Educating teachers for the future school- the challenge of bridging between perceptions of quality teaching and policy decisions:reflections from Norway

Abstract

Teacher quality, or ‘the good teacher’ is not clearly defined in Norway, nor are there specific standards for measuring teacher quality. Everybody has an opinion about the good teacher, and teacher quality is frequently debated. Moreover, in Norway there is no systematic evaluation of teachers. Nevertheless, numerous reforms and popular discourses indirectly revisit and revise the formal qualification competences of teachers. This paper is an explorative journey into research, fiction and policy documents searching for how teacher quality has been, and is, perceived in Norway. The paper discusses relevant research, presents a historical contextualisation, my interpretations of selected fiction literature, and policy documents. I argue that teacher education has the responsibility of not merely translating policies into practice, but also to act as a critical bridge-builder between academic and relational aspects of teaching. Teacher education should offer a research-informed, practice-relevant education of teachers for the current and future school.