The guidance is not new to what schools are doing.
A leader of Thai Thinh Secondary School (Dong Da District, Hanoi) said that the Ministry's instructions are basically nothing new compared to what schools are doing, but are more detailed, clearly mentioning the number of periods and tasks of each stage.
An integrated natural science lesson for 7th graders in Ho Chi Minh City
Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong Ly, a geography teacher at Minh Khai Secondary School (Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi), shared that the new guidance document from the Ministry of Education and Training clearly states the limit on how many periods each chapter has, unlike before when anyone could teach as many periods as they wanted. However, some contents have been implemented but the document is only available now.
Therefore, some teachers think that this guide is too detailed in the "hand-holding" style and seems to go against the policy of "unleashing" teachers.
A history teacher at a secondary school in Bac Giang City (Bac Giang) commented: the Ministry's instructions seem very long and detailed, but in general, for history and geography, it is only necessary to understand that teachers who teach a subject will still teach and give tests for that subject. Thus, there is nothing new compared to what schools have been doing for the past 2 years, meaning that although integrated, in reality, it is just combining the two subjects of history and geography into one subject and sharing a textbook with 2 separate parts.
According to many teachers, this guidance is only meant to "put out the fire" for a certain period of time and does not solve the root problem of the integrated subject, which is the lack of teachers and the program and textbooks are not truly integrated.
Teachers guide students to work in groups during an integrated history-geography lesson.
When will integrated teachers be available?
The leader of a junior high school in Tay Ho District (Hanoi) said that looking back at 3 years of organizing integrated teaching of natural sciences at junior high school level in Hanoi, in the first year, schools were allowed to teach as 3 separate subjects, meaning that when it came to chemistry, a chemistry teacher would come to class, when it came to biology, a biology teacher would teach... the timetable did not change compared to before. However, in the second year, Hanoi required teaching according to the flow of knowledge, teaching continuously. This led to the fact that 6th grade students would learn all the knowledge of physics before moving on to chemistry, biology... Thus, when students returned to physics in grade 7, the basic knowledge of physics in grade 6 had almost completely fallen away.
In addition, due to the intensive teaching of knowledge, in a natural science subject, even if all the chemistry teachers in the whole school were to be concentrated in the classes following the new curriculum, grades 6, 7, and 8, there would not be enough teachers. Furthermore, by the third year of implementing the 2018 program, there could be up to 40 classes of 3 grades studying the knowledge of chemistry, physics, and biology at the same time, while teachers in the remaining subjects would only have 1-2 homeroom periods and flag salutes each week, etc.
Therefore, schools have to find ways to cope, the norm of teachers teaching no more than 19 periods/week can only be increased to 25 periods/week. The remaining shortage will have to be "seasonally" contracted with the missing teachers. For example, for more than 1 month of teaching physics, a contract will be signed with an outside physics teacher; after finishing physics, a similar contract will be signed with the remaining subjects.
When will there be enough teachers who are properly trained to teach integrated teaching? The answer is still open. This school year, many localities, including Hanoi, when recruiting teachers for secondary schools still recruit teachers of single subjects (physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography) but have not recruited teachers to teach natural sciences or history and geography.
This means that there is no source of well-trained integrated teachers, and if we continue to recruit single-subject teachers into the payroll like this, the story of no integrated teachers or single-subject teachers having to be trained to teach integrated teaching will never end.
Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son, when talking about "two paths" for integrated subjects, also said: one is to return to the old way of single subjects; the second path is to persist in innovation and calculate a roadmap until a certain year when old teachers are fully trained to ensure conditions and will complete. However, according to the Minister, "this is an issue that needs to be implemented, not setting requirements on time or which month it must be completed".
Teachers demonstrate to students the steps in an integrated lesson.
The program and textbooks are not truly integrated.
The leader of a secondary school in Tay Ho District also said that the Ministry's direction with natural science is to teach according to the knowledge flow of each subject, which also shows that the person who designed the program and textbooks for natural science is not integrated, so there is a situation where after finishing one subject, it can be interrupted to teach another subject. To truly integrate, the knowledge of the subjects must be truly integrated to integrate with each other, not separated from one subject to another like that.
As for history and geography, although they are one subject, the instruction is still organized as if they were two independent subjects, taught in parallel with two teachers of two different subjects. A teacher asked: "I don't understand why they have to be combined because when teachers go for training, the group of authors who compile the books themselves do not have any authors who can train teachers in all sub-subjects."
According to many opinions, it is true that integration makes it difficult for schools to arrange timetables and arrange teachers, but they must see that what they are doing, although difficult, will be more effective than teaching a single subject like before. In this case, it is more difficult and complicated, but the result is that each subject still focuses on doing its subject well. So what is the point of "integrating" them together, or is it just to complicate the problem more?
Regarding the content of the history and geography textbooks for grades 6, 7, and 8, the authors also divide them into two separate parts, without any knowledge connection or integration. Regular and periodic tests are also instructed by the Ministry: "Must be consistent with the content and teaching time of each subject", which means that the regular test of each subject will be tested by that subject. When it comes to periodic tests, the test questions are combined from 2 subjects into 1 question. However, the principal must "assign the teacher in charge of each subject in each class to coordinate with the teachers who teach the subject in that class to summarize the scores, record the scores, and make comments in the student monitoring and evaluation book and report card".
Previously, many teachers and history experts also called the integration of history and geography into one subject as it is now a "forced marriage" and hoped that the Ministry of Education and Training would soon "divorce" these two subjects to avoid unnecessary troubles like the current situation. However, after reading the Ministry's guidelines on integrated teaching, teachers said that the shortcomings of integration still remain.
How to take the exam for gifted students and enter specialized grade 10?
Testing and evaluating during the learning process with integrated subjects is already difficult, but many opinions point out that when students move up to high school, many questions will arise. Students from grade 10 are taught in a differentiated way and can choose their own subjects. Specifically, except for history, all sub-subjects in integrated subjects in junior high school are single elective subjects when they move up to high school. In particular, with the provincial-level excellent junior high school exam, a single subject exam has been held for a long time. When students study the new general education program until grade 9, how will this exam be conducted? What will happen to students with abilities and strengths in some subjects who want to be trained to take specialized exams when they enter grade 10? In fact, requiring students to be excellent in all 2-3 subjects is too high a requirement, and if they take a single subject exam, it goes against the policy of integrated teaching.
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