Do we have a teaching model that ensures all pupils are included? Headmaster Sindre Nyborg (30) believes that it’s possible, if we form a solid foundation for all the pupils from the get-go.
In his youth, Sindre wanted to become a veterinarian like his father, but growing up in a home passionate about education made him choose the Teacher Education in Natural Sciences at NMBU. Now, he’s the headmaster of Sunde Primary School, a school on the west coast of Norway.
A manager position with many responsibilities
We meet Sindre in his office on an overcast day in September. Sindre started the role as headmaster in the summer of 2022 after having worked as a manager for a real estate photography company in Oslo. Discussions about how schools can help struggling pupils in class made him interested in communication and knowledge sharing. When we ask him why he chose Sunde Primary School as his place to work, he explains that he’s always wanted to come back to the west coast after having grown up there.
̶ It could get a bit lonely working from home in Oslo. I’ve also always found thinking analytical and strategic to be a good skill of mine and something I find fun. I wanted to return to the education sector and maintain the knowledge I’ve sustained about systemic concept teaching.
The role as headmaster includes dividing tasks between the teachers, but the most important task is to create the best school day for the pupils. Sindre ensures everyone has their needs met when it comes to creating a safe school environment that can be adjusted to each pupil’s individual needs.
As headmaster he’s also responsible for the employees, the economical aspect of running a school and for pedagogy.
̶ I’m not just a leader for the employees, but for the pupils with their individual strengths and challenges. We work closely with families and the support services in the education sector.
̶ Creating a good working environment is a decisive factor in how we meet our pupils. We have to work as a team and brave the difficult conversations when we’re faced with challenges or dilemmas at work. It’s my job to facilitate this.
But the best thing, according to Sindre, is being able to get to know so many people at the start of their lives, and being allowed to help shape them. Something he’s proud of is what they do to facilitate knowledge, experiences, friendships and values that enable the pupils to make smart choices later on in life.
We need a strong foundation to learn
Sindre is passionate about ensuring that all children having the opportunity to form a solid foundation when it comes to understanding what they’re taught. This is where the concept of systemic concept teaching from Magne Nyborg comes into play.
̶ You don’t throw a child into deep water when you’re teaching them to swim for the first time. You start at the shore and teach the child the basic skills they need to stay afloat, before moving out into deeper water.
Sindre further explains that he believes schools in Norway have great potential for improvement when it comes to "getting everyone involved" - regardless of background. It's important to learn about how children and adults learn, says Sindre. It is something he wishes the government and schools could facilitate more for in everyday school life.
̶ Many people talk about laying the foundation in the children's school, but try laying the foundation without tools. It is not that easy. Being able to think analytically, critically and see similarities and differences is not a gift or talent anyone automatically gets.
̶ We need to build structures that allow you to quickly see what defining characteristics of problems and situations you are facing that are important to address.
̶ It’s important to have an eclectic understanding of learning. One should not only be presented with many different pedagogical directions. The pedagogy in basic education can seem poorly analyzed if one does not understand how it is that we as human beings learn.
Wrote textbooks when he was 24 years old
Sindre played a central role in creating one of the most widely used mathematics textbooks for primary school when he was 24. It was a result of his master's thesis analyzing textbooks for grade 1-2 at primary school and how they were structured.
̶ The result of the analysis showed that, based on the textbooks, it’s completely arbitrary whether the children have the prior knowledge in place to understand the abstract mathematics. Then it all depends on whether you have parents who can help, or if you went to the right kindergarten or got the right teacher.
̶ Aschehoug wanted to address this and asked me if I would write the new version of "Matemagisk 1-4" for the subject renewal. The project lasted until 2022, and I learned a lot about both how to prepare textbooks, but also how we must think about mathematics to ensure that children get what they need from the start of their education. We must remember to give them the tools to learn mathematics with.
Taxonomy by the beach is a hit among the students
In addition to the usual subjects, Sunde Primary School has a long history of coastal culture. Using nature as a learning arena has been a long-standing practice. Sindre explains that the children are taught about life along the fjord, but also about catching, cooking seafood and maneuvering a boat.
- ̶ For many years, Sunde has had a coastal culture week, where the pupils learn about life along the fjord in the old days, catching and cooking seafood, and using boats and canoes.
̶ Systematization and classification (taxonomy) of life on the shore is also a common feature. We are now working towards a permanent collaboration with the coastal culture centre on Sunde regarding the use of an old sailing boat. Seeing the value of the resources around us is important both for the conservation of nature, resources and culture, but also for recruiting to local workplaces, so that more people want to work in the local environment.
̶ In the spring we want to create a school garden and grow our own vegetables. The 5th grade is currently incubating eggs. We are fortunate to have employees with expertise in several areas, and two of them also have their own farm with animals near the school. Providing sensory-based experiences, where the student learns directly through concrete objects and experiences, increases the student's understanding and makes it easier to see connections. Therefore, it is important that the students encounter words and concepts through role-playing, miming, games, outdoor school, practical activities, excursions and trips.
NMBU helps shape initiators
NMBU is the place where Sindre developed the most. After all, it is where he lived his first years as an adult.
̶ Everyone lived in the same place (Pentagon) and met at the same place (Samfunnet), regardless of your course, background or year level. It makes you a more open person.
̶ At NMBU everyone took initiative, hosted events, joined associations, parties and concepts. That is why I think NMBU is a university that fosters many initiators. Such competence, in combination with knowledge across lines and areas of knowledge, can bring a lot of good with it in later work, e.g. entrepreneurs.
You should feel pride over being a teacher
Teachers today carry out many different tasks, which are not necessarily just to convey and teach.
̶ I think a teacher should feel as much pride as a doctor or engineer. Unfortunately, the teaching profession has an undeserved bad reputation today, which means that many of those we need in schools go into more popular professions with better salaries. Our entire future is built on the work that teachers do with the next generation. Recruitment is probably slow mainly because the tasks of teachers have changed drastically in recent years. The profession has become watered down, and the challenges children face have become greater.
It's not enough to just be good at the subject and good at presenting it, you also have to be a good class teacher, mediator, psychologist, secretary, janitor, in addition to having endurance and self-confidence in what you do. You have to take into account both students, parents and other agencies.
̶ I believe that we can recruit more by creating a sense of mastery among those who are already teachers. It's not only the students who need to experience a sense of mastery. Understanding the learning process better, so that one can organize teaching with the best possible effect, is important for both the teacher and the students. Being masterful in one's field, which for teachers means conveying professional knowledge in a way that ensures that the students understand what is being taught, will also strengthen the self-image of the teachers in society. This is as important as the economy in giving the teaching profession a higher status. Here, teacher education has an important task that they must take on.
- In addition, it would be beneficial to increase the basic staffing in schools, as we have done, to raise the staff's morale. This would create a buffer against overworking teachers.
̶ This is important because teachers must constantly develop and learn to perform tasks that are far from what they learned in their education. This requires school owners to understand the benefits of fire prevention.
One last thing Sindre explains when we talk about the teaching profession and the lack of students is requirements. He believes that the education sector should set higher requirements for becoming a teacher, so that one can also argue for higher salaries among teachers.
In addition to this, he thinks that the government should consider introducing other professional groups into schools, such as social workers, psychologists and other professions.
̶ Teachers should be allowed to be teachers. It’s probably something that can save the profession.