Some%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Aspects%20of%20Multigrade%20Education:%20Teacher

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Some Social and Cultural Aspects of Multigrade
Education Teachers possible innovative
leadership roles in small rural schools (The
example of Greece)

• Pavlos Koulouris, pkoulouris_at_ea.gr
• Ellinogermaniki Agogi
• Athens, Greece
• NEMED Conference MULTIGRADE EDUCATION PAST,
  PRESENT, FUTURE?
• University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania
• 18 September 2007

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Remote multigrade schools in Greece valuable
service to the nation

• Abundance of remote and less accessible
  mountainous and insular areas
• Small rural schools fulfilling a crucial
  function
• Providing the children of these areas with the
  access to education which all children of Greece
  are entitled to.
• Thus keeping small remote and aging communities
  alive.

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Facing problems and dangers

• Consequences of a widening rural-urban divide
• urbanisation tendencies
• abandonment of the countryside by younger
  generations (brain drain)
• digital divide, disadvantage in the access to
  services and opportunities of the contemporary
  Information Society

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Multigrade schools more challenges

• Significant challenges of the multigrade
  classroom
• Insufficient initial professional training
• Inexperienced, newly-appointed teachers
  (typically)

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Teachers need for professional development

• To acquire knowledge and skills
• To develop personal competences falling beyond
  the established teacher training curricula.

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Teachers need for professional development

• Not easy to offer conventional professional
  development provision (in-service training
  seminars)
• Distance
• Costs
• Lack of substitute teachers

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Our background

• Projects addressing the needs of the small rural
  schools, tackling their isolation and bridging
  the digital divide

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Our response to the challenges

• Efforts to alleviate the isolation of teachers
• Our main tool
• Provision of distance training, support and
  networking through ICT

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Our focus here

• New leadership roles teachers can take in such
  schools, as investigated in the projects NEMED
  and RURAL WINGS

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Inviting the teacher to work with, and for, the
local community
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Linkages between the community and the school

• Miller (1995)
• We should build and sustain strong linkages
  between the community and the school
• Rural communities may have a head start in
  developing these linkages
• schools have traditionally played a central role
  in the life of the communities

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Rural schools promoting personal and community
development

• Diverse roles that the remote rural school can
  play
• recorded in the literature

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Diverse school roles

• Salant Waller (1998)
• non-educational impact of schools on rural
  communities
• multi-faceted school-community relationship
• positive economic and social impacts
• a resource for community development
• offering a delivery point for social services.

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Links between education and rural development

• Educational attainment is seen as a rural
  development strategy through which a better
  educated rural population leads to greater
  economic growth
• Barkley, Henry, Haizhen, 2005 Beaulieu
  Gibbs, 2005

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Links between education and rural development

• Recent studies in the USA
• more rapid earnings and income growth in rural
  counties with high educational levels
• improving local schools can reverse the tendency
  of loss of young adults through outmigration
  (rural brain drain)

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Community development not only economic

• Economic well-being
• Social well-being
• Environmental well-being

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Social capital a crucial concept

• Social capital
• social organization and resources embedded in the
  social structure of the rural communities, which
  can facilitate coordination and cooperation for
  mutual benefit, and thus community development.

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Social capital a crucial concept

• Woodhouse (2006)
• Social capital exerts a positive causal influence
  on economic development.

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Social capital a crucial concept

• Miller (1995)
• The school is an important element in the
  creation of communitys social capital.

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This remains a challenge

• A strong school-community partnership remains a
  major challenge
• this is not generally viewed as a traditional
  element of schooling
• Approaches are needed that cross the boundaries
  traditionally separating the community as a place
  of learning from the school

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Community-based learning

• Miller (1995)
• Teachers working in partnership with local
  leaders and residents
• Giving students meaningful opportunities to
  engage in community-based learning that serves
  the needs of both the community and the students.

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Three approaches (Miller, 1995)

• The school as a community centre
• The community as curriculum
• School-based enterprise

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Three approaches (Miller, 1995)

• 1) The school as a community centre
• a resource for lifelong learning
• a vehicle for the delivery of a wide range of
  services
• school resources (facilities, technology,
  well-educated staff) can provide educational and
  retraining opportunities for the community.

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Three approaches (Miller, 1995)

• 2) The community as curriculum
• Study of the community in its various dimensions.
  
• Students generate information for community
  development
• conducting needs assessments
• studying and monitoring environmental and
  land-use patterns
• documenting local history through interviews and
  photo essays.

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Three approaches (Miller, 1995)

• 3) School-based enterprise
• Developing entrepreneurial skills
• Students not only identify potential service
  needs in their rural communities, but actually
  establish a business to address those needs.

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Inviting the teacher to become a change agent in
the community

• He/she will catalyse innovation and development
  in the school and the local community
• He/she will turn the declining school into a
  lively node supporting lifelong learning for
  everyone
• The rural school will become more responsive to
  the growth and survival needs of its community
• Education will develop responsible citizens and
  create opportunities for tomorrow's rural leaders
  to emerge

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Being inspiredConvincing and leading the others

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The change agent

• Challenges the status quo by comparing it to an
  ideal or a vision of change
• Accepts, communicates and defends the need for
  change
• Defines and initiates change
• Translates the vision into the context of a
  specific change initiative
• Causes crisis in order to support dramatic
  actions and change efforts
• Leads and manages change
• Understands the cultural dynamics

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The case of satellite broadband internet

• Satellite broadband connectivity is made
  available to the school
• The teacher is encouraged to
• turn it into advantage and opportunity for all
• promote the development of a new culture among
  local citizens

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Teachers multiple roles

• Typically, the teacher is already
• acting as the head of the small school
• considered a prominent member of the isolated
  community

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Additional leadership roles

• Manager of change in an informal local reform

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Additional leadership roles

• Instructional leader exploring new ways to
  improve the quality of teaching and learning

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Additional leadership roles

• Developer of links and synergies between the
  school, the community and other schools in the
  area

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Additional leadership roles

• Facilitator of communities of learning in,
  around, and outside, the school

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Additional leadership roles

• Former and implementer of innovation matching
  local needs

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Questions arising

• Obvious need for corresponding professional
  development
• Which form?
• What content precisely?
• Which competences?

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Possible professional development content

• Pedagogies specifically adaptable to the
  unusual settings of the small rural school
• Solutions and opportunities of the Information
  Society
• Innovation
• Change management
• Local and rural community development, etc.

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Questions arising

• Possible conflicts within a highly centralized
  educational system

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Possible conflicts

• The teacher in this context is encouraged to
  initiate and implement an informal local
  educational reform
• Little decentralisation and autonomy of school
  units is encouraged by the system
• This discrepancy may be a source of interpersonal
  and interinstitutional tension
• Even in the intrapersonal level
• internal conflicts between the teachers
  formal/recognised and informal/self-initiated
  leadership roles.

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Possible conflicts

• Even in the intrapersonal level
• internal conflicts between
• the teachers formal/recognised roles
• and
• informal/self-initiated leadership roles.

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• Barkley, D, Henry, M, L Haizhen (2005). Does
  Human Capital Affect Rural Growth? Evidence from
  the South. In Beaulieu, L J, R Gibbs (eds),
  The Role of Education Promoting the Economic and
  Social Vitality of Rural America. Southern Rural
  Development Center and USDA, Economic Research
  Service.
• Beaulieu, L J, R Gibbs (eds) (2005). The Role
  of Education Promoting the Economic and Social
  Vitality of Rural America. Southern Rural
  Development Center and USDA, Economic Research
  Service.
• Miller, B (1995). The role of rural schools in
  community development Policy issues and
  implications. Journal of Research in Rural
  Education, 11, 3, 163-172.
• Salant, P, A Waller (1998). What Difference Do
  Local Schools Make? A Literature Review and
  Bibliography. Annenberg Rural Challenge Policy
  Program, The Rural School and Community Trust.
• Woodhouse, A (2006). Social capital and economic
  development in regional Australia A case study.
  Journal of Rural Studies, 22, 8394.