The Global Search for Education
“We need to establish platforms for teachers to initiate their own changes and make their own judgments on the frontline, to invest more in the change capacities of local districts and communities, and to pursue prudent rather than profligate approaches to testing.”— Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
What is the Fourth Way?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
The Fourth Way is a powerful new vision to bring about effective educational reform.
Even after one has identified that the old ways of doing things are no longer working, coming up with system-wide comprehensive solutions as to how to develop better schools and school systems is challenging. Professor Andy Hargreaves and Professor Dennis Shirley believe they have found those solutions. They have examined over three decades of research evidence on educational change around the world in some of the leading education systems, and from these global lessons have developed a dynamic new plan for the future of schooling. I was able to catch up with Hargreaves and Shirley to talk about the inspiring ideas laid out in their latest book, The Global Fourth Way: The Quest for Educational Excellence (Corwin, September 2012). Andrew Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College, and is the elected Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, London. Dennis Shirley is Professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.
“Alberta funds almost all its schools and districts to design and evaluate their own innovations. Teachers are the drivers of change, not the driven.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
In your own words, what is the Global Fourth Way?
The “First Way” of the 1960s and 1970s created interesting innovations here and there, but it overprotected teachers’ autonomy and kept them isolated from new research, outside scrutiny, and each other.
The “Second Way” that emerged in the 1980s, and that remains pervasive in the U.S. today, enforced consistency through more testing, standardization and accountability, and introduced competition through school choice. Unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all system of prescribed curriculum programs and teaching-to-the-test led to professional disillusionment and made it difficult to attract and retain excellent teachers.
The “Third Way” added data-driven decision-making to US teachers’ toolkits, but it has skewed attention towards the performance metrics themselves and away from the people and the learning that the numbers are meant to represent.
It’s time to move beyond the limitations of these first three ways of change where there has been too much freedom, too much force, or too much fascination with data and spreadsheets.
Our new book describes a better “Fourth Way” that draws on our first-hand international research to get us beyond those limitations. This includes pursuing an inspiring and inclusive vision for US education rather than simply racing to the top, being committing to education as a common goodwhere schools work together for the benefit of all children, and promoting the innovation and creativity that leads to modern economic success. To become more successful innovators, we need to establish platforms for teachers to initiate their own changes and make their own judgments on the frontline, to invest more in the change capacities of local districts and communities, and to pursue prudent rather than profligate approaches to testing. The Fourth Way is about reforming rather than destroying teacher associations, and it integrates technology with high quality teaching instead of replacing teachers with iPads and online learning at every opportunity.
“In Finland, within very broad government guidelines, teachers create their own curricula together across schools in every community and district. They don’t confine collaboration to their own individual schools and to just implementing other people’s ideas.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
We need high quality teachers and high quality school principals and leadership. What can we learn from your global research about developing school principals and leadership?
Three things are critical. First, in high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers. The job of principals there is to get the best out of these highly capable teachers, sharpen their collective focus, and keep moving them forward. In the U.S., teachers are less well qualified, less well prepared because they are trained in short programs that occur outside of universities, and they turn over more quickly. This means that principals have to spend excessive amounts of time plugging holes and repairing deficits in the teaching force.
Second, high performing systems know their teachers well long before they even aspire to become principals. District and Government administrators spend a lot of time in schools. They develop, select and certify their leaders over long periods of time, instead of certifying them first, selecting them later and developing them as an afterthought.
Singapore’s performance management process systematically identifies and supports those teachers who have the potential to be future principals.
Finland’s principals are usually selected from and promoted within their own schools where their success is proven, and where their role is to be first among equals in “a society of experts.”
Canadian principals also normally move up within their own district, where, as teachers, they have been known by district staff who get out and about in the schools.
Third, principals spend more time working with their teachers and in classrooms. How can they do this? Because, as Finnish principals told us, they are not spending vast amounts of time constantly reacting to government initiatives or filling out evaluation checklists.
“We disagree with the assertion that great teachers can be replaced by online alternatives. The futuristic claim that technology will triumph over teachers ignores all the social and relational dimensions of teaching and learning.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
Teamwork and teacher collaboration at school level are important to successful outcomes. What inspiring examples of collaboration have you seen around the world?
Singapore gives 10% “white space” time to all of its teachers to come up with their own innovations outside of the official curriculum. This encourages teachers to turn to their colleagues for inspiration and ideas.
Alberta funds almost all its schools and districts to design and evaluate their own innovations. Teachers are the drivers of change, not the driven. One condition of funding is that schools must have explicit plans to share what they are learning with others.
In Ontario, teachers come together to look at charts of how well all students are progressing in every class. All achievement in every class is completely transparent. This isn’t a strategy to shame poorly performing teachers or even a prompt to come up with quick fixes that will get rapid gains in test scores. Instead, teachers look at the faces behind the numbers and develop a strategy for each child. Across all grades, all teachers take collective responsibility for all students’ success.
In Finland, within very broad government guidelines, teachers create their own curriculum together across schools in every community and district. They don’t confine collaboration to their own individual schools and to just implementing other people’s ideas.
“In high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers.”— Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
What did you learn from studying the California education system (CTA) example?
In 2005, the California Teachers’ Association sued Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for taking more than $5 billion out of the state’s education budget and thereby violating state legislation that provided a minimal funding ratio for the schools. The Governor settled the lawsuit in 2006 and the CTA used the restored funds to create a new “Quality Education Investment Act” (QEIA) that concentrated on working with close to 500 schools serving the state’s most needy students. QEIA schools receive special funding for reduced class sizes, professional development, leadership training, and, in the high schools, more guidance counselors. In every QEIA school, teacher leaders are responsible for the resources and the strategy. Early results indicate that QEIA schools are performing better than non-QEIA schools in similar circumstances. This is especially true for students of color and in poverty.
The CTA example challenges everyone to understand that all teachers’ unions must undergo the kind of internal transformation that has been occurring within the CTA. What teacher unions now need is the same as schools and school systems: greater collective professionalism focused on teaching and learning across the spectrum.
“Singapore gives 10 percent ‘white space’ time to all of its teachers to come up with their own innovations outside of the official curriculum. This encourages teachers to turn to their colleagues for inspiration and ideas.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
I was interested in what you say about professional development in Singapore in terms of the systematic approach to teachers’ professional growth. Can you explain how they approach PD?
Teacher assessment is very rigorous in Singapore and is closely tied to teachers’ professional development. After completing their first years of teaching, all teachers are invited to a periodic “tea time” with their principal or a Ministry of Education official to go over their evaluations, discuss their current aspirations, and explore possibilities for continuing learning and professional growth in the years to come. Singaporean teachers move along one of three tracks (master teacher, administrator, curriculum leadership) and switch between them as they reflect on their progress. Singaporean teachers also move back and forth between their teaching roles and positions in the Ministry of Education or the National Institute of Education, where all teachers and principals are trained to develop and contribute to a greater understanding of the profession as a whole.
Clayton Christensen has stated that “online learning is entering the system in a way that could eventually disrupt the classroom.” What are your thoughts on this?
There is much to admire in Christensen’s prediction, which we discuss in detail in our book. But we disagree with his assertion that great teachers can be replaced by online alternatives. The futuristic claim that technology will triumph over teachers ignores all the social and relational dimensions of teaching and learning. These include inspiration, impulse control, being part of an inclusive and diverse community, finding different ways to be engaged with your learning, and receiving adult guidance in making judgments and decisions, including those that occur online. Neglect of these dimensions has defeated the champions of television, video and teaching machines throughout history.
However, technology does have a role to play in today’s schools if it is effectively yet judiciously integrated in the culture of our schools. In Singapore, we have seen teachers use Twitter to collect real-time feedback from their students. In Ontario, assistive technologies help students with learning disabilities to make great strides forwards, especially when new technologies are part of all students’ learning. In these cases innovative technologies and effective teaching are working together, rather than at cross-purposes.
The Second and Third Ways of U.S. education reform are giving us more markets, more mandates, and more machines as answers to all our ills. This is the opposite of what high performers are doing everywhere. America will not achieve high-performance if it replaces teachers with machines or turns teachers into machines. It will only improve its schools when it, too, embraces an inspiring vision for the common good that rests upon the high quality and effective collaboration of its teachers and leaders.
Dennis Shirley, C. M. Rubin, Andy Hargreaves
Photos courtesy of Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“A nation’s moral economy invests in education for everyone’s good wherever it can, and makes prudent economies that do not harm the quality of teaching and learning whenever it must.” — Andy Hargreaves
The Education Debate 2012 — Andy Hargreaves
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
In this presidential election, I believe it is critical to vote for the candidate who has the most impactful 21st century vision for education because addressing our issues now is essential for the U.S. to maintain its prosperity and global leadership in the next decades. Matters such as economic strength, innovation, employability, reducing poverty, progress toward racial and gender equality, reducing crime, and building global citizenship are all related to the effectiveness of our education system. Education should not be the privilege of a select few, but the basic civil right of every American child. We must act conclusively to narrow our domestic achievement gap and to narrow our international achievement gap so that our students will be able to compete globally in the next decade. We must invest now in the necessary changes to our education system in order to meet the challenges America will face tomorrow.
Today in The Education Debate 2012, I continue my conversations with distinguished U. S. education leaders about the major issues facing this country by talking with Andy Hargreaves. Hargreaves’ book, The Global Fourth Way: The Quest for Educational Excellence (Corwin Press 2012), co-authored with Dennis Shirley, reveals the key qualities behind the high performance of some of the world’s top educational systems: Singapore, Finland and Canada. His most recent book,Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School (Teacher’s College Press 2012), co-authored with international reform expert Michael Fullan, sets out a clear vision as to how to achieve high return from all teachers and teaching. Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at Boston College. He studies and advises on high performance in schools and educational systems around the world.
If you were Education Secretary of the United States, what would be your position on the key education issues of our times?
I would follow the principles of best business practice, and work with my team to benchmark the United States against the highest performing systems in the world such as Finland, Canada and Singapore. With open eyes, and no excuses, this would prompt us to determine what we can learn from other high performers that could benefit our own people.
“To increase the human capital of our students, we must invest in the professional capital of our teachers.” — Andy Hargreaves
What should the role of federal government be in K- 12 education? How much more funding should be given to education reform and in what major areas should it be spent?
This nation needs a positive and inspiring educational vision. All of America’s educational system, not just its world-class universities, must be among the best in the world. On the influential international PISA tests of student achievement at age 15, however, the U.S. falls somewhere between 17th and 31st out of 65 countries, depending on the subject being tested. On United Nations measures of child well-being, the U.S. ranks next to last.
All high performing countries make strong investments in their public systems. Their private systems are small or negligible. Charter schools are not a serious option. A nation’s moral economy invests in education for everyone’s good wherever it can, and makes prudent economies that do not harm the quality of teaching and learning whenever it must.
How can this be achieved in America? First, the U.S. can move core funding of public schools away from property taxes, and the inequities they create between districts, towards other forms of taxation. Second, the U.S. can invest in improving the quality of teaching and learning everywhere so that all teachers are able to deal with a wide range of abilities and special educational needs in their own classes with support where necessary. Third, the U.S. can institute a more prudent and cost-effective system of educational testing on the lines described below.
The job of an effective federal system is to inspire the profession and the public, to steer and support schools in a desired direction, to build better partnerships with and interactions among teacher unions, state departments and school districts, and to monitor and make transparent how the system is progressing. It is not to micromanage everything from Washington. Canada has no federal ministry of education. Finland’s National Board of Education consists of less than 20 officials. The district is where all the work gets done. School districts are not only the cornerstones of high performing systems; they are also a foundation of American public democracy. This is not the time to put our school districts up for auction. Now is the time to galvanize them into action.
“The U.S. educational system has been colonizing the sinking sands of centralization and standardization that other high performing systems have been leaving behind.” — Andy Hargreaves
What would be your position on improving the teaching profession, including recruitment, teacher training, compensation, and assignment to low income schools?
To increase the human capital of our students, we must invest in the professional capital of our teachers. Top performing countries draw their teachers from the top third of the graduation range, they train them in rigorous university preparation programs where they undertake deep research into their practice, and they have to undergo extensive practice-based experience in schools. We must align teacher preparation practice with that of the highest performing countries. America’s teachers need to be the best. Finns believe that teaching is as difficult as medicine or law, and it is therefore just as hard to enter. Singaporeans say teaching is as challenging as engineering, so they pay teachers a starting salary that is comparable to engineers. America must communicate the same messages about teaching and also back them up.
As Education Secretary, I would ask Teach for America to take on its biggest challenge yet: to lead a national effort in partnership with teachers’ professional associations to improve teacher retention. Fifty percent of public school teachers currently leave teaching within 5 years. In urban schools, they exit within 3. Most of our teachers need to stay in the job until they hit their peak - well beyond 5 years. The best way to do this is by increasing the quality of leadership, support and professional interaction in schools, and by reducing the micromanagement that undermines teachers’ capacity to exercise their judgments as true professionals.
A big part of transforming the teaching profession involves teacher unions. In Canada’s highest performing province — Alberta — over 50 percent of the revenues of the Alberta Teacher’s Association are allocated to professional development. This contrasts with a figure of under 5 percent in most U.S. teachers’ associations. When the California Teachers’ Association took the responsibility to turn around hundreds of the state’s lower performing schools, the result of becoming more obviously engaged with the core work of teaching and learning was a surge in activism among younger members. Our quest should not be to remove or replace teacher unions, but to reform and renew them.
What would be your position on school choice, including charter schools and their expansion, private schools, vouchers, and investment in inadequately staffed and facilitated low income schools?
Parents have a right to choice in education. Charter schools are warranted where they offer something that the public system does not provide locally, where the local public system is inadequate, or where the existing system shows little inclination to innovate and would benefit from an outside push. However, in general, charter schools do not outperform other public schools, they often rob local schools of teacher and student capacity, and most charter schools turn out to be more traditional than the public schools they replaced.
If all our schools were good, as they are in Finland, most parents would choose their local district school. We can do better at turning around low performing schools. High performing systems improve their schools not by having intervention teams descend in from a great height, but by building collective responsibility where strong schools assist weaker neighbors, where resources are disbursed from the district or the state department to schools to make this assistance possible, and where these collaborative efforts run across district boundaries. Charter schools can and should be part of this culture of collective responsibility. Indeed, it can be written into their charters.
“The U.S. can move core funding of public schools away from property taxes, and the inequities they create between districts, towards other forms of taxation.” — Andy Hargreaves
What would be your strategy to address the domestic and international achievement gaps, including your position on early childhood education, standardized testing, on-line modular education, and teacher/principal accountability?
Most U.S. reforms do the opposite of high performing competitors. These countries understand there is no substitute for strong, high quality teachers who work together to develop good teaching and who exercise shared responsibility for all students in their schools. As the U.S. increases standardized testing from Grade 3 up to Grade 8, Canadians only test Grades 3 and 6 at most, Singapore has just one high-stakes test in Grade 6, and Finland tests samples of students rather than taking a census of all of them. U.S. testing must become more prudent if we are to see improvements in the quality of teaching that avoid teaching to the test, concentrating on students near the cut scores, narrowing the curriculum, eliminating the arts, and rotating teachers and principals in and out of already unstable schools in a constant panic to lift the scores.
Accountability is the remainder that is left once responsibility has been subtracted. But we have put accountability first and created high threat environments that have distorted teaching and learning in a drive to lift up the scores. This can change if we test samples rather than take a census, if we test fewer grades less often, and if teachers become collectively responsible for all students’ success. In the push to narrow achievement gaps, we have inadvertently widened the learning gaps between standardized teaching in highly pressured urban schools and more innovative learning experiences in the affluent suburbs. I would set about narrowing this learning gap.
What would be your position on curriculum reform, including the role of the arts, the treatment of ethics, and the adoption of blended online learning?
China is promoting more school-designed curriculum and innovation. Finland supports all young people to study creative arts until the end of high school. Singapore emphasizes character education because in Singapore, the first priority is to your nation, the second is to your community, and the third is to yourself. Like Singapore’s national education initiative, we need to Teach Less and Learn More: to leave more curriculum time for high quality professionals to exercise the professional flexibility that engages students’ diverse interests and needs in depth. Unfortunately, the U.S. educational system has been colonizing the sinking sands of centralization and standardization that other high performing systems have been leaving behind. If we want more innovative thinking among our students, our teachers must have the opportunity to practice innovative teaching themselves.
Technology is part of the transformation in teaching, but there is no consistent evidence to suggest that online learning options that bypass the teacher are the answer. Like overhead projectors or chalk, digital technologies in the hands of good teachers can be a great asset. In the hands of poor teachers or no teachers, these technologies are just another expensive gimmick.
Andy Hargreaves and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Boston College and Andy Hargreaves.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“I think our key strategy to engage students in learning is to have good teachers, those who understand their students, tailor teaching strategies according to their students’ profile, and make lessons interesting.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
More From Singapore
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Singapore is recognized globally as a high-performing education system. Singapore students fared very well in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Out of 65 countries that took part in these tests, Singapore students ranked fifth in reading, second in mathematics and fourth in science. “Singapore also had the second highest proportion (12.3 percent) of students who are top performers in all three domains,” according to a press release from Singapore’s Ministry of Education.
How do teachers motivate students in the Singapore school system? How do they level the playing field between rich and poor students? How do they handle behavioral problems? Are they obsessed with testing?
These are some of the questions I received from readers after the last Q and A we did on the Singapore education system in May. This week we are honored to once again share the views of Dr. Pak Tee Ng on these questions. Dr. Pak Tee Ng is Associate Dean, Leadership Learning, Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning, and Head and Associate Professor, Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group, at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Republic of Singapore.
What methods of motivation does the Singapore school system use to keep kids engaged in learning?
Student motivation in learning is a challenge in many education systems, including Singapore’s. We do not have a standardized way or a best practice of addressing this challenge. But I often ask educators to reflect: “How do we expect inspired learners if we do not have inspired teachers?” I think our key strategy to engage students in learning is to have good teachers, those who understand their students, tailor teaching strategies according to their students’ profile, and make lessons interesting. I also think we need to challenge our mindsets regarding students’ motivation to learn. Young children start off with a natural curiosity and willingness to learn. But many seem to have lost their motivation after some years of schooling, despite teachers’ motivational efforts. Why? Perhaps, we have gotten the wrong end of the stick. The challenge is not to find methods of developing their learning motivation. The challenge is not to extinguish it! Educators should continuously cultivate and tap children’s innate interest in learning. A different philosophy suggests different strategies!
“There was recently an increasing awareness of the importance of pre-school education in a child’s development and therefore an effort on the part of the government to improve the quality of pre-schools in Singapore.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
How does your education system nurture the theme of innovation? Can you share some examples from schools in Singapore that are already doing this?
In 2004, the Education Ministry launched an initiative called “Innovation and Enterprise” (I&E) to focus educators’ attention on the theme of innovation. However, we do not focus on innovation for the sake of innovation. Instead, it is a reminder to educators to allow our students to try new things and to use their enterprising spirit to undertake projects that can be beneficial to others. It is to encourage students to be intellectually curious about matters beyond textbooks or examinations, have the courage to live with ambiguity and to take calculated risks, and be passionate, persistent and resilient. Moreover, I&E is a platform for values inculcation, as part of its aim is to help students develop a sense of teamwork and contribution to the community, grounded in a set of timeless values such as integrity, social responsibility and respect for others. In other words, we are developing character traits that will be helpful to our next generation, whether they become scientists, businessmen or public officers.
Each year, the Education Ministry organizes the MOE ExCEL Fest (ExCEL stands for Excellence through Continuous Enterprise & Learning), which is a platform to celebrate and share innovative practices in schools. During the two-day event, various schools show their students’ innovations to other schools and the public. Examples of student innovation for the 2012 festival ranged from mathematics games that were designed by pupils of Chua Chu Kang Primary School to complement the teaching and learning efforts by their teachers, to a prototype for an “Ultra Flu Relief Mask” comprising a disposable surgical mask with an inbuilt semi-permeable membrane that secretes a medication such as Vicks, by two students of Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary School.
How do teachers and leaders in your school system handle behavioral issues?
Most behavioral issues (especially persistent ones) are symptoms that have deeper root causes. Teachers and leaders in our schools handle students with behavioral problems by first trying to understand the deeper problems that these students face. They usually take a problem-solving and counseling approach to work out long-term solutions that can help these students grow in maturity.
In Singapore, the philosophy toward student discipline is that discipline is an educational process to develop students’ values and moral faculties. The aim of discipline is not to punish but to develop self-discipline in them. But this does not mean that students can escape punishment for wrongdoing. However, educators recognize that meting out a punishment is not equal to solving the problem.
Singapore schools are allowed to cane students if necessary. This applies to boys only. However, there are strict guidelines to determine the appropriateness of such punishment and clearly defined procedures for meting out the punishment. It is one of the last courses of action rather than the first line of remedy. The caning may be administered only by the Principal or Vice-Principal, or by a specially designated and trained discipline teacher. Other teachers do not cane students. The parents of the errant student are informed of his misbehavior and punishment.
Prevention is better than cure. Our schools now teach students Social Emotional Learning, comprising 5 core competencies of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management, and responsible decision-making, so that they may acquire the skills, knowledge and dispositions to be mature and productive individuals who can manage themselves and relate well with others.
“If a school or school system continues to assess students in a way that is not relevant to the industries, that school or school system will become redundant.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
What are your thoughts on what many call an obsession with testing? If there were less testing, wouldn’t teachers and educators be able to focus on a more holistic education?
The key word here is “obsession.” Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with a test. With appropriate feedback and follow through, students can learn from a test. However, what many educators are concerned with now is an obsession by various stakeholders (including educators themselves) with testing and the test results. Such tests are not really motivated by learning but come with high stakes and consequences, real or perceived, related to one’s future paths. The challenge is therefore to gradually increase the number of alternative pathways for students and widen the definition of success. Testing can then indeed become a tool for learning, and not a driver for obsessive behaviors by stakeholders of education. This of course is easier said than done. I think holistic education does not refer to an education without test. I think holistic education aims to help each person find identity, meaning, and purpose in life. Suitable levels and amount of testing, focused on learning, can play a positive role in it.
How in your view should 21st-century students be assessed in a competitive world?
It is quite fashionable nowadays to say that 21st century students should learn and be assessed in 21st-century skills. However, beyond this broad statement, there does not seem to be an authoritative answer to what this assessment should look like in practice, taking into consideration contextual differences and the difficulties in accurately assessing certain types of learning. But I think a model of 21st-century assessment will emerge in due course, not because of what we think it should be from a theoretical perspective, but because of changes driven by the increasing proximity between schools and industries.
I feel that in the future, education will be brought closer to working life and the industries. The closer interaction between schools and industries will bring about a change in the way that students are assessed. If a school or school system continues to assess students in a way that is not relevant to the industries, that school or school system will become redundant. On the other hand, if a school or school system assesses students in a way that is closely aligned to industrial needs, the qualifications given out by the school or school system will be sought after by various stakeholders. Students who can demonstrate competence in such assessments will definitely find themselves needed by the world after they leave school. Therefore I think 21st century assessment is not a static picture but an evolving one, as schools and industries come more closely together.
“What has been done in Singapore to make education more equitable is to allow students access to educational pathways based on their merit and to give financial aid to poor but deserving students.”— Dr. Pak Tee Ng
How does your education system level the playing field between children from rich and poor families?
Children from rich families have more resources at their command compared with those from poor families, and the field is never completely level. However, what has been done in Singapore to make education more equitable is to allow students access to educational pathways based on their merit (not on financial abilities), and to give financial aid or subsidies to poor but deserving students, so that they are not denied access to education because of financial difficulties.
For example, the Ministry of Education provides a Financial Assistance Scheme to needy Singapore citizen students so that all Singaporeans, regardless of their financial background, can benefit from education. Under this scheme, needy students receive full waiver of school fees and miscellaneous fees, and receive free textbooks and school uniforms. The government also provides a School Advisory Committees’ Fund to allow more targeted aid to students who need even more assistance. Interestingly, there was recently an increasing awareness of the importance of pre-school education in a child’s development and therefore an effort on the part of the government to improve the quality of pre-schools in Singapore. A government committee was immediately set up to examine the issue of removing barriers which prevented children from low-income families from attending pre-school.
Realistically, I think we will never be able to level the playing field completely. But, there are mechanisms to make it possible for a child from a poor family to overcome financial barriers to pursue education according to his or her potential. Singapore is too small to afford wastage in human resources.
Dr. Pak Tee Ng and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Dr. Pak Tee Ng.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
The Global Search for Education
“What is fundamentally different today is that education systems now need to equip all teachers, and not just some, for effective learning.” — Andreas Schleicher
In Search of Professionals Around the World
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“It is very clear that high performing systems generally have a high performing teacher population.” — Andreas Schleicher
Professional Capital, Andrew Hargreaves’ and Michael Fullan’s recently released book, proposes an action plan for teachers, administrators, schools, districts, and state and federal leaders as to how to create a 21st century generation of professional teachers.
Countries around the world are undertaking reforms to better prepare teachers to teach in 21st century classrooms. Today in part four of our series, The Global Search for Education - In Search of Professionals, I have asked Andreas Schleicher, given his extensive global educational perspective, to weigh in on what the US and other nations can learn from some of the high performing education systems that are doing this.
Andreas Schleicher is Deputy Director for Education and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD’s Secretary-General. He also provides strategic oversight over OECD’s work on the development and utilization of skills and their social and economic outcomes. This includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).
What steps or changes do you believe we should make in the US in order to further advance the quality of teachers and the teaching profession going forward?
Part of the answer lies in the changes in the demands placed on teachers. In every country, there have always been great teachers, and many of us are here today because we had great teachers. But what is fundamentally different today is that education systems now need to equip all teachers, and not just some, for effective learning. In the past, when you only needed a small slice of well-educated workers, it was sufficient, and perhaps efficient, for governments to invest a large sum into a small elite to lead the country. But the social and economic cost of low educational performance has risen very substantially and the best performing education systems now get all young people to leave school with strong foundation skills, which is what you see in the PISA results. When you could still assume that what you learn in school will last for a lifetime, teaching content and routine cognitive skills was at the center of education. Today, where you can access content on Google, where routine cognitive skills are being digitized or outsourced, and where jobs are changing rapidly, education systems need to enable people to become lifelong learners, to manage complex ways of thinking and complex ways of working that computers can’t take over easily. That requires a very different caliber of teachers. When teaching was about explaining prefabricated content, you could tolerate low teacher quality. And when teacher quality was low, governments tended to tell their teachers exactly what to do and exactly how they wanted it done, using prescriptive methods of administrative control and accountability. What you see in the most advanced systems now is that they have made teaching a profession of high-level knowledge workers, and that, not higher salaries, is what makes teaching so attractive in countries as different as Finland, Japan or Singapore. But people who see themselves as candidates for the professions are not attracted by schools organized like an assembly line, with teachers working as interchangeable widgets. You therefore see a very different work organization in high performing systems, with the status, professional autonomy, and the high-quality education that go with professional work, with effective systems of teacher evaluation and with differentiated career paths for teachers. That is perhaps the biggest challenge for the US.
“Singapore’s new TE21 Model seeks to enhance key elements of teacher education.” — Andreas Schleicher
In general what common characteristics have you observed in the high performing systems relative to their teaching profession?
High performing systems have common characteristics:
- Their teachers are well-versed in the subjects they teach and adept at using different methods and, if necessary, changing their approaches to optimize learning.
- They have a rich repertoire of teaching strategies, the ability to combine approaches, and the knowledge of how and when to use certain methods and strategies.
- Their teachers have a deep understanding of how learning happens, in general, and often also of their individual students’ motivations, emotions and lives outside the classroom, in particular.
- Their teachers work in highly collaborative ways, with other teachers and professionals or para-professionals within the same organization, or with others in other organizations, in networks of professional communities and in different partnership arrangements, including, for some, mentoring teachers.
- In some countries teachers acquire strong technology skills and skills to use technology as effective teaching tools, both to optimize the use of digital resources in their teaching and to use information-management systems to track student learning.
- Their teachers have the capacity to help design, lead, manage and plan learning environments in collaboration with others.
- Last but not least, their teachers reflect on their practices in order to learn from their experience.
Consider three advanced education systems: Finland, Singapore and Japan. What do you see as the strengths of the Finnish system?
Teacher education in Finland has several distinguishing qualities:
- It is research based. Teacher candidates are not only expected to become familiar with the knowledge base in education and human development, but they are required to write a research-based dissertation as the final requirement for the masters degree. The rationale for requiring a research-based dissertation is that teachers are expected to engage in disciplined inquiry in the classroom throughout their teaching career.
- It has a strong focus on developing pedagogical content knowledge. Traditional teacher preparation programs too often treat good pedagogy as generic, assuming that good questioning skills, for example, are equally applicable to all subjects. Because teacher education in Finland is a shared responsibility between the teacher education faculty and the academic subject faculty, there is substantial attention to subject-specific pedagogy for prospective primary as well as upper-grade teachers.
- There is ample training for all Finnish teachers in diagnosing students with learning difficulties and in adapting their instruction to the varying learning needs and styles of their students.
- It has a very strong clinical component. Teachers’ preparation includes both extensive course work on how to teach - with a strong emphasis on using research based on state-of-the-art practice - and at least a full year of clinical experience in a school associated with the university. These model schools are intended to develop and model innovative practices, as well as to foster research on learning and teaching.
“What’s interesting in Japan is their approach to build on the knowledge of the profession.”— Andreas Schleicher
What are your thoughts on the Singapore system?
Singapore is easy to understand because the system is well documented and highly institutionalized. Singapore’s National Institute for Education as a university-based teacher education institution provides the theoretical foundation to produce “thinking teachers” but has strong partnerships with key stakeholders and the schools to ensure strong clinical practice and realities of professionalism in teacher development. Singapore’s new TE21 Model seeks to enhance key elements of teacher education, including the underpinning philosophy, curriculum, desired outcomes for our teachers, and academic pathways. These are considered essential prerequisites in meeting the challenges of the 21st century classroom. Their model focuses on three value paradigms: Learner-centered, Teacher Identity and Service to the Profession and Community. Learner-centered values puts the learner at the centre of teachers’ work by being aware of learner development and diversity, believing that all youths can learn, caring for the learner, striving for scholarship in content teaching, knowing how people learn best, and learning to design the best learning environment possible. Teacher identity values refer to having high standards and strong drive to learn in view of the rapid changes in the education milieu, to be responsive to student needs. The values of service to the profession and community focuses on teachers’ commitment to their profession through active collaborations and striving to become better practitioners to benefit the teaching community. The model also underscores the requisite knowledge and skills that teachers must possess in light of the latest global trends, and to improve student outcomes.
Finally what are your thoughts on the Japanese System?
What’s interesting in Japan is their approach to build on the knowledge of the profession, through regular lesson studies in which all teachers take part. The Japanese tradition of lesson study in which groups of teachers review their lessons and how to improve them, in part through analysis of student errors, provides one of the most effective mechanisms for teachers’ self-reflection as well as being a tool for continuous improvement. Observers of Japanese elementary school classrooms have long noted the consistency and thoroughness with which a math concept is taught and the way in which the teacher leads a discussion of mathematical ideas, both correct and incorrect, so that students gain a firm grasp on the concept. This school-by-school lesson study often culminates in large public research lessons. For example, when a new subject is added to the national curriculum, groups of teachers and researchers review research and curriculum materials and refine their ideas in pilot classrooms over a year before holding a public research lesson, which can be viewed electronically by hundreds of teachers, researchers and policymakers. The tradition of lesson study in Japan also means that Japanese teachers are not alone. They work together in a disciplined way to improve the quality of the lessons they teach. That means that teachers whose practice lags behind that of the leaders can see what good practice is. Because their colleagues know who the poor performers are and discuss them, the poor performers have both the incentive and the means to improve their performance. Since the structure of the East Asian teaching workforce includes opportunities to become a master teacher and move up a ladder of increasing prestige and responsibility, it also pays the good teacher to become even better.
Andreas Schleicher and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the OECD.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schneider (Germany), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
