At one time, you were the head of the State Educational Content Center, currently you are the author and teacher of mathematics teaching aids, as well as the head of the Latvian Employers’ Confederation of Education and Employment. Our conversation takes place in the context of October 6, when Teachers’ Day will be celebrated. Basically, you have been on both sides in a sense – you used to work on the side of educational planners, now you are more in the work of a teacher. Knowing both the good and the negative that has been experienced in recent years both in relation to the education system as a whole, as well as the work of pedagogues, pay and all other nuances, and looking from the teacher’s point of view – how does a teacher feel today?
In fact, I also work in many other directions, including research. But a small deviation – even during the time when I worked in the state administration and still in the private sector, I was a teacher at the same time. I have always maintained my connection with the school, because my belief is that it is impossible to be a shoemaker who cannot repair his own shoes. Respectively, a person must not lose connection with the school and decide about the school or make decisions affecting this sector in any way.
Speaking about October 6 and feelings – first of all, it should be understood that a teacher is a person for whom every 1 September, every October and every 31 May and also June, regardless of what is happening around, is always filled with a festive feeling. I don’t remember a single year when I didn’t feel like the teachers were united in celebration and uplifted and looking at the school with pride. But it must be said that what the teacher expects in recent years is more the feeling that he is valued, that he is the basis of the development of the new Latvian society. Because the teacher is the one who works with the person who will live and work in Latvia in the future. For many years, this story is no longer just about salary, about schedules, about overload, it is a story about how we see a teacher not only on holidays, but how we see him everyday, how we realize that there are fewer and fewer teachers, how we inspire teachers, how do we all look at the future of education together, because it largely does not depend only on teachers, the ministry or school directors, it also depends on our society – how important this section is to all of us. Of course, the part of the society that has children feels more and more every year that the demands in schools are increasing, there are changes all the time, and the teacher is certainly the one who can create confidence in the society that these changes are for the better. I think they succeed quite well in this because they look at change through the lens of what the children get out of it.
Teachers are currently educating those children and young people who will work in professions important to society in the future in their working life – they will be car mechanics, economists, educators, ministers. To express that it is important for the teacher to feel valued, including from society.
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