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Teachers are the heart of our schools
Creating great schools in Alberta for all students is a compelling goal, but it’s not a new idea; rather, it is one that has evolved over time to meet the needs and demands of today’s students and the complex society in which they live and learn.
Our schools have arisen from the steady and knowledgeable transformation of education in Alberta. And at the forefront of this transformation have been teachers and the Alberta Teachers’ Association, both of which are determined to build schools that offer unlimited opportunities for students, teachers, parents and communities.
Teachers are the heart of our great schools thanks to their selfless and everyday commitment to students and public education. “My theory of education is simple. You have to be there,” states Clifford Orwin in his guest editorial published in the Globe and Mail (August 18, 2012). Orwin, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto and a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, continues: “I’ve been privileged to know both great teachers and outstanding students. Neither could have revealed themselves as such except in person, nor could they have partaken fully of what the other had to offer. The electricity that crackles through a successful classroom can’t be transmitted electronically.”
Teachers spark students’ desire to investigate, interrogate and learn, and to exercise creative thinking. Teachers have long been the catalysts for their students’ metamorphosis. And nowhere is this more apparent than in Alberta, where we have proven ourselves leaders in educational achievement. Alberta has been Canada’s highest-performing province and one of the highest-performing jurisdictions in the world on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. Paradoxically, not just people in other countries but even many Albertans remain sorely uninformed about our educational successes. Now is the time to herald our achievements, and this issue of the ATA Magazine does just that. It also charts a path to ensure we continue to achieve in the future.
A Great School for All—Transforming Education in Alberta is a new ATA research document that serves as the foundation for this issue of the ATA Magazine. The document’s findings and recommendations are based on solid academic research and consultation with teachers and education leaders. (More information about A Great School for All and an outline of the 12 strategies outlined in it are featured in “The Secretary Reports.”) Andy Hargreaves’s eloquent foreword to the document is reprinted in this magazine. Hargreaves, an education professor at Boston College, says that “Alberta has no need to rent improvement and reform models that have been built by other systems. On the contrary, it has the proven ability, creativity and professional quality to own the future that it creates for itself.” Feature articles in this issue support Hargreaves’s observation—one article discusses a teacher leadership course at the University of Alberta and another examines the internationalization of networks of school leaders. “Research Roundup,” an article on global citizenship practised in a Finnish teacher training school and comments on transformation from Alberta teachers round out the theme issue.
In my preface to A Great School for All, I noted that “The purpose of this publication is to help ensure that any decisions about educational transformation in Alberta are based on sound evidence and—just as important—on input from an engaged public that shares a commitment to creating great schools for all of Alberta’s students.” I trust that this issue of the ATA Magazine will engage teachers, parents and the public alike in constructive and imaginative conversations about maintaining our existing great schools and creating more in the years to come.
