Svante Silvén, Honorary Doctor at the Board of Teacher Education
Svante Silvén was born in Halmstad in 1931. The family moved to Lund when he was twelve, after the death of his father. He received his secondary and upper-secondary schooling at Katedralskolan and matriculated in 1951. Svante Silvén was not very good at mathematics and physics in secondary school, but later he had a teacher who could inspire pupils.
“Sometimes I had to go to the board and explain a problem to the class. That teacher had the right attitude – he made mathematics easy!”
After school, Svante Silvén started studying mechanical engineering at Chalmers. He took all the courses offered in mathematics and physics, in addition to the foundational courses in electrical engineering and electronic measuring. At the time, there was no programme in engineering physics, but because Svante Silvén took more than the mathematics and physics required for mechanical engineering, he jokes that he was “Chalmers’s first physical engineer,” or as someone else said, “A camouflaged physical engineer.” He finished his degree in 1959 and became an assistant in physics at Chalmers. At the same time, he researched the structure of silicon and other crystals using gamma radiation. He completed his licentiate in 1965.
When the assistant position ceased to exist, Svante Silvén started studying pedagogy at the teacher training college. He liked explaining things, after all. Years later he heard that he was the best teaching student in physics. Svante Silvén started teaching a final year class at Vasa upper-secondary school in Gothenburg. He managed to transform the low-achieving class into a high-achieving one, in part because his pupils had to study a university course on continuous functions.
“If a pupil experiences difficulties, I always wonder whether it is because of low self-esteem or something else. And in most cases it has to do with low self-esteem!”
Svante later came to Karlstad, where he was recognised as a great mathematics and physics teacher. Svante Silvén’s pedagogical vision involves giving pupils some insight into the working methods of professional mathematicians, and he emphasises the importance of mathematics and free fantasy, creativity, control, observation, enthusiasm and welcoming all ideas. Svante Silvén deems enthusiasm for learning important, as well as teaching so as to develop pupils’ self-esteem to give them opportunity to thrive. About ten of his former pupils have completed their PhDs and even become professors.
“Contact with pupils is the best, both in my subjects and at a personal level. Many pupils still remember me and I have contact with several of them and follow their careers.”
Without teachers like Svante Silvén we would not have had so many capable and interested engineering students, mathematicians and physicists at Karlstad University. This honorary doctorate shows how much the university appreciates the lifework of this inspiring and involved teacher.
“I am proud and honoured!”