Teacher training, based on students’ considerations on the quality of the school

Abstract

Several pedagogical studies have shown the need to improve teaching starting from the opinions and thoughts of students who, as recipients of training processes, are more likely to be able to provide ideas on the quality of teaching. The student-voice perspective starts from the basics of teaching: it is eminently wrong to design the training system without taking into proper consideration the opinions of those for whom it is designed. This research analyses the results of a survey that investigated what 1657 students of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th year of high school think about their school experience and their relationship with teachers. The results clearly show that the school system uses teaching methods that are too distant from the actual needs of students. In fact, pupils ask for a more engaging and less boring school. There are differences in the responses of students attending high schools, technical institutes, and vocational institutes about the quality of the school system, but many observations and requests for change are the same for everyone. Starting from the information provided by the respondents, it is possible to reinvent teacher-training theories to meet the needs of adolescents.