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Tímarit um menntarannsóknir, 7. árgangur 2010
abstract
How teachers in secondary schools under -
stand the aims of education
The icelandic National Curriculum Guide for
Upper Secondary Schools, published in 1999,
has a section on general aims based on article 2
of the act on upper secondary schools of
1996. This paper is about how secondary school
teachers think about these general aims and
relate them to the subjects they teach.
From september 2009 till march 2010 i
interviewed 18 teachers of academic subjects
in icelandic secondary schools. Of my inter -
viewees 6 taught natural sciences, 6 mathe -
matics and 6 history. i chose these subject areas
because the 1999 National Curriculum Guide
required teaching within them to deviate more
than other branches from formerly prevailing
traditions.
The teachers i interviewed work in eight
schools, four gymnasia and four comprehensive
schools. They were recommended by their
principals as experienced and successful and
leaders within their peer groups (except for one
who was recommended by the chairman of the
icelandic society of science Teachers). i tried
to cover the spectrum of icelandic secondary
schools by choosing institutions with different
traditions and of different ages.
almost all the teachers i interviewed
considered themselves to be working towards
aims related to democratic citizenship and moral
and intellectual virtues. When i inquired how
they worked towards these general aims most
of them said that the subjects they teach are
especially well fitted to serve or achieve one or
more of the following aims:
make students able to understand news,
current issues and their own society.
enhance critical or scientific thinking.
make students aware of moral or social values.
Both the general answers the teachers gave and
the specifics and details they named were
internal to their subjects in the sense that from
the point of view of someone who only wants
to focus on traditional school subjects, they
waste no time on general aims: These aims are
served by teaching natural sciences, mathe -
matics or history in the way required by the
inner logic of these disciplines.
most of the 18 teachers i interviewed ex -
pressed ideals or allegiance to educational
policies in accord with the tradition of liberal
education, where learning academic subjects is
seen as:
a) a way to realise one’s best potentialities
and acquire intellectual or moral virtues;
b) an end in itself, rewarding regardless of
practical use.
most of the teachers i interviewed explicitly
endorsed a. They also revealed a predilection
for b. This came to light in various ways, most
clearly when i asked them how they motivate
their students.
most of them claimed that the best way to
motivate students is to emphasise topics that
are theoretically interesting rather than by, for
example, relating the subjects they teach to the
daily life of students or to something that is of
practical concern for them.
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