Focusing explicitly on the benefits that can be reaped when countries value their educators, this book will make for thought-provoking reading for anyone involved in delivering education, particularly policy-makers and school leaders.
Professional capital: transforming teaching in every school
Synopsis
Described as their most important collaboration to date, Professional Capital sees Hargreaves and Fullan set out a new agenda for valuing teaching and state education. Looking at the best ways to recruit and retain good teachers, the pair argue that education should be seen as a long-term investment in developing the workforce of the future, and that teaching needs to be recognised as the primary profession for securing a country’s long-term economic security, and valued as such.
The authors focus on the importance of effective collaboration between teachers to improve pupils’ outcomes, arguing for more efficient ways of harnessing the professional capital of every teacher to help them work together in schools to deliver improvements across the system. They argue against short-term policies and top-down prescriptions that serve to demoralise the teaching profession.
Drawing on examples of good teaching policy from the like of Finland, Singapore and Canada, this book agues that the countries that get the best value out of their education system and teachers are the ones who value education and their teachers, and that if countries like the UK and the USA really want to give their pupils the best chances in life they need to start by rewarding teachers.