better students. The three programs profiled here realize that making better teachers requires more than training them in "competencies."

Rather, teacher training needs to develop teachers as thinking individuals who appreciate the world around them. Only then can they pass on a love of learning to their students.

¹ Ministry of Education and Culture/INEP/SEEC Statistics,
as presented in Minister Paulo Renato Souza's IADB Seminar,
November 13, 1997.  back

² ibid.  back

³ Reuters News Wire, June 12, 1998.  back

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