Closing remarks International Teacher's Summit

Toespraak | 15-03-2013

I would like to begin with a film made by pupils at De Populier, a school I visited a few weeks ago.

It is an ode to the teacher, expressed by the pupils.

I can well imagine that receiving such an assessment from your students can do you the power of good! Praise indeed!

Ladies and gentlemen, 

In Finland they refer to teachers as the candle of the nation. And of course, that is an image that speaks to us all.

The Dutch astronaut Andre Kuypers mentioned today in the Glassroom that it was a teacher who discovered the principle of rocket propulsion.

And that should not come as a surprise.

Teachers are the people who light the fire of learning in our children, making sure they develop and make the most of their potential.

Over the past few days we have talked about how to ensure that this fire continues to blaze within teachers themselves.
How they can continue to develop, improve, reflect. And how they can learn from one another through peer review.

I believe that two elements are essential to this process: time and trust.

Time. We need to make time. By ‘we’ I mean governments and school administrators, colleagues and Colleges of education. Time and space for that process of reflection, of evaluating one another, of working together to achieve quality. We should always be ready to ask those key questions: is this the right approach? Why do we do things this way and not another way? Saying we don’t have time for such matters is no longer an option!

Trust. We need to trust one another. To give teachers the freedom to take their own responsibilities. But that freedom is not without obligations. For there are things that we want and need to change. Teachers too will have to open up their doors: to one another, to the school administrators, to society at large. We need to make the transition from classroom to Glassroom.

And school administrators need to create the optimum conditions for this process.
Their human resources policy needs to create a learning environment in which development and learning for professionals comes naturally.

At this point, I would like to list four points that more or less sum up the main conclusions to emerge from our meetings.

1. Ultimately the quality of teachers is measured in terms of the development of their pupils.
2. The quality of teachers is largely dependent on their ‘ability to engage a classroom’. Among pupils too, this is top of the list of assessment criteria.
3. The criteria we use to assess the quality of teachers must be shared criteria. In other words, they must be agreed on by inspectors, researchers, teachers, parents and pupils. Andreas Schleicher of the OECD said this on the matter: ‘the worst kind of appraisal is one without consequences’. And as American #teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten said so clearly: development and accountability need to merge into one!
4. Last but not least, another point on which we all agree, teachers who learn must be able to count on a supportive learning environment.

School administrators have to create a culture which encourages constant improvement, ongoing development and continual reflection – within the individual and among peers.

By definition, schools are places where people come first, and so they stand to gain enormously when it comes to modern working practices.

Rebecca Mieliwocki, the American teacher of the year, told us that whenever her school administrator met a teacher, he would always ask three questions: 1. How are you? 2. What do you need? and 3. What can I do for you?

This is a marvelous example of the way things can be done. And of how school administrators can get teachers enthused.

And that brings be to my next point. As you know, at each Summit the theme is announced for the next event. And so I propose to do the same now.

In my speech yesterday, I talked about how important it is that the introductory period for new teachers is carefully structured and that they receive thorough supervision. We know from practice and from research that new teachers who receive no coaching tend to leave the profession more often than teachers who are properly supervised.
And that for this reason, we in the Netherlands propose to offer new teachers better and more intensive coaching, so that the talent we need so desperately is not lost.

As every teacher can testify from their own experience, you can really benefit from supervision and coaching early on in your career as a teacher.
But we also know from research that new teachers who are supervised for at least two years will develop better skills, better team-working, more faith in their own abilities and their students perform better.

The teacher training program at our University of Groningen in the Netherlands has conducted an experiment over several years, with a three-year introductory program for new teachers in secondary education. The results of this experiment also point in the same direction.
I’ve also heard some good examples of this during this Summit…

Particularly from Scotland, Estonia and New Zealand, where new teachers are supervised by a coach (often an experienced teacher) for two years.

This is what we are aiming for in the Netherlands too – a coach for every new teacher!
There is extra funding available for this, but it is schools and teacher training programmes that will need to bring this to fruition.

And that is a marvelous theme to return to at the next Summit. And I will make sure that we can bring some good examples with us from the Netherlands.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As host country, we made a conscious decision to invite teachers; when all is said and done, everything revolves around what works in the classroom. I am therefore very proud that 150 teachers have attended this summit. Yesterday I asked one of them on the stairs “What is your impression today of this summit. Are we talking about you and your profession? Yes! She said. This summit is about the Teaching Profession and about and with us, teachers!”

Teachers were given an important and active role in devising the programme. They gave lessons in the Glass Room. And tomorrow we will be holding a Day After meeting for Dutch teachers.

I call this the New Dutch Approach. Let’s try to hold on to this approach. By involving teachers in the debate about how best to improve education. After all, discussing the quality of teachers means talking to teachers about quality.

 I would like to call on the teachers that were present to share everything they have heard and learned with the teachers who could not attend. Peer to peer, put directly into practice!

I can now look back on a highly informative and inspiring summit. This is largely thanks to the input from all these teachers. And special word of thanks to the department of Education, teachers policy.

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I would like to thank you for coming here to Amsterdam. I hope to see you again at the next Teacher Summit. A conference at which government members, trade unions and teachers can sit side-by-side and discuss ways of improving education is well worth following up.

I’d like to finish with the words of Obama, the spiritual father, 'Fired up, ready to go!’