The teacher of the future

Today January 16, 2004 I am 38 years old in Teaching

In the context of globalization, education has become the main social institution of the world system, on it, the greatest number of demands are exerted and the greatest prospects and hopes, however, for several decades the promises of decisively contribute to the expansion of national economies to minimize social inequalities.

Under these parameters, that in recent years since the 1980s, in the countries of the European Union in general and Latin America in particular, there have been reform movements of enormous interest and influence for the evaluation of educational systems in the aspects: administrative, the quality of the student body, parents' associations, the curriculum and in the training of teachers, among others.

In fact, with these movements, the current world reforms try to train teachers through the re-elaboration of notions related to competences, skills and knowledge about school disciplines such as mathematics, language, social or natural sciences. The focus is mainly on how those capacities and dispositions of teachers are directed towards the acquisition of knowledge.

It is about rescuing the teacher, arguing that teaching is more than just reading and writing instruction; implies the need for group efforts to change the institutional processes of creating, implementing and evaluating courses, so that students can be led down the problematic path of learning to imagine society as a structure of contradictory elements and complementary. The teacher has to learn to question the contents of the books, they must be used to illustrate, not to affirm knowledge.

Faced with this scenario, there is an urgent need to train a proactive teacher, trained to prevent problems to respond flexibly to situations that do not have a set of clear limits or unique responses. It is an individual, pragmatic teacher, linked to the contingencies of the situation in which problems arise. In this broad spectrum, there is a need to reconstruct the profile of the teacher of the future in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, given the economic turmoil of recent years, the quality and morale of the profession, which has been the object of great concern..

Of course, the phenomenon of Globalization has modified the traditional schemes of society to give it transnational elements, creating cultural links with other countries to form a global system.

Within this broad spectrum, Cornieles (2000) states:

In the last decades, the world has entered diverse vertiginous processes of changes at a socio-economic, technological, environmental and cultural level. The need to take on new challenges has required greater preparation in the educational and information system. It is stated that it is not a time of change, but a change of time (p. 2).

Likewise, the Organization of Nations for Education, Science and Culture in the Delors report dealing with Education for the XXI Century (UNESCO 1990), conceives Globalization as the most important and dominant event of this time that of one or otherwise it influences people's daily lives. This concept is only understood from the economic point of view, it includes aspects related to finance, education, communication, science and technology.

Furthermore, it is considered that the future of society in this context depends on the way the school provides the specialized training of professionals in harmony with a general knowledge that guarantees the assimilation of new knowledge and the promotion of self-training. However, the functionalist and instrumental visions of education are reduced to training individuals for productive activities, when their fundamental objective must be their permanent and harmonious development.

As observed in the aspects mentioned on globalization, the teachers of the future will have to face tensions between the global and the local, between the universal and the singular, between tradition and postmodernity, between competition and concern for equal opportunities, between the extraordinary world of knowledge and the assimilation capacities of the human being and the pressure between the spiritual and the material. And to think that the future is today, we live in it and with it

These challenges, which are posed to society and education, are not new, since since the 18th century, the enlightenment movement with a blind and sometimes naive faith in reason, it was believed, that by ending ignorance and superstition Through education, an era of advancement of knowledge and progress would begin, which would lead to the happiness of mankind.

A brief review of the emergence of the modern era would allow us to understand the problems common to societies that decided to shake off the weight of tradition and the particular responses of the educational system of each country, since all made this system the lever of change. Today at the beginning of the 21st century, according to Cárdenas (1997), education is still considered as a driving force for change and the teacher as the cornerstone of the educational system, or as Ghilardi (1993) refers, that the teacher is the most visible element of the instruction mechanism.

That is why the current academic debate in the world's universities revolve around projects for the training of teaching professionals in a new era, which is a priority requirement. This important social function of the universities contributes to the professional practice of its graduates, to providing solutions to existing problems and needs (being proactive), as well as to developing original options in the field of scientific, technological and humanistic knowledge.

Although the history of vocational training shows that it is a relevant issue, especially after the establishment of the modernity project, without a doubt that the new international events, in terms of politics and economy, as well as In terms of scientific and technological transformations, new requirements can be posed to face this task.

In this framework of ideas, Díaz and Hernández (1999), express that the training of the professional involved in the study of educational phenomena, must be approached from multiple disciplinary approaches given by the need, to have an interpretive reference framework that allows them to guide reflection and practice.

Within this perspective, pedagogical action thus acquires a new dimension, which requires a teacher with really solid competences, that is, a proactive teacher, both in the personal and professional component. This means that the teacher will have to be trained to achieve higher levels of democracy, autonomy, responsibility, control and understanding of life to face the accelerated changes that the "Knowledge Revolution" poses.

It is logical to think that in order to acquire these gains, teacher training cannot be seen only from personal or academic traits. The situation is more complex and must be approached from the perspective of social and pedagogical processes that could lead to the development of a professional culture.

As a complement, the analysis of the professional profile of the teacher in the framework of these requirements is mandatory, because any profession is legitimized in the social, cultural and economic context in which it is practiced. Consequently, the teacher of the future will have to face an accelerated development process driven by the advancement of new technologies, new ways of life and the persistent risks of the loss of identity, the loss of values that currently prevail. across the planet.

Therefore, in the context of vocational training, teachers have the responsibility of promoting the future development of the country, since they throughout history have been used strategically to promote the development of civilizations. It should be recognized, according to Sánchez (1999) that "education faces a crisis, resulting from the confusion of educating, learning and knowing, its role is in a context of abundance, diversity and continuous change of information and knowledge" (p. 105). Hence, there is dissatisfaction regarding the quality of their training in university institutions, criticizing the lack of social relevance of teacher training programs.

It is felt that the teacher graduates without having achieved a solid understanding as an educator and an integrative vision of the knowledge acquired in his time at the educational institution. It is very possible that the curricular fragmentation that is observed in practice is due to the weaknesses in the organization of knowledge in the study plans with a single and obligatory reference to the list of competences by professional functions, the purposes of teacher training: «Learning facilitator, researcher, counselor, social promoter, planner, administrator and evaluator».

This profile, stated by Bastardo and Lozada (1998), "looks utopian, given the difficulty of combining so much knowledge, skills and abilities in one person" (p.41).

In this training, Barrios (1997) refers, The epistemological, axiological and pedagogical dimensions that underlie the professional profile of the teacher are neglected; functions that are inherent in the pedagogical act cannot be presented as distinct "roles"; there are semantic difficulties and ideological discrepancies in the profile of the educator, and there is a risk of exaggerating emphasis for the initial training of the classroom teacher in the role of "researcher", or an excessively "scientific" orientation over the media at your fingertips (p. 53).

On the other hand, the aforementioned author states that the so-called components such as: general training, specialized training and professional practice, with pre-established percentages in the ministerial regulations, have become a uniform skeleton for curricular designs, in many cases limiting their coherence and internal integration, as well as updating study plans.

As for the deficiencies in pedagogical training, the criticisms revolve around the dissociation between theoretical training and practical training. This is a foreseeable result of the “technological” approach that structures the knowledge to be taught in sequence, starting with the basic courses treated in an abstract way, disciplines such as: Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, among others; to then apply them through Didactics, Instructional Resources and Pedagogical Practices separately. Thus, when the teacher graduates, he does not have the skills required to manage the teaching-learning processes efficiently in the classroom.

The disassociation of the specialty subjects from the disciplinary contents of the teaching programs that teachers will develop in the future exercise of their profession, have been strongly criticized by the teacher training institutions themselves, in the sense that the approaches and content of the specialty programs, for example in Integral Education, suggest that the orientation is proving too deep and specialized in content areas, and insufficiently deep and wide in all the areas foreseen in the official programs.

It is pointed out that the training lacks the desired emphasis in the mastery of didactic strategies for the teaching of basic instrumental skills (mastery of reading, writing, calculation, logical thinking and creative thinking)

In an evaluation carried out by the University of Carabobo, of the study plan of the Bachelor's Degree in Integral Education, it led to the elimination of specializations to return to the previous scheme of general training of the "Normal Teacher", capable of attending the teaching of all areas of the first six grades and acting as a member of a teaching team that can organize itself, through rotation by classrooms and areas, for more specialized teaching in the second stage (cited in Twelve Educational Proposals for Venezuela 1997).

Also, the Libertador Experimental Pedagogical University (UPEL 1998), started the implementation of the New Curriculum Design, which implies conceptual, procedural and fundamentally attitudinal changes, in all the actors involved. This adjustment was made in order to adapt the teacher training mission to the innovations that society is experiencing, and one of its fundamental objectives is to guide the search for knowledge from a multi-paradigmatic and epistemic flexibility perspective.

This curriculum redesign is justified by UPEL as follows:

The global context in which the country is embedded imposes on education the overcoming of the existing gap between overcrowding and excellence through the consolidation of high quality academic experiences for the training of proven teaching professionals and solid clarity of criteria regarding the exercise of their profession and the importance of permanent knowledge and updating for this (p.5)

However, it can be affirmed that the connection between the teacher training centers and the educational institutions of the different levels and modalities are isolated from reality, since in the schools it is where the real opportunities are found for both the teacher educators teachers, as teachers in training, apply and validate the pedagogical principles and methods taught in universities, and so that future educators practice the skills of their professional practice under the guidance and supervision of experienced educators

Based on the aforementioned, Yus Ramos (1997) pointed out that currently, the principle that governs the selection and organization of content both at the educational levels and in the initial training of teachers, continues to be focused on the classic subjects. This presentation of content does not allow for more holistic views, and it poses the danger of paying scant attention to ideas and issues that transcend subject boundaries.

The conception of the sciences of education leads teacher training institutes to structure the curriculum according to the different disciplines that make up the curricular foundations. Mathematics + Sociology + Philosophy + Psychology + Statistics is taught, and it is intended that the student achieve the integration of this set of knowledge in its application to educational problems, but this integration cannot occur, because it is not possible to integrate disciplines into an object study unknown to him.

In that order, Villarroel (1991), the training received by the teacher does not contribute to professional training, since this generates confusion in the future teacher. Said deformation is instituted both in the curricular structure as well as in the organizational and administrative structure of these teacher training centers.

Consequently, it raises the need for a globalized approach, whose ideal is, the interest in achieving an integration of fields of knowledge and experience that facilitate a more reflective critical understanding of reality, highlighting not only dimensions focused on cultural content, but also mastering certain processes that are necessary to achieve concrete knowledge and, at the same time, understanding how knowledge is elaborated, produced and transformed, as well as the axiological and epistemological dimensions inherent in this task.

The analysis of the social dimension, as a curricular foundation in the training of teachers, seems to have received a deforming and ineffective treatment, because such an analysis may not be done in terms of education but in terms of social aspects. In this way, the sociological is conceived as a science of education, from which it is inferred that the analysis of the social for educational purposes, starts from an analysis of the social in general, from which later educational implications and applications would be derived.

From this perspective, Camperos (1997), infers that the education and training of Venezuelan teachers, “could be notably influencing the quality of training of students and the low efficiency of the educational system, and at the same time it is a cause of violation of the coherence between what is desired, what is planned and what is executed ”(p.41). In the different moments in which changes have been introduced in the Educational System, particularly in the curricular designs, actions have been planned and executed to attend to the training of teachers, however, it seems that it is not, at the required level.

In the first changes introduced in the Primary Education programs (1966,1969,1970) and in the successive modifications that have been taking place, according to the educational policy of each five-year period, in the alternation of rulers of the democratic system, teacher training for developing and running the programs has been a concern. Efforts have been made to achieve teacher training, but so far it seems that the training offered has not met expectations or has not yielded the expected results. There is sufficient evidence to demonstrate how instructional practices are far from established. In official documents, particularly in the programs of the areas and subjects.

In this sense, by the observations made by the researcher in class sessions, informal interviews with teachers at various levels of the educational system, by the tutoring and review of research papers on the work of the teacher, it can be noted that, in general The maximum aspirations of each level and of the areas that structure the study plans have continued to be neglected and really far from the work that is carried out in the classrooms.

On the other hand, it can be considered how teachers react to the need that arises at the moment of class (reactive teachers), where, the didactic teacher-student meetings continue to focus on the programmatic content of the areas and subjects or the aspects that they consider important.

Obviously, the teaching activity is subject to the cognitive domain in relation to the content of the disciplines, of the purpose that is intended for the training of the student. that is, there is a reactive teacher in the didactic meetings where the gap between what is planned and what is desired occurs.

There, there is a break in the coherence established between the different levels of objectives in official documents (regulations, plans and programs). The validity and pertinence achieved at the theoretical level between academic areas, disciplines and subjects with the desired purposes for the formation of man, is violated in instructional practice. One of the causes of this gap that occurs in its educational purposes and purposes and what was done in instructional practices, could be due to inadequate training of teachers to carry out the changes introduced.

It seems that the training given to teachers, remains in superficial aspects, fails to generate the desired level of commitment to achieve the proposed purposes. Teachers fail to fully understand the significance of the changes and internalize them, they remain attached to their own work schemes. Each teacher emphasizes in instruction what they think is important. The changes introduced apparently are not really executed, these remain at the level of the documents, official.

Consequently, when teachers do not engage in curricular design with the purposes and objectives at their different levels of disaggregation, and assume with responsibility the responsibility of contributing to the achievement of such purposes and objectives, their instructional practices become a constant violation of the relevance established in official documents between academic purposes and disciplines.

For its part, the Ministry of Education in the Educational Reform of Basic Education (1998), agrees with the expositions exposed when pointing out, that Venezuelan teachers enter the world of work within wide margins of confusion, ignorance of the reality that corresponds to them face, instability and anguish facing the future. Most start their professional activity with a tendency to solve problems by imitating the professionals in their environment (experienced co-workers).

It is also stated in the aforementioned Educational Reform that:

Teachers in their classrooms continue to do what they have always done and the new generations of graduates, to teach do not show signs of having competences to join the challenge of teaching within the framework of a new social and cultural reality that is called globalization phenomenon. These teachers do not demonstrate commitment to the defense of moral, ecological, social and economic reserves (p. 39).

In this way, they enroll in a circle of poverty and loneliness. Preceded by routine and authoritarianism and imitation of the mediocre. In other words, they go from propositional, theoretical, intuitive, personal and experiential knowledge to spontaneous and strategic knowledge that will gradually be established, automated or routinized, without prior reflection on its applications and without a sincere evaluation of its results.

These actions are shaping the guidelines of the professional culture of the teacher, this empirical and permanent activity is nourished by a large amount of informal learning that arises from the school itself in which it does professional life. After this beginning, an adaptive stage follows, characterized by a high contamination of the alienating elements that underlie the pedagogical action. During this process, the teacher does not receive help neither from the Ministry of Education as representative of the State, nor from the university that formed them and should have the mission of inducing and accompanying him in his beginnings.

Within this situational framework, it would be relevant to train the teacher with a global profile that allows him to perform at all levels and modalities of the educational system according to his disciplinary vocation, seeking to eliminate the existing differences between teachers of Preschool, Basic Education, Medium and Superior.

At the same time, in the National Assembly of Education (1998), it was proposed to carry out an in-depth study of the problems of initial teacher training, in relation to the opening criteria set forth in Resolution 1 of the Ministry of Education (1996). In said Council it was concluded that:

The necessary curricular changes must include retraining the trainers of trainers; the emphasis on the ethical training of future teachers; the establishment of training modalities and mechanisms that guarantee that future teachers dominate the disciplines they will teach, that they have much more practice in the classroom during their training; to make practical and theoretical contact with scientific and technological advances in the field of computing and the media (p. 10)

Said Resolution, considers as a priority aspects related to teacher training, with the curriculum, conceptual structure of institutions, integration of knowledge and disciplines, aimed at training professionals with theoretical - practical command.

Regarding this situation, the teacher must be trained to work proactively, in the face of the rapidly changing world, since the phenomenon of a global culture is influencing all areas of education. Therefore, the challenge of change in the pedagogical action of teachers arises for the school of the future.

This new profile leads to the need to propose another framework of knowledge, other epistemological bases for the initial training of a proactive teacher with a strong globalizing dimension, capable of exercising their pedagogical action at different levels and modalities of the educational system, which it has become the fundamental purpose of this study.

The human being's need to acquire safe and reliable knowledge continually induces him to look for a coherent form that satisfies him intellectually, for which it is necessary to reach a cluster of organized theories. It is evident that studies have become the center of a shared hope, particularly in academic and family settings, however, disorientation is one of the most outstanding features in the training of Venezuelan professionals due to ignorance or lack of orientation. when selecting a university degree. In this context, the initial training of the Venezuelan teacher has been strongly criticized because applicants to this profession are thought to be the least academically advantaged in the educational system.

Reflections on globalization

There is some ambiguity in the use of the term Globalization, initially it was based on perception from Gestalt psychology, identifying with the child's cognitive structure, which would come to have a perception of reality, as a total unit. Hernández and Sancho (1989), distinguish as globalization the sum of interdisciplinary subjects, the psychological learning structure.

For his part, Hernández (1992), admits that the term globalization usually refers to different dimensions of reality; the unity of nature, the treatment of the same subject from different disciplines, the rational nature of learning itself and the global nature of disciplinary knowledge.

On the other hand, the different disciplines that students study throughout teacher training and their different ways of relating (interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity) do not refer to what reality is, but rather their function is to offer the means and instruments to reach to that particular knowledge. From this point of view Yus Ramos (1997), points out that Globalization is not to be understood as the opposite, it does not refer to a methodology, but rather to the methods that are implicit in the disciplines, their role is to contribute to understanding reality.

What is understood today by Globalization refers to a situation in which there has been a special intensification and acceleration of information and socio-economic flows throughout the planet, which translates into a constant increase in the rate of circulation of people, ideas and goods in all directions of the globe. Therefore, Globalization implies an increasing homogenization on a planetary scale, it is also true that, in reaction to it, a gradual reemergence or reaffirmation of local or regional identities and patterns of development and social organization is taking place. Hence, today we can speak of multiple modernities in an era of Globalization (Revista Fomento Social 1998: 195-196).

As Roberston (1993) refers, “Globalization involves a set of processes that lead to a unique world. This causes that all the people are inserted in a single global society ”(p. 396). Whereas, Joyanes (1997), defines Globalization as the set of actions originated by scientific and technological development, that bring peoples closer to each other and that, for the first time in history, puts all people in close and immediate contact, making way for a truly universal humanity

Globalization is for McGrew (1992), a process that refers to the multiplicity of links and interconnections between the States and the Societies that constitute the modern world system. It is essence, a phenomenon through which the events, decisions and activities that take place in one part of the world, can have a significant impact on individuals and communities in very distant parts of the Globe.

Negative view of globalization

Until now, theories have been raised that consider globalization from a positive point of view, however there are some theorists who do not agree with these arguments. Hence, it is relevant to consider some reflections.

- Economic globalization, which the world faces is called trilateralization (USA, Japan and the EU) in the face of the creation of world networks. Indeed, it is noted that globalization does not tell the whole story, since different trends compete: Partner - cultural. Like JIHAD (Holy War) for example, it is the parish ethnic group, the racial and religious fidelity that tends to separate the regions of the world. And the Mac-World is the hegemonic economic market that carries with it a popular culture “Made in the USA”, a grotesque combination of cinema, TV shows, “pop” music and consumer goods, all of which are universal in scope; and a third trend, caught between these two forces “the trend toward democracy in an adult civil society.

In the previous generalizations, it is noted that the different trends regarding the term globalization, it is conceived that this cultural phenomenon is going to change the political, economic, social and moral context of the planet. It is not yet known how that change will be in the future, however Drucker (1993) confesses that the only thing we can be sure of with these changes is the following:

The world that emerges from the present rearrangement of beliefs, values, social and economic structures, systems and political ideas, will be different from anything imaginable today, because the primary resource of the new civilization will be knowledge. Knowledge at the service of productivity and technical innovation above all. The leading groups in the knowledge society will no longer be the industrial classes, but the workers of knowledge, the executives of knowledge who master the techniques they apply. It is the Revolution of Knowledge Management, since knowledge is rapidly becoming the number one factor in production, displacing capital and labor. (p.183)

Consequently, for the purposes of this conference “EL DOCENTE DEL FUTURO” the term Globalization is used in a generic sense, as a holistic way to approach the socio-natural reality and the interactive processes of teacher training. In order to develop this strategy, it will be necessary to resort to certain concepts and methods that, depending on whether a deep or general or holistic treatment is chosen, may come from a discipline or from different forms of interrelation (multi, pluri, inter and transdisciplinarity). But in whichever option is chosen, the overall result of the sequence adopted must transcend strictly disciplinary knowledge, to insinuate a framework of broader relationships.

Dimensions of globalization

Globalization is conceived from the perspective of Pike and Selby (1994) four dimensions: spatial, temporal, thematic and personal.

Spatial dimension: it is about understanding and becoming aware of the interdependent nature of countries and peoples around the world. The teacher's social reality is part of a world system in which the local is embedded in the global and the global is in the local. In this perspective, teacher training cannot be ignored, since, throughout history, they have been given the responsibility of being the fundamental axis of the development of civilizations.

Temporal dimension: the past, present and future must be seen as a dynamic system. In fact, interpretations of the past arise from attitudes, concerns, and priorities of perception or intuitions about the future. It would not be possible to propose guidelines for the training of the future teacher, but it is considered important, the interpretations of the past around the study plans that were designed for this purpose. Therefore, it is necessary to give some futuristic orientation to the Training of the Teachers.

Thematic dimension: In other times it was possible to study a problem isolating it from the rest, but nowadays it is impossible and dangerous to operate in the same way. This is so because global issues are deeply interconnected within a linear scheme of cause and effect.

Personal dimension: If the teacher is aware that his life is intimately linked to the problems and perspectives of other people and other distant environments, he will begin to critically examine his own assumptions, attitudes, values and models of behavior. Proactive Teacher Training must be seen as a process that has a past, a present and a future. It is a professional who can face the remains of a globalized society.

What is the role of globalization in teacher training for the future?

Hence, the curricular projects to train the teacher should focus purposes:

(a) face the future teacher with relevant cultural content;

(b) pay attention to the contents that are on the borders of the different disciplines with which they are faced in their professional evolution;

(d) favor the visualization of the values, ideologies and interests that are present in all social and cultural issues,

(e) promote collegiality in school institutions on the basis of integrated curricular projects, in which the teacher works proactively and

(f) facilitate that the future teacher can adapt to an inevitable mobility in the jobs of tomorrow, by allowing the change of specialization or the acquisition of new skills or knowledge to face the new problems that appear.

(g) encourage teachers in training the attitude to analyze the problems in which they are involved and look for some creative or innovative solution, by awakening the interest and curiosity of the student; what a cooperative teacher achieves.

Those circumstances, according to Guanipa (2001), must lead the teacher:

perform with a creative and critical sense in the professional tasks of their specific field of action, persevering in proposing alternatives aimed at raising the quality of management at each level of the educational system, innovative in the design of projects that can improve the learning strategies and evaluation of the pedagogical process, reflective on the curricular designs in order to modify the methods and techniques of its planning.