Teacher Care, A Fulcrum for Excellent and Equitable Education
- mbrant2
- Jun 26
- 17 min read
Updated: Jun 27
Abstract: Institutional education policies and reforms come, go, and change, yet the teacher’s societal role transcends these phases. Teachers shape and influence lives in whatever regime or time they happen to be. The main objective of this study is to present that the teacher is the one constant, necessary but not sufficient element in the educational process. For teachers to deliver excellent performance, with equity, in the classroom, they must receive sufficient, excellent treatment with equity in their roles in society. Basically, they cannot be expected to give what they do not receive. If the levels of social recognition, economic compensation, opportunity for professional development, and social mobility are low for the teaching profession, the output of these teachers could logically be expected to reflect their input. Some cultures and countries highly esteem the role of the teacher, supporting their view with salaries and opportunities to match, for example, Singapore and Scandinavia. The outcomes are observed in the quality of life in those societies. In short, if the teachers are treated with esteem and equity in the society, they will more naturally deliver that to their students, creating an upward, self-perpetuating cycle.
Again, the aforementioned condition is necessary, but not sufficient to provide excellent and equitable education opportunities for students. Society must be excellent and equitable. Policies to support underprivileged and underrepresented groups of students are also necessary. Looking toward a long term solution to our dilemma, the possibility that our future national and global policy makers will be ethically and intellectually equipped to make such decisions concerning equity depends upon the quality of education they receive from the well-cared-for teachers of today in a society that provides equitable opportunity to all. At some point, there must be a bend in the road for there to be a change of direction. The prioritization of the care of our teachers now may be that point.
The perspective of this study is local in that we study individual countries’ situations, and then step back to compare these countries and regions, globally. The perspective of the study touches on both the social and economic facets of life, as well as the effect of equitable education on these. The lens of educational philosophy through which we look is social constructivist in that we observe the interaction of the governmental, business, and private sectors of society with the education system and how this interaction affects the quality of education. Methods of inquiry are both quantitative and qualitative, including UNESCO and World Bank statistics, surveys, and a broad review of literature. Data resources also include academic journal articles taken from EBSCO, JStore, and Questia.
The conclusion of the study aims to prove that what we put into our education system in the way of teacher support will be equivalent to the output in excellent and equitable education for the students. The significance of this study is the potential societal paradigm shift which could come about by moving the pivotal fulcrum of socioeconomic balance even slightly in favor of our teachers.
Key Words: role, society, recognition, compensation, development, security, autonomy, trust.
The Needs of the Teacher: Evolving and Changing Concepts of Pedagogy, but Teachers Remain the Common Denominator
Throughout history, we can follow trends and schools of thought on how to teach effectively: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle; Rome; St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, the Renaissance, Cambridge,
Oxford, Harvard, Horace Mann, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Paolo Freire…and this limited list mentions only people, places, or times from the Western world. In each context, a common thread was the need for inspired teachers, motivated to teach, who could inspire and motivate their students to even surpass them. What helped the teachers to become good teachers? In this paper, we explore several aspects of teachers’ needs and possible ways to satisfy those needs, in order to help teachers achieve their maximum performance. We will examine:
Inspiration and Motivation
Compensation and Stability
Preparation & Ongoing Development
Recognition and Advancement
These four domains fit within Abraham Maslow’s pyramidal taxonomy of human needs, compensation corresponding to physiological needs, and stability (as in job stability) corresponding to safety. “There are at least five sets of goals which we may call basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self actualization. In addition, we are motivated by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires” (Maslow, 2000, p. 3). As we can see, these various needs are interrelated.
Inspiration and Motivation
What motivated these aforementioned teachers or any good teacher? An inner force, a vision, love of knowledge, love of God and man? These correspond to some of the higher levels of Maslow’s pyramid of human psychological development. As we know, not all people ascend to the highest levels,
perhaps few, in comparison to all the people there are. Not all, if any, teachers attain to or maintain those high ideals in their day to day, often tedious task of teaching. Some days yes, some days no, depending on many other factors in their lives. Compared to the huge amount of teachers needed to teach each upcoming generation, how many could we speculate, are happy and motivated to do their job well, day by day? We must ask what can be done to help these teachers maintain their motivation and inspiration. Vision to see ahead and realize that what one does today will contribute to a better tomorrow drives some people to accomplishment. Conferences, networks, and support groups, can help to maintain that vision. Vision is an important ingredient that can ignite motivation. When teachers see that their work can contribute to making a better society, they find motivation for their often sacrificial work. We will examine methods to impart and keep fresh, this vision.
Preparation and Ongoing Development
In order to put vision and ideals into practice, teachers need good job preparation. The foundation for a teacher’s preparation is usually found in their teachers’ university training (normal university), but it cannot stop there or the teacher will be left behind by the ever advancing new trends and technology of the education profession. Training must be ongoing, which allows an opportunity to keep the vision and motivation renewed and refreshed.
One contributing factor to motivation, besides vision and idealism is having the confidence that one can achieve the goal, which we could connect to preparedness and training. Andrew Elliot and Carol Dweck report, “A motivational analysis of competence must account for the ways in which individuals' behavior is energized (instigated, activated) and directed (focused, aimed). Our analysis of the energization of
competence relevant behavior is grounded in the premise that competence is an inherent psychological need of the human being. That is, in keeping with several theorists (Deci & Ryan, 1990; Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Elliot, McGregor, & Thrash, 2002; Skinner, 1995; see also White, 1959), we view the need for competence as a fundamental motivation that serves the evolutionary role of helping people develop and adapt to their environment.1 This need for competence instigates and activates behavior that is oriented toward competence” (Elliot, Dweck, 2005). They go on to explain that competence based motivation enhances inner well-being because of the satisfaction of accomplishment, producing joy, pride, and self-esteem. When a person feels incompetent and therefore prone to poor performance or failure, motivation can take a drastic dive. “…competence motivation has a substantial impact on emotion and well-being. The affective reactions people have in response to positive and negative outcomes in competence-relevant settings clearly reflect an investment in attaining competence and avoiding incompetence. Not surprisingly, positive outcomes typically lead to affects such as joy, pride, and happiness, whereas negative outcomes lead to affects such as sadness, shame, and anxiety” [Heckhausen, 1984; Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan, 1992; Stipek, Recchia, & McClintic, 1992, (as cited in Elliot, Dweck, 2005)].
An anecdote serves to illustrate the point. Michaelangelo took a stroll, passing by a rock quarry in Italy, and saw a block of marble which had been discarded by several other sculptors, and laid there for several years. He stopped and contemplated on the rock for a long time until finally, an accompanying friend asked him, puzzled, what he was looking at. The artist replied that he could see an angel trapped in the stone, and that he was determined to free it, which he did. The result was the famous statue of David. The problem was that the grains of the marble were very twisted and gnarled.
Others saw this as a problem, but Michelangelo recognized in those difficulties, a unique opportunity. He obviously possessed outstanding talent and preparation, but he applied that to inspiration. The result is still marveled at by thousands, even millions each year. How many students might seem like gnarled, unmanageable raw material to some of our teachers? Both training and visionary motivation are necessary to free the angel inside of each one.
Compensation and Job Stability
When inspiration and idealism wane, compensation can blow wind into the lilting sails. Teachers, like all other citizens of society, have material needs for both themselves and their families. If the teachers’ job is poorly paid, they will be fighting an uphill battle, become discouraged and seek other, better paid professions. We will examine a variety of examples, from the lowest paid to the highest, to compare the results which compensation helps to influence. Closely linked to compensation is job stability. Some countries provide both a high compensation and great job stability for their teachers, and the result is a highly effective teaching force and top ratings in PISA or other measuring instruments of educational system effectiveness. When teachers’ salaries and school funding are dependent upon standardized test scores it is easy for a “teach to the test” mentality to set in.
An economic gun is put to the heads of the educators, in some cases, by beaurocrats not very in touch with the classroom. Sahlberg, one of the main engineers of the highly successful Finnish education reform, proposed that testing should be a part of the education process, but not affect teachers’ salaries or school funding. He also observed that more testing leads to less learning, advocating that the best assessments can be made by the teachers in the classroom (Sahlberg, 2011, as cited in Kager, 2013). This insight also invests trust in the teachers as professionals in their field.
Compensation, although at a lower level on Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, directly affects the higher level of inspiration, idealism, and altruism. Maslow explains, “These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency. This means that the most prepotent goal will monopolize consciousness and will tend of itself to organize the recruitment of the various capacities of the organism. The less prepotent needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied. But when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent (“higher”) need emerges, in turn to dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since gratified needs are not active motivators (Maslow, 2000, p. 3)”. If a teacher is poorly paid and cannot meet the needs of his or her family, of course those concerns will interfere with, if not completely override whatever idealism the teacher might have in teaching the students.
Recognition and Advancement
Everyone needs to be recognized as a valuable part of his or her society. This also is illustrated in Maslow’s pyramid: the need to be appreciated as a contributor to society. When teachers are valued they can more readily respond with high performance. Singapore and Finland are prime examples of teachers being highly valued, but this recognition goes beyond words. In Singapore, teachers are among the highest paid professionals. In Singapore, the teaching job is so highly esteemed, even coveted, that it is difficult to enter the normal university and once the training is finished, because the job is one of the most highly paid, it is also highly respected. Teachers are much respected because people know that not everyone can qualify for that job, and salaries reflect that. Opportunities for advancement are built into the system, so the job is not a stagnant or boring occupation. The result is a high level of education for Singapore. “The quality of the teaching profession is the focus and result of the coherent, systemic education policy in Singapore. (It is) continually improving its policies for preparing, hiring, evaluating, compensating, mentoring, developing, and retaining its teachers” (Sclafani, S., 2015). Since its independence in 1965, the average education level has risen from 3rd grade to a required minimum of 10 years of studies in 2015, catapulting it to the top rankings of global education (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2015, as cited in Sclafani, 2015). According to a 2004 Singapore survey, the job of the teacher was considered more important than that of doctors or lawyers, as far as its contribution to society. (Shanmugaratnam, 2005, as cited in Sclafani, 2015).
Finland boasts the same, scoring at the highest international level. “In Finland, the teaching profession is highly regarded in society and thus entry into the profession is very demanding and competitive (Sahlberg, 2011). Aspiring teachers have to earn at least a master's degree, spend more than 600 hours in teacher-training schools, and produce a research-based master's thesis,” (Sahlberg, 2011as cited in Kager, E., 2013). Part of Finland’s Plan for Progress consisted of Teach Less, Learn More. The teachers made a shorter schedule, four classes per day, in order to spend more time assessing the results of their teaching and to design interventions for the students, tuning in to their individual needs. Finnish teachers are trusted with a fair degree of professional autonomy, carrying the responsibility of local curriculum development. At the same time, they participate in a professional learning community of colleagues to analyze and improve curricula (Kager, 2013). The combination of local school control and teachers’ responsibility for interpreting and applying the national curriculum in a flexible way, allows for an effective customization of teaching and learning locally [Sahlberg, 2011, as cited in Kager, 2013).
Students Need What Teachers Need
The needs of the students reflect these same needs of their teachers, being that they are also human, therefore students need, in some sense, the same things that teachers need so that they also can give their best performance. If they are not treated as participants in the learning process, but simply talked down to by dissatisfied, disgruntled teachers in overburdened facilities, they will produce similar results. As Maslow put it,
“Human beings avoid being a nothing (rather than a something), a ludicrous figure regulated by others, being manipulated, unappreciated, given orders…an interchangeable man (Maslow, 2000, p. 55).” Students are individuals with varying needs, varying ways through which they can learn, and varying career paths, according to their talents and inclinations. Not only this, but some students need special help for physical or social reasons. In order to bring forth the best results in society, each student must be valued and respected as an equal citizen and a part of the social family. This perspective paid off in the Finnish context. “Since the beginning of the peruskoulu,Finland has paid attention to socialjustice and early intervention to help the students with special needs,both academically and socially. This has led to an active relation- ship between education and, for instance, the health and social services” (Kager, 2013).
Looking toward a long term solution to our dilemma, the possibility that our future national and global policy makers will be ethically and intellectually equipped to make such decisions concerning equity depends upon the quality of education they receive from the well-cared-for teachers of today.
The True School of Life is not only in the Classroom
If respect, care, and appreciation are shown to our students, starting at the age of children, on to adolescence, and then throughout life, students will be empowered to return it to society, but society, as a whole must first, or at least at some point, represent the fairness and true values which the teacher is called upon to impart to her students. The whole society must become a classroom for our students to learn the essential values of life, or else the classroom knowledge about ethics and morals becomes fictitious, even ludicrous and unbelievable. The teacher must also feel that she is a valued part of a team which together educates the child or young person to become the best he or she can be. Not all the responsibility should be on the teacher, but she should be supported and listened to, just as she also needs to listen to parents, peers, and leaders. Good things are contagious, so a caring environment can quickly spread. Teaching others to teach others to teach others in this regard can maintain the positive momentum so that it does not stagnate or die out. The influence cannot flow in only one direction, but in all directions. School, society, and parents should influence the students with a caring and stable environment of kindness and equity, and then students will be able to reciprocate by giving the same to each other and back to the society around them. One molecule must vibrate and make the others around it vibrate. That which is learned in school must have a connection to the real daily world surrounding, until there is no difference between the school and the society. The society is also school. The school must teach citizens of the local and global world, not just cogs in the wheel of the machine or useful instruments to perpetuate whatever those before them want. It must equip them to make the world equally just and excellent or else the learning is fictitious. We need to train the teacher equally and with excellence, to give this treatment to the students, to give this treatment to the world, to give this treatment to the coming teachers and students, etc., etc.
There cannot be a break in the cycle or the wheel stops turning forward toward progress.
Applying equality and excellence, this would mean to recognize and appreciate the “little person”, the working person, whatever color the “collar” or the student who might shine in non-“academic” areas, but not in the pencil/paper type skills.
The school teaches something, but the real world around also teaches (influences). The theme of this summit is excellence and equity in education, but that would imply excellence and equity in the world societies and global society, because society is the real school—business people, workers, and government administrators also teach
by their examples, in a much stronger way.
What excellence is this that manages to coexist with more than a billion inhabitants of the developing world who live in poverty, not to say misery? Not to mention the all but indifference with which it coexists with "pockets of poverty" and misery in its own, developed body. What excellence is this that sleeps in peace while numberless men and women make their home in the street, and says it is their own fault that they are on the street? What excellence is this that struggles so little, if it struggles at all, with discrimination for reasons of sex, class, or race?
PAULO FREIRE, Pedagogy of Hope ,1994, (as cited in Darder, A., 2002)
Every Movement Has a Beginning
Someone, or many someones have to be the pioneers, who influence to go in the right direction, even if it is different from what is around them (often), which breaks the downward cycle and makes it an upward cycle. When 100 soldiers march in step on a suspension bridge, it begins to sway, at first unnoticeably, until finally the movement becomes increasingly visible. The same phenomena can also be seen when a small metal ball, hanging from a string, continually strikes a group of heavy balls, hanging from cables. After many hours, the continual rhythmic strike of the light ball begins to move the row of very heavy balls until they are all swinging together in rhythm. There cannot be a break between school and the school of life outside the formal school’s walls. There cannot be the distinction between the classroom teacher and the teachers at home and on the street. All are teachers and all need what the formal school teachers need: inspiration and motivation, compensation and stability, preparation and ongoing development, recognition and advancement. As adults, we need to consider, what we are teaching for; to train the young people for what? Towards what? What is the goal?
Social Emotion Education prepares children, adolescents, and adults for a caring and harmonious world. That can be our true goal. Without that, there is no equity or excellence, for students, for teachers, or for anyone. It’s an “all or nothing” game, the real game of life. To know how to play that game and win, we have to get down to knowing the true meaning and purpose of life. It’s not a question which can be avoided or considered on an “if we have time for it” basis.
Finland’s Example – More than Schooling, Caring for People
Finland has invested heavily in education and besides the monetary investment; legislation and policy have supported the effort. The country went from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy to become a knowledge economy, with a highly educated population, living a high level of life in a harmonious society. Key factors in the country’s trajectory have been:
Strong emphasis on education
Emphasis on comprehensiveness and equality in education, regardless of age, financial status, locality of residence, sex, mother tongue
Long term investment, not expecting or requiring quick results
Considering competent teachers as the “starting point” for an effective education system
Strong central national guidance, yet respect for each locality’s and school’s autonomy
Flexible education which adapts quickly to the ever-changing needs of society
All education in Finland is free, from pre-school to university, including up to masters and doctoral levels. The quality of education is also uniform from area to area, city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood, enforced and supported by the local government of each area. There are no “famous schools” that many people are trying to get into. “Basic education is completely free of charge, including instruction, school materials, school meals, health care, dental care, commuting, special needs education and remedial teaching” [Finnish National Board of Education (as cited in Gross-Loh, 2014)]
Krista Kiuru, Finland’s Minister of Education has said, “Equal means that we support everyone and we’re not going to waste anyone’s skills” (Kiuru K., 2014). She explains that people are the most valued resource of Finland and therefore it is of primary importance to give equal opportunity to each person to make the most of their skills. For this reason, education is free for all people, even including university. In this way the potential of the entire human capital is raised.
As for teachers, they have great autonomy in class although they all follow the National Curriculum Plan as a general guideline. Teachers are instructed to give equal attention to students, but to particularly support those who need more help. This helps them to be sure that they can develop everyone’s talents and potential, without overlooking anyone. Teachers also give instruction in many
skills besides academics in order to offer a well rounded education of life experience. Kids should learn the meaning of life, community skills, learn that they are needed, develop a good self-image, and know that it matters to take care of others (Kiuru).
Teachers are not tested, but are highly trusted because they are highly educated, holding a masters degree and receiving much in service continual training. Pupils are also trusted. They receive tests in their schools, but not on a national level. That is because there is faith in their schools because we consider the schools all equal. No one shops around for schools or moves to a new part of the city or another city in order to go to a good school. All the schools are equally good. Recently some issues have arisen in some suburban areas where there are more immigrants or unemployment, but then more support is given to those struggling schools by investing in them. Nevertheless, it is not considered that money makes for a better education, but rather attention to content of what the teachers do and individual support for each child (Kiuru).
In this report from Finland’s minister of education, we find an example of the teachers being able to deliver excellent and equal service because they are working in an excellent and equal environment in an administration and environment which invests in and supports that. Equality of the people is one of the main goals of the government and therefore tax money is invested accordingly, to produce an equal life for the people, including every aspect of their education.
According to Hanele Cantell from the Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, teachers are the ones trusted to assess the students in school, rather than a national uniform test. Such a test only comes once in a student’s study path at about the age of 18, when the student is finishing secondary school. Teachers are trusted as the most competent experts to judge the students’ performance. School inspectors were phased out in the 90’s because teachers were trusted to be competent in their job without surveillance. Authorities consider that internal control of schools is more effective than prescription, external control and testing. She also said that the country considers teachers to be the best experts for curriculum design, since they are the ones in daily contact with the students in the classroom and can see what is working and what isn’t. Curriculum is not handed down from some disconnected ministry office. It is made as a teamwork effort between teachers and pedagogical design experts from the National Board of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, national curriculum groups, NGO’s, and students. Teachers are considered the experts in curriculum design before those working in universities who might hold PhD’s, but are not directly active in public school classrooms. In the making of the most recent national curriculum, teachers, and even students were highly consulted with, in order to make the curriculum the most relevant possible to the needs of the Finland in the modern world. Teachers work hard to implement it because they have helped to make it (Cantell, H., 2016).
Referring to a recent presentation at the World Forum for Comparative Education in Beijing, Professor Chinapah emphasized that to produce such a result as excellence and equity in education and society, education alone cannot solve a society’s problems, but it must work hand in hand with social action. If not, education will be sterile in its effectiveness, serving more as a rubber stamp of approval for the status quo than as an agent of change and social progress (Chinapah, V., 2017).
Conclusion
The only real conclusion to this article is the Big Picture perspective that “teachers” are just the tip of the iceberg of what is the true teacher force of the world, and “school” is just a part of the “academic” environment which surrounds our upcoming generations and ourselves 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If, therefore, we are seeking to promote excellence and equity in our “education system” by giving it to our teachers, so that they can give it to their students, we must include all the people in the pool of teachers and all the people in the pool of students, because if not, we isolate our “education” system from real life and make of it a sham, literally. All people must be taught to give excellent and equitative treatment to all the other people in whatever arts or sciences we are teaching, learning, or using in our lives. Unless that happens, true education, that is, real life education can never be excellent, much less equitative. Our education systems would be, if they are not already, at this moment, nothing more than a rubber stamp to perpetuate a life which is neither excellent nor equitative. If “excellent education” is only for some, then it stops being “excellent” and it stops being “education” in the true sense. “Education”, in this case, is simply reduced to a training to perpetuate a system which favors some, abuses others, and leaves both of them empty and unhappy, truly ill equipped for life. The question is: How can we promote excellence and equity in our education system, both for students and for teachers? The answer can only be: By promoting excellence and equity, that is, loving and caring treatment for all, in our everyday lives, in school, in the community, and with everyone.
References
Kiuru, K., Finland’s Minister of Education (2014, March, 17), Finnish education chief: ‘We created a
school system based on equality’ [Interview with Kiuru, K., Finland’s Minister of Education, conducted by Cristine Gross-Loh, in Boston, Massachusetts, transcript published in The Atlantic]. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/finnish-education-chief-we-created-a-school-system-based-on-equality/284427/
Chinapah, V., 2017, September 23, Education Reforms and the 3s, Equity-Excellence-Efficiency;
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Skyrocketing Results on International Comparisons Is Not Just Selective about Teacher Candidates, Singapore Actually Has Decided Its Teaching Force Is Key to Its Educational Success [Article in Phi Delta Kappan Journal]
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