Browsing by Subject "hyvä opettaja"

The purpose of this thesis is to study, how sixth graders in a normal school describe their student teachers. The aim is also to find out if the representations made by the pupils are similar to the representations of teacher's profession and a good teacher that are prevalent in our society. The research approach of this study was qualitative. The qualitative survey data with open questions was collected in the winter 2013 from 6 graders who studied in a normal school. 73 pupils participated in the study. The survey data were analysed applying principles of qualitative content analysis. Five categories emerged from the data describing good student teachers. These categories were: personality, pedagogical relationship, didactical relationship, industrial peace and other qualities. The pupils' representation of the personality of a good student teacher consisted of friendliness, kindness and humorous. A good student teacher had a good style as well as a personal handwriting or a way of speaking. Representation of the pedagogical relationship of a good student teacher included treating the pupils according to their age, treating them equally, respect them and help them when needed. A good student teacher didn't yell or rage and didn't complain unnecessarily. The didactical relationship representation consisted of creating a relaxed and fun atmosphere as well as keeping the classes interesting. During class a good student teacher knew how to take it easy and explained everything clearly. With his/hers own action a good student teacher could make dull topics interesting. He/she used diverse methods like using drama or group assignments. Industrial peace was seen as a quiet class where a little noise was allowed. Keeping the peace in classroom was an important skill to have as a student teacher. It was not done by yelling but having a relaxed and positive way of doing this. The pupils' representation of the other qualities that a good student teacher had were being young, giving candy and not smelling. In regard of the earlier studies there seems to be similarities with the representations of the pupils of a good student teacher and the representations of teacher's profession and a good teacher that are prevalent in our society.

Finnish education is noted around the world. Teacherness divides opinions in Finnish context, but still receives lots of academic appreciation. This can be explained with historical reasons, although the recent history points out that the subject is increasingly criticized in public speech and the scale of teacher representations has expanded. Previously teachers are depicted clearly as good or bad teachers. My starting point was to research teacher representation in Finnish TV series Kumman Kaa where the main character presents Swedish language teacher in Upper Level primary school. I focused on researching teacher representation framework of good teacher, teacher's professionalism and representations. The goal was to find out how teacher is represented in comedy and which factors especially formed the unethical teacher's representation to thought-provoking viewer's experience. Research was based on qualitative research and content analysis. I combined analysis theories side by side with the process of data produced repetitive phenomenona. I defined the substantive data as belonging to the school context for transcription which brought up the themes in theories of good teacher. After categorizing and classifying the data I used the classification to different theories of teacherness. The research process consists the phases of content analysis for interview which I adapted to TV series data analyzing. The results are associated to my own subjective values of teaching. In the beginning of the research I interpreted the teacher representations in the good or bad, but during the research process they were characterized more widely. The teacher was depicted as unethical and technocratic actor that inhibited the school's normative atmosphere. The scenes in school context that represented the teacher focused on avoiding the official duties and actions in the workplace. As classifying the phenomena I used my own experience as a teacher and secondly to the theories of good teacher and teacher's professionalism. The conclusion of unethical and selfish person as a teacher processional argues that one factor for comedy in this context is the contrast between good and bad teacher. More research is needed in framework of parody and comedy of Finnish teachers in the media.