1st Edition
Flip the System Changing Education from the Ground Up
Education is threatened on a global scale by forces of neoliberalism, through high stakes accountability, privatization and a destructive language of learning. In all respects, a GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) has erupted from international benchmark rankings such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRL, causing inequity, narrowing of the curriculum and teacher deprofessionalization on a truly global scale.
In this book, teachers from around the world and other educational experts such as Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Stephen Ball, Gert Biesta, Tom Bennett and many more, make the case to move away from this uneducational economic approach, to instead embrace a more humane, more democratic approach to education. This approach is called ‘flipping the system’, a move that places teachers exactly where they need to be - at the steering wheel of educational systems worldwide.
This book will appeal to teachers and other education professionals around the world.
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: A global problem: Accountability, privatization and control
Chapter 1: Testing towards Utopia: Performativity, Pedagogy and the Teaching Profession
Alderik Visser
Chapter 2: Measuring what doesn't matter: The Nonsense and sense of testing
Dick van der Wateren and Audrey Amrein Beardsly
Chapter 3: Stephen Ball - On Neoliberalism and How it travels
Interview with René Kneyber
Changing Education in Action in Cambodia: The Embattled Teach
William Brehm
Chapter 4: The Effects of Accountability: A case study from Indonesia
Art Broekman
Chapter 5: Thijs Jansen - On Quality and Professionality
Interview with René Kneyber
Changing Education in Action in Georgia: ….
Maia Chanksielli
Part 2: A New Paradigm: Flip the system
Chapter 6: Good Education and the Teacher: Reclaiming Educational Professionalism
Gert Biesta
Chapter 7: Non-positional Teacher Leadership: Distributed leadership and self-efficacy
John Bangs and David Frost
Chapter 8: The teachers’ voice: teacher unions at the heart of a new democratic professionalism
Howard Stevenson
Chapter 9: Autonomy and Transparency: Two ideas gone bad
Andy Hargreaves
Chapter 10: Teacher agency: What it is and why it matters
Mark Priestley, Gert Biesta and Sarah Robinson
Part 3: A Change to the system: Collective Autonomy
Chapter 11: Whole systems approach: Professional Capital in Singapore
Pak Tee Ng
Changing Education in Action in Finland: The Collaborating Teacher
Tim Walker
Chapter 12: Teacher-powered Schools: Rising above education’s blame culture
Kim Farris-Berg and Ed Dirkswager
Changing Education in Action in Singapore: The Inquiring Teacher
John Yeo
Chapter 13: From top-down to inside-out: working in a teacher-led school
Lori Nazareno
Changing Education in Action in Mexico: The Embracing Teacher
Elisa Guerra
Part 4: A Question of Mindset: Supporting and activating teachers
Chapter 14: Teacher Leadership: A reinvented teaching profession
Barnett Berry, Noah Zeichner, and Rachel Evans
Changing Education in Spain: The Inspiring Teacher
Chapter 15: Arjan van der Meij - On Peer review and maker education
Interview with René Kneyber
Chapter 16: Teacher Learning and Leadership Program: Professional Development for and by teachers
Ann Lieberman, Carol Campbell and Anna Yashkina.
Changing Education in Sweden: The Cared for Teacher
Eva Hartell
Changing Education in Russia: The Informed Teacher
Artiom Soloveychik
Chapter 17: The Polite Revolution in Research and Education
Tom Bennett
Changing Education in Action in Korea: The Travelling Teacher
Jelmer Evers Interviews
Chapter 18: Supporting and Empowering Teachers: The Role of School-Community Partnerships
Helen Janc Malone and Reuben Jacobson
Changing Education in Action in Australia: The Connected Teacher
Matt Esterman
Conclusion: Flip the System: Trust, honor, finding purpose, support, collaborate and time
Jelmer Evers and Rene Kneyber
Notes on Contributors
Biography
Jelmer Evers is a history teacher in a secondary school and is involved in classroom innovation. Jelmer gives advice, workshops and guest lectures on new forms of pedagogy and is involved in designing a new innovative teacher training college. He writes columns and articles for educational magazines and has edited Het Alternatief. He was nominated Teacher of the Year 2012 and named one of The Netherlands' 23 'New Radicals' by national magazine Vrij Nederland in 2013. He was nominated for the Global Teacher Prize in 2014.
René Kneyber is a mathematics teacher in secondary school. He has written popular books on classroom authority and discipline and has edited multiple high-profile books, including the Dutch book Het Alternatief and the Dutch translation of Embedding Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam. In 2015 he became member of the Dutch Education Council on royal commendation.
"This book is a collection of powerful essays to examine, critique and even promise emancipation from what it describes as the deleterious, neoliberal reforms of education systems around the world over the past couple of decades. Articles from an international array of teachers, academics and writers…are packed into this fascinating and fairly dense academic read. […] the thrust of the book is positive and leaves the reader with six guidelines of future action…"– InTuition
"This book takes a scholarly look at a world-wide issue… teachers from around the world and other educational experts, make the case to move away from this uneducational economic approach, to instead embrace a more humane, more democratic approach to education. This approach is called ‘flipping the system’, a move that places teachers exactly where they need to be - at the steering wheel of educational systems worldwide. It's not a book to be tackled by the faint-hearted, but once you become engrossed in the book, it is a fascinating read and a reassuring look at where teachers really should be - at the very centre of education systems, driving them forward." – Parent in Touch
"This book strongly advocates that if teachers are to have any real agency in their work they need to be involved in defining the goal of the education they are providing […] This book is an antidote, if enacted, to the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) – the neo-liberalisation of education." – Peter Gossman, Educational Developments
"The authors provide a critical and passionate appeal to teachers and educational experts around the world to move away from the dominant economic approach and embrace a more humane path to a better education system, more focused on people. This book can be a useful instrument to inform educational policies in the world, because it faces four fundamental questions of all educational debates through a global perspective." - Stefania Capogna, Italian Journal of Sociology of Education
"This book, with its avowed commitment to democratic and ‘educational’ forms of professionalism, is an important resource for teachers and one that has the potential to enable teacher professionals in these uncertain times to re-imagine their work beyond prevailing educational orthodoxies." – David Hall, Journal of Education for Teaching
"I am going to recommend 'Flip the System: Changing Education from the Ground up', edited by Jelmer Ever and René Kneyber not because I am in it but because it challenges the reader to think differently about education. This is a book not about improvement, quality and excellence in education but how improvement, quality and excellence get in the way of thinking about what education is for, how it might work differently, and how it might actually contribute to making the world a better place. Now that is something to think about between dips in the pool." -Stephen J Ball is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. He is the author of several Education titles, including Edu.net and Global Education Inc.
