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Bill & Melinda Gates on the State of Inequality in the World

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2019 //
62

 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued an annual report called the “Goalskeepers Report 2019,” signed by Bill & Melinda Gates.

The theme is “Examining Inequality.”

It is a useful compilation of data about inequality from around the world, focused mainly on Africa.

There are two things that really bother me, however.

First of all, Bill Gates has never admitted or apologized for the damage he has done to American education by his munificent support for high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by test scores, Common Core, and charter schools. His initiatives have wreaked havoc, demoralized teachers, harmed schools and communities, and he never says “I was wrong.”

The second thing that bothers me is that I do not believe that Bill & Melinda Gates wrote the report to which they affixed their names. It is unethical to claim authorship of something you did not write yourself.

 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Inequality, International

Pasi Sahlberg and Peter Johnson: How Finnish Schools Engage in Continuous Improvement

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2019 //
28

Finland’s educational success became an international sensation when the nation’s students unexpectedly topped the PISA test a few years back. The Finns really don’t care much about rankings and standardized tests, and they were as surprised as everyone else. Thousands of visitors came to Finland to find out what they were doing. Then Finland slipped out of first place, and the gossip mill began spinning out theories about why Finland was losing its luster. Finland still doesn’t care about rankings or test scores.

In this post, Finnish expert Pasi Sahlberg and Finnish educator Peter Johnson explain what Finland is doing and what it is not doing to improve its schools (not its test scores).

They identify the three cornerstones of Finnish education:

*Education systems and schools shouldn’t be managed like business corporations where tough competition, measurement-based accountability and performance-determined pay are common principles. Instead, successful education systems rely on collaboration, trust, and collegial responsibility in and between schools.

*The teaching profession shouldn’t be perceived as a technical, temporary craft that anyone with a little guidance can do. Successful education systems rely on continuous professionalization of teaching and school leadership that requires advanced academic education, solid scientific and practical knowledge, and continuous on-the-job training.

*The quality of education shouldn’t be judged by the level of literacy and numeracy test scores alone. Successful education systems are designed to emphasize whole-child development, equity of education outcomes, well being, and arts, music, drama and physical education as important elements of curriculum.

They then debunk the myths and misperceptions that have been bruited about.

Unlike the U.S., where billions of dollars are wasted in efforts to switch control of schools from public to private, Finnish educators are trying to work through the problems of building a curriculum and pedagogy for the 21st century–and beyond.

Categories Corporate Reformers, International, Privatization, Teachers

GERM Warfare: Stopping the Global Education Reform Movement

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2019 //
6

 

No one has been more effective at describing and fighting the spread of GERM than Pasi Sahlberg, the Finnish educator now working to reform education standardization in Australia.

I recently visited Pasi and his family in Croatia. He and his Croatian-born wife have two beautiful children, ages 7 and 3. The boys are tri-lingual (English, Finnish, and Croatian). The older boy is learning Chinese.They have no television. The children play.

Read Pasi’s classic book Finnish Lessons, which demonstrates that there is a better way to educate children and prepare teachers, and his recent book with William Doyle, Let the Children Play. 

Unbeknownst to Pasi, some musical talents put his ideas into song. 

It is only a few minutes. Watch and enjoy.

You can also watch Pasi’s wonderful presentation at the NPE national conference in Indianapolis in 2018, where he used this song in his talk. 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Denounces Privatization

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2019 //
36

African education leaders spoke out against privatization of their schools, which means Western corporations and taking control of their future. Privatization, they know, is the new colonialism. You can assume that a few well-chosen local leaders have been hired to argue on behalf of privatization.
Abidjan Principles recognised in resolution on privatisation of education and health by African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights 
We are writing today to welcome the new landmark resolution by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights published yesterday that addresses the role of private actors in education and health.The resolution on ‘States’ obligation to regulate private actors involved in the provision of health and education services’ reaffirms that African States are ‘the duty bearers for the protection and fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights, in particular the rights to health and education without discrimination, for which quality public services are essential’. It also expresses concerns at the current trend amongst bilateral donors and international institutions of putting ‘pressure on States Parties to privatize or facilitate access to private actors in their health and education sectors’ in disregard of these obligations.

In this context, the African Commission calls on States to ‘take appropriate policy, institutional and legislative measures to ensure respect, protection, promotion and realization of economic, social and cultural rights, in particular the right to health and education’ by adopting ‘legislative and policy frameworks regulating private actors in social service delivery’ and ensuring ‘that their involvement is in conformity with regional and international human rights standards’.

The resolution refers to and sets standards that are in line with the recently adopted Abidjan Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education. The Commission notably calls on States to ‘consider carefully the risks for the realization of economic, social and cultural rights of public-private partnerships and ensure that any potential arrangements for public-private partnerships are in accordance with their substantive, procedural and operational human rights obligations.’

Salima Namusobya, the Executive Director of the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), stated: ‘We have seen the realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights hindered by the uncontrolled and unregulated development of private actors in social services delivery, such as health and education. Governments’ increasing reliance on private schools and clinics is facilitated by declining State investment in these essential public services and a blind belief in market solutions. The African Commission’s resolution is an important step towards ensuring greater accountability for States to deliver quality public services, as they are legally bound to do under national and international law.’

Research conducted globally and across the African continent in recent years has documented how the failure of States to adequately invest in public services, pro-market ideology and inadequate regulation of the private sector are leading to increasingly detrimental impacts on human rights: growing discrimination and segregation owing to unaffordable fees, lack of transparency and accountability, inequity, misuse of resources, and corporate control over services which are essential for the development of open and fair societies.

Human rights researchers, scholars, activists and bodies have provided a strong framework in the last years to analyse and respond to this phenomenon. In February 2019, over 50 eminent experts from around the world adopted in Côte d’Ivoire the Abidjan Principles on the right to education which unpack States’ existing human rights obligations in this context. In the field of health, in April 2019, ISER launched an analysis of private involvement in health using the human rights framework.

Sylvain Aubry, a Legal and Research Advisor at the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), commented: ‘With this resolution, the African Commission is sending a powerful message to the world. It reaffirms the inalienable human rights requirements to provide quality public services and to regulate private actors, and the obligation of States to meet their human rights standards, such as the detailed guidelines provided in the Abidjan Principles. Human rights scholars, activists and communities across the continent have repeatedly said that a market-approach to social services is not compatible with human rights standards. We hope that African leaders will put the resolution in practice, and that it will lead the way for other regional and UN human rights mechanisms to follow suit.’

“I think the resolution is a welcome development and a bold step on the part of the African Commission given the weak or lack of regulation of the activities of private actors in many African countries. This resolution becomes an important standard that can be used to prevent or minimize the negative impacts of the activities of private actors in the enjoyment of socioeconomic rights. Given the impact of the activities on non state actors on access to water, it is crucial that future guidance from the African Commission on private actors addresses more than health or education.” Ebenezer Durojaye, Dullah Omar Institute.

The Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Dullah Omar Institute, and the Right to Education Initiative welcome this commitment of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights and hopes that this will be followed by continuing work of the institution on these issues. The resolution as well as the interpretative guidance provided by the Abidjan Principles constitute a milestone in building and enforcing regulatory frameworks for private actors in social services and will strengthen government’s’ efforts to regulate private actors.

Documents:

Contacts:

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, International, Privatization

Steven Singer: American Public Schools Are Great!

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2019 //
14

 

Steven Singer wrote this last year, but it remains pertinent and on the money. He says that there is a narrative spun by Disrupters that American schools are in “crisis” and are “failing.” He says this is baloney, or bologna, whichever spelling you prefer.

Singer says that American public schools are among the best in the world.

He writes:

Critics argue that our scores on international tests don’t justify such a claim. But they’re wrong before you even look at the numbers. They’re comparing apples to pears. You simply can’t compare the United States to countries that leave hundreds of thousands of rural and poor children without any education whatsoever. The Bates Motel may have the softest pillows in town, but it’s immediately disqualified because of the high chance of being murdered in the shower.

No school system of this size anywhere in the world exceeds the United States in providing free access to education for everyone. And that, alone, makes us one of the best.

It doesn’t mean our system is problem free. There are plenty of ways we could improve. We’re still incredibly segregated by race and class. Our funding formulas are often regressive and inadequate. Schools serving mostly poor students don’t have nearly the resources of those serving rich students. But at least at the very outset what we’re trying to do is better than what most of the world takes on. You can’t achieve equity if it isn’t even on the menu.

The important thing to know about the international test scores is that we were never #1. Never. When the first international test of mathematics was offered in the mid-1960s, we came in last.

What holds us back is our high rates of child poverty. If we reduced poverty, we would improve our schools because children would arrive in school ready to learn, and would not lose days of instruction due to illness and lack of medical attention.

The biggest problem in American education, aside from our national indifference to the well-being of students, is that we have a crazy federal law that makes test scores the goal of education. That’s backwards. Test scores are supposed to be a measure, not a goal.

We should aim to be more like Finland, which not only has high test scores without test prep, but has been rated the happiest country in the world. Less testing, more time for the arts and more attention to creativity and divergent thinking. Teachers with autonomy and a love of teaching. Students encouraged to do their best but not measured by standardized tests. You know where Finland got these ideas? They borrowed them from the U.S., and we forgot them and went for standardization. As Albert Einstein said many decades ago, standardization is for automobiles, not for people.

 

Categories Accountability, Creativity, International, Poverty, Teachers

Great Britain: School Privatization Run Amok

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2019 //
6

 

 

Thanks to Leonie Haimson for sending along this paper. The “academy” concept began under a Conservative government that believed private enterprise was infinitely wiser than public anything. Corporations and wealthy individuals were encouraged to “buy” control of schools by putting up a large sum. Things seem to going swimmingly for the idea. This is a small excerpt. When I was part of the Koret Task Force at the rightwing Hoover Institution, we journeyed to England as a group to learn about this example of privatization in action.

The paper contains a valuable review of “related party transactions,” that is, financial self-dealing in the private entities that receive public funding in the U.S. and Great Britain.

 

Charter Schools, Academy Schools, and Related-Party Transactions: Same Scams, Different Countries

Preston C. Green III and Chelsea E. Connery

 

Academies were first introduced in 2000 as the City Academy Program. 34 City academies were to

replace locally run schools in urban areas that were deemed to be failing by the school inspection

body Ofsted, or that were underachieving. The Education Act 2002 permitted academies to open

outside of urban areas.

 

Eight years later, Parliament enacted the Academies Act 2010. This statute extended the academy

option, until then limited to struggling schools, to include successful schools at both the primary

and secondary levels. The government financed conversion costs and provided considerable

financial incentives to encourage schools to convert. The number of academies increased

dramatically as a result of these policy changes. In 2010, there were 203 academies throughout

England, all of them serving secondary schools with high proportions of disadvantaged students.40

As of September 2018, there were 8,177 academies, constituting 36% of England’s state funded

schools. About 66% of England’s secondary schools and 30% of its primary schools have achieved

academy status.

 

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=288029089119124077071072023002029091103043056088031004087020092093070127089006103068017098101006051012034021074006121068019013122090028033029003084118011099077099015084017084101118003105028109069085121099080067081097099083066095083111127031029112103001&EXT=pdf

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, International, Privatization

Peg Tyre: What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in Japan

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2019 //
15

 

Veteran journalist Peg Tyre is on a study mission to understand education in certain Asian nations. She has written several reports, some of which were posted here. She has written to tell me that she has enjoyed the feedback from readers of this blog, so keep those emails and reactions to her coming.
A teacher in a primary school giving a healthy-living lesson
Japanese Teachers Put In Longer Hours Than Any Other Teachers on the Planet
“Being a teacher is like being a 7-11. Open 24 hours.”
Here’s the project: The Japanese government, like many Asian countries with high performing schools, wants to educate students to become more innovative and creative in order to compete with AI and participate more fully in a global economy. They are promoting English language instruction (with an emphasis on speaking), creativity, self-expression, meta-cognition, critical thinking and problem-solving. I’m on a research trip in Japan to find out more.
Thanks to all the folks (and especially teachers!) emailing me questions and sharing reflections. Very inspiring. Keep those emails coming.
You Asked: What’s It Like To Be a Public School Teacher in Japan?
So I Looked Into It!
Answer: They Get a Ton of Respect But the Hours Are Crippling.
And lots of teachers fear the push to change schools is going to make those hours even worse.
The Good Part: It takes time and determination to teach in a public school in Japan. You need a college degree with an emphasis on education, a supervised practicum and you need to get a license and renew it every few years. The job application process is highly selective and only the best candidates land jobs. Once you get a job, you are encouraged to collaborate with your fellow teachers, and do a great deal of observation of other classrooms. Professional development is considered necessary for everyone.
Being a public school teacher in Japan is a prestigious job. You are entrusted to look after the academic, social and emotional lives of students as individuals and also foster group harmony, so people consider you a moral beacon. You teach kids life skills (like brushing teeth), help them navigate socially, help direct their careers and even do a little ad hoc family counseling.
Unlike in the US, where reformers often suggest that kids in low-performing schools would learn more if teachers were smarter, better educated or more dedicated, Japanese people regard the teachers in their local public school as something akin to a pastor or a doctor in a local clinic. The government appreciates you. Parents don’t criticize you. And school administrators are pretty supportive as well. The pay is pretty decent, definitely enough to live a middle class life.
The Bad Part: The hours are shockingly long.
In 2006, primary school teacher worked 53.16 hours a week.
In 2016, primary school teachers worked a whopping 57.29 hours per week.
Senior teachers and vice principals have even it worse.
In 2006, they reported working 59.05 hours a week.
In 2016, they logged 63.8 hours per week.
That includes teaching time, supervising clubs and activities after school, counseling, lesson planning, grading and preparing materials. Teachers also take their students on class trips on Saturdays.
In the Japanese context, working long hours is considered a virtue. But karoshi, literally working yourself to death, has become a big social problem in many sectors of the economy in Japan. And teachers are not immune.
Makamura Kunihiko is a veteran teacher and now principal at Sapporo Fushimi junior high school. (His photo is below) In an interview a few days ago, he told me that among his staff, about 20% of his teachers, usually parents of young kids, leave at 5 pm. About 20% of the teachers in his school stay until midnight– working.
Good Lord! What Does the Union Say? The responsibilities of the job, they point out, are unsustainable. And in the last few years, the number of people who say they want to be teachers is dropping. “Teachers are worn out. To keep ourselves healthy and to make sure we have enough [bandwidth] to communicate with students, we need to address the issue of overwork,” says Tamaki Terazawa, head of international affairs for the Japan Teachers’ Union.
The government has responded by asking schools to get community members to run after school programs and supervise class trips to shorten a teacher’s work day. And that is starting to happen. The government also capped the hours teachers can work but that’s a pretty toothless initiative since unpaid overtime falls into that gray area made up of what you are required to do and what you think should do. And teachers in Japan (and workers in Japan in general) don’t have many models for work-life balance.
A Day in the Life of as Japanese Public School Teacher:
8:15 am….. start work.
4:45 pm…. formal school day ends.
5:00 pm….supervise clubs or activities.
6:00 pm……teacher team meetings.
8:00 pm…… grading and lesson planning.
Weekend….. teachers often supervise class trips.
NEXT UP: Readers prompt me to think more deeply about who gets to be creative. How? And Why?
Interested in reading what I’ve discovered so far?
Newsletter 1: In The Beginning
You can take an active role in shaping this project. Please send me questions, observations, research, history and personal reflections about your own teaching and learning, thoughts about rote learning and your ideas about what makes an innovator. Tell me what you want to know from my reporting. Twitter: @pegtyre or email: pegtyre1@gmail.com
Also, if you know of someone who might be interested in being part of this project, kindly send me their email and I’ll add them to the mailing list.
My trip is made possible by a generous Abe Fellowship for Journalists (administered by the Social Science Research Council.) I retain full editorial control. I also appreciate the moral support of my colleagues at the EGF Accelerator, an incubator for education-related nonprofits.
Education in Japan/S.Korea
Sent by pegtyre1@gmail.com in collaboration with
Categories Education Reform, International, Teachers

Peg Tyre in Japan: When Getting the Right Answer is the Wrong Answer

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2019 //
9

 

Veteran journalist Peg Tyre is in Japan right now, trying to learn more about their efforts to reform schools. She loves feedback from you.
Will “Spinach” Stop Japanese Schools From Teaching Kids in A Way That Promotes Innovation?
Here’s the project: The governments in Japan and South Korea say they want to educate students to become more innovative and creative in order to participate more fully in the global economy. They are promoting English language instruction (with an emphasis on speaking), self-expression, critical thinking and problem-solving. I’m on a research trip to those countries to find out more.
In my last newsletter, I asked for help. And I got it! I’ve been astonished (and delighted) by how many teachers, policymakers, researchers, students, and school administrators have reached out to share their reflections about the kind of teaching that produces innovators, what’s changing, the challenges, the opportunity, and potential for transformation in the U.S and in Japan. Again, thank you! Keep those emails coming (Pegtyre1@gmail.com)
Progress: I’ve been spending time with teachers, administrators and policy makers. A few days ago, I interviewed an educator, Joe Hug, who has a unique perspective on the school-to-workplace pipeline in Japan.
After working as a teacher and university professor, Hug started a consulting firm that helps Japanese teachers of English (junior high school, high school, and college) who are under pressure to create classrooms less dependent on rote learning. He also helps prepare university students to become more active learners so they can enroll and thrive in prestigious business school program in the West. He has a gig with two large, well-known Japanese companies (including a division of Mitsubishi) teaching “global competency” to their junior employees. 
Hug, who is married to Reiko Hug, a Hiroshima native, says the biggest blocker to the government’s efforts to produce a culture of innovation might be “spinach.” 
What Does That Mean? It’s a loose translation of the mnemonic Ho-Ren-So,which sounds like the Japanese word for that leafy green. In practice it works like this: “Hokoku” means report everything that happens to your superior. “Renraku” means to relate all the pertinent facts (absent opinion and conjecture) to your superior. And “sodan” mean to consult or discuss all your work with your boss and your team-members. Ho-Ren-So was popularized in the 1980s by the Japanese executive and author Tomiji Yamazaki, who put the catchy name on this deeply held set of interlocking cultural values which prize collaboration, caution, and stability over risk-taking and creative problem-solving. To the Western eye, Ho-Ren-So in the workplace can look like repetitive back and forth with your team. Or having a micromanaging boss. To be clear, he wasn’t suggesting that tired ethnic cliche of “groupthink” but something more subtle: a learned aversion to “getting it wrong.”
What Does This Have to Do With Schooling? Ho-Ren-So reflects a set of norms that are reinforced in the early grades of nearly every Japanese school. Children are taught to collaborate. They are asked to follow directions precisely. And respond to questions with what the teacher has determined is the correct answer. It’s the opposite of “working well independently” which is actually something U.S. schools prize. (And a comment your parents might have read about you on your report card.) And it couldn’t be more different from the mantra of our latest crop of Silicon Valley billionaires –“move fast and break things” (which clearly has its own downside.) It’s about teaching and learning in a way to produce the answer that is expected.
Here’s Hug: “The Japanese school system is great but it focusses on teaching kids to come up with the right answer, the one that is required of them. But that’s not the modern world.” In the modern world, he says, students need to figure out “what are the possibilities.” It’s difficult to teach students that way, says Hug, when students don’t want to be seen as “getting it wrong.” 
These days, teachers are being challenged, says Hug, to create and support a classroom culture that’s flexible enough for students to make a mistake and recover from it. Where “getting it wrong’ is part of the process of getting it right. And “teachers feel abandon,” says Hug. Most didn’t learn that way. The “spinach” culture of Japan doesn’t support it. And teachers aren’t sure how to pull it off.  
Your Thoughts? Have you ever encountered “spinach” in Japanese schools or companies? How exactly are teachers in Japan going to be managing this transition? Do we have a version of that in the U.S.? Here’s a big question: Can fear of failure co-exist with innovation? I’d like to hear from you.
Know of someone who might be interested in this conversation? Send me their email.
My trip is made possible by a generous Abe Fellowship for Journalist (administered by the Social Science Research Council.) I retain full editorial control. I also appreciate the moral support of my colleagues at the EGF Accelerator, an incubator for education-related nonprofits in Manhattan.

Categories Innovation, International, Teachers and Teaching

Peg Tyre: Teaching Creativity in Japan

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
34

Peg Tyre is a veteran education journalist who is currently tracking the path of education reform in Japan. She reminds me of something that I learned when I visited schools in other countries. Education officials and teachers wonder how Americans are able to teach their students creativity, critical thinking, imagination. While we obsess over test scores, other nations are awed by our students’ inquisitiveness, their ability to speak out and ask questions instead of regurgitating facts.
Teaching Japanese Students To Be Curious and Creative.
“I see that all this time they have kept this inside. Now it is pouring out.”
I recently spent the day at a seminar in Tokyo where about 50 teachers from public, private and after-school programs gathered to learn how to bring curiosity and creativity in their classrooms.
Unlike the usual government-run teacher-training programs, the participants are paying for this course out-of -pocket (and on their day off) because they are under pressure. The government, which determines what knowledge and skills are taught, is changing the national curriculum to stress creativity, critical thinking, and self-expression. That’s on top of a detailed subject knowledge of history, Japanese, science, math, and English. Next year, the all-important college entrance exam (the “Center Test”) will be changing, too. The goal? To spark a new generation of Japanese innovators.
Teachers in Japan say they need to learn new ways to teach in order to meet the new standards.
So they signed up for this seven-month course offered by a nonprofit group called Learning Creator’s Lab, which brings together corporations and individuals in creative fields to help guide the teachers. Today, a representative from the Japanese advertising giant Dentsu is addressing the group. Dentsu has opened a lucrative side-business promoting creativity to corporate clients and is hoping to gain traction in schools. Later, a filmmaker will address the teachers, too.
The big idea this morning, explains Sato Fujiwara, who founded the program, is that humans acquire knowledge better, faster and more deeply when they are interested and connected to the material. In education jargon, and in the U.S. context, this is sometimes called “project-based learning” since it is usually shaped around a project of a student’s choice. This kind of teaching/learning is perceived as less teacher-driven, less top-down, less about memorizing atomized facts and more about integrated knowledge.
“But teachers don’t know what that is, or how to implement it in the classroom,” says Sato Fujiwara. As the standards are overhauled and updated, this course, she says, “will be more and more popular.”
The challenge, say the teachers I interviewed, is that their students aren’t used to learning this way. If a teacher asks a student to come up with a project,  teachers say the students can’t or won’t take the lead. Instead, students will wait for the teacher to come up with a list of projects the teacherwants them to do. Which kind of defeats the point.
So today, the instructors are walking teachers through a worksheet (linked here and also pictured below) that purports to help students understand how to articulate and harness their own curiosity for a research project. And how to use that curiosity as a tool for creativity and ultimately, a deeper form of learning.
It guides the teachers to ask open-ended questions so students can locate “seeds of interest. For example: What do you wonder about? What did you find strange? How does that work? What have you thought was delicious?
In the Japanese context, this is something very new.
Rieko Akiyoshi, a fourth grade teacher in a Catholic school outside of Tokyo, has taken this course before. She says enrollment is up at her school since they shifted to this more active and engaged form of pedagogy. Parents think it will better prepare their children for a global economy. But they also push back. For example, the parents of Akiyoshi’s students learned 30 key figures in Japanese history by fifth grade. Although Rieko Akiyoshi’s students learned about historic figures like Himiko and Oda Nobunaga, they didn’t do a deep dive on Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th shogun. (A more minor figure, says Akiyoshi.) And parents, who learned plenty about Tokugawa Yoshinobu, were concerned that gap might hurt their kids’ chances to test into an elite high school or hurt their score on the ‘Center Test” which evaluates a student on their recall of knowledge accumulated from primary school right through high school.
“We tell parents that we want our children to learn more than history, we want them to learn from history,” says Rieko Akiyoshi.
Enrollment at a good public university, though, remains the narrow conveyor belt to a decent corporate job. And getting accepted at a good university does not depend on curiosity, creativity or understanding history but on tests which rely on memorizing historical facts, says fifth grade teacher public school teacher, Minote Shogo. And while the “Center Test” is changing and will change even more in five years, the speculation is that it won’t change that much. Japanese public education is built on tradition, says Minote Shogo, who teaches in Koganei near Tokyo. “I think a lot of teachers, too, think traditional is better. There is a set lesson and set ways for how you carry that out. The classroom is set up in a certain way. If I don’t follow the textbook, and give a test after 11 hours of math instruction, there is concern from parents and other teachers.”
For his part, Minote Shogo is convinced that teaching to spark curiosity and creativity is better for his students. “In the beginning, it was very difficult,” says Minote Shogo. “I would ask a question, and they would stop and couldn’t respond. But now they are getting accustomed to it. Gradually, they are speaking about their ideas. And I see that all this time, they have kept this inside, and now it is pouring out.”
NEXT UP: A showcase school and a visit with “The First Penguin” of education reform. (He jumps in the water and the others follow.) Then, a look at how traditional political figures and big business are rallying behind progressive education. And why.
Interested in what I’ve discovered so far?
You can take an active role in shaping this project. Please send me questions, observations, research, history and personal reflections about your own teaching and learning, thoughts about rote learning and your ideas about what makes an innovator. Tell me what you want to know from my reporting. Twitter: @pegtyre or email: pegtyre1@gmail.com
Also, if you know of someone who might be interested in being part of this project, kindly send me their email and I’ll add them to the mailing list.
My trip is made possible by a generous Abe Fellowship for Journalists (administered by the Social Science Research Council.) I retain full editorial control. I also appreciate the moral support of my colleagues at the EGF Accelerator, an incubator for education-related nonprofits.
Categories Creativity, International

OECD-PISA Leader: Arts Education May Be More Important for the 21st Century Than Test Scores

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
55

This is an ironic story. There is no one and no institution that has done more to set off an international test score competition than Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, which administers the periodic international tests called PISA, the Programme in International Student Assessment. Every nation wants to be first. Every nation waits anxiously to see whether its test scores in reading, mathematics, and science went up or down. In 2010, when the 2009 PISA scores were released, Arne Duncan and Barack Obama declared that the U.S. was facing another “Sputnik moment,” and it was time to crack down. Others wrung their hands and wondered how we could toughen up to compete with Shanghai.

Yet Scheicher testified recently to a committee of the House of Commons that arts education may be more valuable than the academic skills that are tested.

The arts could become more important for young people than maths in the future, according to a leading education expert.

Researcher Andreas Schleicher, who leads the Programme for International Student Assessment at the intergovernmental economic organisation OECD, told a House of Commons inquiry that he believed young people could benefit more from the skills gained through creativity than test-based learning.

He was giving evidence to the Education Select Committee as part of an ongoing inquiry into the fourth industrial revolution – the influence of technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence on society.

Schleicher, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading educational thinkers, said: “I would say, in the fourth industrial revolution, arts may become more important than maths.”

“We talk about ‘soft skills’ often as social and emotional skills, and hard skills as about science and maths, but it might be the opposite,” he said, suggesting that science and maths may become ‘softer’ in future when the need for them decreases due to technology, and the ‘hard skills’ will be “your curiosity, your leadership, your persistence and your resilience”.

His comments come amid ongoing concerns about the narrowing of the education system in the UK to exclude creativity and prioritise academic subjects.

Campaigners argue that this is prohibiting many young people from pursuing creative careers. However, Schleicher said that too narrow a curriculum could also make young people less prepared for the demands of the future.

Categories Art, Creativity, Innovation, International, Testing
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