Walter Geerts & René van Kralingen - The Teachers' Handbook

Introduction

Stimulation of situational education The above leads us to the next important objective. In our view, successful teach ers should be open to analysing their own performance. This sounds obvious, but as a matter of fact it is not always the case. Teachers actually have a tendency to assume routine behaviour. Is this a bad thing? No, because it provides room for the teacher to focus on other processes in the classroom. In the field of education, using routines can certainly be an advantage, but there are also some drawbacks associated with routines: they can become habits, and ineffective or undesirable routines are hard to get rid of. This handbook emphasises the importance of different approaches with in a school or department’s code of conduct, in the sense that it offers choices about how we give instructions, assist students or do actual testing. In short, we are neither advocates of independent student learning nor, conversely, of teach er-centred lessons; we only point out the available options. Whatever you choose should fit the circumstances. In other words, you are teaching ‘situational educa tion’, in line, of course, with the school’s overall vision. Structure of this handbook Current education entails several developments that have a major impact on the teaching profession. We support the shift of focus back to the teacher being a key figure in the student’s learning environment. Moreover, we encourage increased attention to the added value of group learning processes at school. The govern ment is again actively involved in shaping education policy and teacher develop ment is again on the social agenda. These themes can be reduced to four funda mental questions for teachers:

Part A How do I educate my students?

Part B How do I work effectively with groups?

Part C What is my school like?

Part D How do I develop my teaching skills?

These four main questions coincide with parts A to D of this handbook (Chap ters 1 to 11) and will be elaborated next. The fifth part (Chapters 12 and 13) will discuss the specific features of VMBO 1 and MBO (or MBO) 2 for purposes of

1 VMBO stands for voorbereidend middelbaar beroepsonderwijs (preparatory secondary vocation al education). Covering four years of secondary school, from about age 12 to about 16, it prepares students for MBO (or VET). 2  MBO stands for middelbaar beroepsonderwijs (senior secondary vocational education and training). It prepares students for non-academic professions at five different levels.

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