The Global Search for Education
“There is no competitive advantage today to knowing more than the person sitting next to you.” — Tony Wagner
Is Your Child an Innovator
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation.” — President Barack Obama, January 25, 2011
Welcome to the Innovation Age. Today’s world will reward the most innovative young people. World leaders, business executives, educators, and policy makers have joined in the global debate on how we create the next generation of innovators. Even parents are asking themselves the question: “Is my child an Innovator?”
How do you train an innovator? Which schools are doing it better than others? Are teachers equipped with the new skills required to educate students in this decade? Are curricula incorporating the essential content that will help young people become more innovative? Are parents playing their part so as to ensure their children can face tomorrow’s challenges and ultimately lead richer, fuller lives?
In his must read new book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World (Scribner, April 17, 2012), Dr. Tony Wagner, Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center, Harvard University, addresses these issues. I had the pleasure of chatting with him about the most talked about subject in education today.
There seems to be a wide range of what constitutes innovation, and innovation can also be a matter of degree. How do you define an innovator?
There are different kinds of innovation — incremental and disruptive — and so there are different degrees of the capacity to innovate. Not everyone can create brilliant “disruptive” products — products that transform a market as Steve Jobs and Apple have done. But many young people, given the right encouragement, can bring something extra to whatever they do — that spark of imagination and curiosity, which can lead to the creation of better products, services, and ideas. At its simplest, an innovator is someone who is a creative problem solver.
“The competitive advantage for someone going out into the world is what they can do with what they know.” — Tony Wagner
How do you train an Innovator?
We are born curious. We are born with imagination. The first challenge is to ensure that these very human qualities are not schooled out of us, as Sir Ken Robinson says. Beyond that, in my research, I identified five essential education and parenting practices that develop young people’s capacities to innovate:
1. Learning to work collaboratively (innovation is a team sport!).
2. Learning to understand problems from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
3. Learning to take risks and learn from mistakes.
4. Focusing on creating versus consuming.
5. Reinforcing the intrinsic motivations of play, passion, and purpose versus the extrinsic carrots and sticks.
Information may be free but knowledge also includes understanding, problem solving, communication, and collaboration, none of which is free. Many schools “teach” these aspects of human endeavor to some degree. How much of this is relevant to your model for creating innovators?
Knowledge has become a commodity and is free, like air or water. Knowledge is also changing and growing exponentially. Based on the old premise of knowledge scarcity, the assumption is that it is the job of the teacher to transmit knowledge to students. When only a few people had the knowledge, that model made some sense, but because knowledge has become a commodity, the world no longer cares what you know. That is, there is no competitive advantage today to knowing more than the person sitting next to you. The competitive advantage for someone going out into the world is what they can do with what they know. And this kind of learning needs to take place at all levels. Right now it is more common in some elementary schools where students do projects. The problem arises as students move up through school. While there is a lot of professed interest in teaching the so-called 21st century skills you mentioned, which I wrote about extensively in The Global Achievement Gap, in fact most teachers feel compelled to teach to the tests for accountability purposes—and increasingly so as their jobs may depend on students getting good test scores.
Some examples you’ve seen in better schools to nurture this kind of learning?
In Creating Innovators, I profile schools and colleges that are doing an outstanding job of educating young people to become innovators. In the better schools I visited (both high schools and colleges), in every single course, students have to produce real products for a real audience as a significant part of their academic experience. In one high school I visited, every student is required to do a team-based service learning project: to go out into the community, research a problem and then figure out a way to solve it. One student I interviewed was a part of a team that discovered there was a local food pantry that had a problem storing all of the food donated to it. And so the team went back to school and used a computer assisted design program to design a new storage system for the pantry. Then they returned and actually built it. What students need is practice in applying their learning to new situations, not just in the classroom, but in the community. Another example at the college level is the Olin College of Engineering, which requires students to spend an entire year working in teams to solve a problem in a corporate setting. It is what they call their Senior Capstone Project in Engineering. These approaches demand a radically different approach to teaching. Teaching students to apply what they have learned requires relinquishing a degree of teacher control, relying far less on textbooks, and encouraging students to take initiative and be responsible for their own learning. Teachers are no longer the experts; they must become coaches. Many teachers find these transitions very hard to make.
“What students need is practice in applying their learning to new situations, not just in the classroom, but in the community.” — Tony Wagner
Teachers follow the accepted process required to get kids into good colleges — the colleges their parents and the kids think they should go to. Thoughts?
Things are changing more quickly than most people realize. Three points:
1. The Advanced Placement curriculum is already radically transforming all AP tests, beginning with AP Biology this year and then AP US History next year. They are moving towards students having to demonstrate that they can apply knowledge learned and not merely regurgitate it. So AP tests, which are themselves considered a gold standard, are redefining what is “rigor” and students will need a different kind of teaching to do well on these new tests.
2. There are now 750 colleges and universities that do not require any kind of test scores for admission. Last year, Tufts University became the first in the country to encourage students to submit YouTube videos with their applications, and they were stunned at the quality of work that was produced and how much more they learned about their applicants.
3. If you look at the CEO’s of most major companies, the majority did not go to an Ivy League school for undergraduate. What matters much more are what graduate school you go to and having had work-based internships where you have had to apply what you have learned. Being preoccupied with getting kids into top colleges, I think, is misplaced. Admission into “name brand” schools is more and more a matter of luck and no longer offers the competitive advantages it did 20 years ago. The push to get all A’s distorts the purpose of school and distracts from acquiring the skills that will give kids a real competitive edge.
For my new book I interviewed Joel Podolny, Vice President of Human Resources at Apple, who has taught at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, and he told me that to get into these kinds of schools you learn to play a game. A game of getting perfect scores, building a resume, etc. The problem is, if you have not learned how to collaborate, to take risks and learn from your mistakes, to create as opposed to consume — all the qualities that matter in the world of innovation — then companies like Apple will have no use for you.
“Instead of preaching that all students should be ‘college-ready,’ we should instead establish the goal of all students being ‘innovation-ready’.” — Tony Wagner
To what extent is innovation capability a function of family and external influences?
These days, young people become innovators in spite of their schooling, rather than because of it. In my research, I found both parenting and teaching practices that strengthen the capacity to innovate — emphasizing discovery-based play, limiting screen time, encouraging young people to find and pursue their passion, take risks and learn from mistakes, and instilling a sense of the importance of “giving back” — these were all things that parents and teachers of young innovators encouraged.
What overall rating do you give the US Public School system for training innovators
A grade of F. But it is not the teacher’s fault. They are not encouraged to innovate, and there is no funding for educational R&D. We must prepare teachers differently and develop lab schools for 21st century learning and teaching. Mostly importantly, we need to begin using much better assessments, like the College and Work Readiness Assessment and the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Assessment drives instruction, and having the wrong metric is worse than having none at all. Multiple choice, computer-scored test results tell us nothing about the quality of teaching or students’ college, career, and citizenship readiness. Every student should have a digital portfolio as a cumulative record of the development of his or her innovation skills. Finally, instead of preaching that all students should be “college-ready,” we should instead establish the goal of all students being “innovation-ready.” Young people don’t necessarily have to go to college to learn to innovate. Nearly half of Finland’s high school students choose a career and technical education track, rather than an academic track, and Finland has a higher innovation standing than the US.
Dr. Tony Wagner and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of The Dwight School and Dr. Tony Wagner
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), 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), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), 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.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Sometimes we have to remind students that a little anxiety is normal, and that learning to deal with pressure by containing it or getting used to it is a necessary skill.” — Mark Wormald
Student Well Being
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
It is one of the world’s leading academic centers and oldest universities; a self-governed community of scholars with a reputation for outstanding academic achievement. Like all of the world’s greatest universities, Cambridge University is looking for the very best students, who are not just passionate about their studies but also have the potential and drive to succeed. So given the intense competition to be accepted, is this world-renowned academic institution seeing an increase in student anxiety and stress? I had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Mark Wormald, Senior Tutor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he has been Fellow and College Lecturer in English Literature since 1992. As Senior Tutor, he is responsible for education and welfare in the College, a community of some 440 undergraduates, 280 graduates, and 70 Fellows.
Are you seeing an increase in the number of cases related to adolescent anxiety and stress that you believe might be tied to academic pressure?
We are seeing an increase in stress related or medical issues amongst our students, requiring them to take time out, and those numbers have been going up year on year. I don’t think I could attribute all of it to academic pressure. There are a number of issues and every case is different. We’ll see typically between half a dozen to a dozen students who have to take time out and have to start their academic year again, but the causes can be everything from bereavement to physical or medical conditions. I would say about two or three of those cases might be academic stress-related out of a population of 440.
British students have been brought up on modular exams. Until they complete secondary school, they are examined annually, and they can retake their exams if they need to. At Cambridge, however, there is no possibility of retakes. So our students are used to academic pressure of a kind, but are pretty fixated on those end of year exams. Our challenge is to support our students, get them interested in their subjects, help them in the course of three terms to enjoy their study for its own sake, cope with the final exams, and learn how to deal with that pressure. And they do. They do very well and so I think the academic pressure is manageable.
“I think we do recognize more formally now that there is a real gap between styles of learning and expectations on students between school and university.” — Mark Wormald
The drop out rate is one way to measure. Some may suffer quietly. Are you able to tell who the vulnerable child is? What’s the process once a child with problems is identified?
It is not always immediately apparent from the application process that an applicant might have issues. For example, it’s not always in the references that are written for students. There may be family issues that don’t emerge. How we tell once a student is accepted whether there is a problem is when a student starts missing academic appointments or does not meet with their Director of Studies or their Tutor. At Cambridge, the Tutor is responsible for a student’s pastoral welfare. Once students miss those meetings or start missing supervisions, then that is a sign that we gently need to enquire how things are going. Or, if people are not picking things up from their pigeon holes at the porter’s lodge. That’s another example of how we try to nip things in the bud. The reasons could be some kind of illness, a personal problem or, they feel they’ve made a mistake and are not up to the Cambridge program. When a student gets behind that only exacerbates the problem and that then turns into despair when you discover you are three weeks behind in an eight-week term. Nipping problems in the bud is possible in most but not in every case. There can be problems that have nothing to do with academic work but that just manifest themselves at times of academic stress. At Cambridge, however, we do have a 99.5% retention rate; that is, 99.5% of students admitted pass their exams with honors.
A few years ago the British education system introduced more exams, so we have the GCSE’s, then AS, then A2. I think because of teacher anxiety in terms of preparing students for their exams (i.e. teacher accountability), a lot of the student stress may be internalized from their teachers. I think the system has almost become too narrowly goal oriented. We actually have to work pretty hard with incoming students to say: enjoy the program from week to week. At Cambridge we don’t have mid terms and term papers contributing directly to their final grade. Our preparation process is different. We are not involved in examining them at the end of the year. A board of examiners is responsible for that. We have to prepare them for those exams but it’s separate and we try to keep a gap between. The real work for us begins in the summer term because students will think that they have to work harder than other students around them e.g. they have to spend more time in the library because they see others doing that. Our work is to ensure we work with them to get them to relax, to get them to take time off and to ensure they work effectively but don’t overwork. I think we have gotten better at that over the last 15 or 20 years.
Are there any specific initiatives or programs that you can discuss that have been effective to help incoming students adapt to University?
I think we do recognize more formally now that there is a real gap between styles of learning and expectations on students between school and university. We are developing a whole series of online programs and workshops that we call at Cambridge Transkills. These are focused on bridging the transition for students between school and university. We want to be much clearer than we have been in the past as to our expectations of students. For example we expect students to be much more disciplined about time management and about their study skills. We want to make sure that teachers at Cambridge are much clearer about their expectations of what an essay might be as well as reminding students that an essay means a try, an attempt, rather than the definitive last word on a topic. Some of these students think that is what is expected coming from school. So taking that pressure off them and saying, “Think of it as an experiment and try different things.” That is beginning to work and I think that is countering a sense of dauntedness that you are suddenly going to be taught by world experts and expected to cope with a massively increased speed and intensity of work as well as massively raised expectations. It’s a way to say to students, “Take things a week at a time and you will be all right.” We believe this will help students perform better academically as well as avoid the feeling that they were plunged in the deep end and expected to sink or swim.
One other thought. Students these days, like all of us, are much more used to expressing emotion, to sharing a sense of anxiety, than their predecessors were twenty years or so ago. There is perhaps occasionally something facile about this expressiveness. We all have cell phones, skype; vocalizing something, to a friend or family member, sometimes makes too palpable a niggle or a worry that would have passed by the time you reached the end of the queue for a pay phone. Sometimes we have to remind students that a little anxiety is normal, and that learning to deal with pressure by containing it or getting used to it is a necessary skill.
Dr. Mark Wormald and C. M. Rubin
(Photos courtesy of Cambridge University and Stephen Bond)
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), 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, 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), 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 has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
“The achievement gap is not created by schools. The achievement gap begins before the children are born.” — Diane Ravitch (photo courtesy of Rick D’Elia, Save the Children US Programs)
The 20%
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Even with food stamps, poor people are still poor. The OECD lists the U.S. as being one of the five top nations with the highest child poverty rate. The impact of poverty is significant in the outcomes of children in America’s education system. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, about 22 % of U.S. children less than 6 years old, and 18% of children between the ages of 6 and 17, live in poverty.
So what should we be doing to support the approximate 20% of U.S. school children who live in poverty?
From 1991 to 1993, Diane Ravitch was Assistant Secretary of Education in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. Ravitch is the author of numerous books on education, including The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.
How do you find a great teacher for a poor school where the best teachers are probably needed most?
Today, the definition of a great teacher seems to be somebody who can get test scores up. But that is not necessarily a great teacher. A great teacher is one who inspires students, one who encourages them to love learning. Test scores do not measure that. A person who can get the test scores up is sometimes a terrible teacher. Someone who spends hours and hours drilling children mindlessly and making them take practice test after practice test is not a good teacher.
Great teachers are made, not born. The first requisite for great teachers for poor schools is to find teachers who want to make a difference in the lives of poor children. Many teachers want to teach in poor neighborhoods and prepare themselves to do so. I have met many teachers-in-training who feel a strong sense of mission. They know that they need extra preparation so that they are prepared for all the different issues they will encounter. Great teachers emerge from experience over time. Great teachers can be nurtured by great principals. There is no simple formula for cranking out “great teachers.” Those who are in charge of a school district must have the wisdom to identify and support the leadership — the principals, who will support and nurture their teachers.
People argue if you exclude the schools with a significant number of poor children then the performance of American students on PISA tests would be in the top ten countries.
That is correct. Our PISA results reflect the poor scores achieved by students living in poverty. Among OECD nations, only Mexico, Turkey and Poland have a greater proportion of children in poverty.
How should we improve our poor schools – send in the best teachers?
I do not think that sending our best teachers to the poorest schools would make much of a difference. The working conditions are so bad in some of these schools that even the best of teachers will be unable to help. You first have to want to improve the schools, not close them. American policy right now is focused on closing schools, i.e. fire the principal, fire the staff and start all over again. It’s a very discouraging situation because it is not as if there are thousands of fabulous teachers waiting in line to take a job in the schools that have been built on the ashes of the old school. So first of all, there has to be a determination to say that we are going to improve performance at these schools and we’re going to have a broader set of measures than standardized tests. If you’ve got children who can’t read English, they are not going to get high test scores. If you’ve got children who are autistic, they are still going to be autistic next year. We must deal with the problems that children have and help them to learn, no matter what, and not use the test scores to stigmatize them or their teachers.
“I think we should be spending more money on high quality pre-school education.” — Diane Ravitch (photo courtesy of Save the Children US Programs)
50% of our new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. What are your thoughts on how to solve the problems?
If we had started trying to fix our problems 25 years ago, we would now be in a different position. We need to do what they did in Finland. We need to change the approach to recruitment, support, and retention of teachers. We should begin by raising standards for entry into teaching. Teachers should have at least a year devoted to post-graduate study and practice. New teachers need the support of a mentor. Then we have to focus on retention. Salaries should be higher. While there is much talk about reform, teachers are seeing pay cuts, including cuts in their healthcare. I hear from teachers all the time who tell me they spend $1,000-2000 per year out of their own money buying supplies for their students. The average teachers’ salary in the US is about US$50,000 per year. This is a profession that is not well paid and that is constantly under attack. It’s a wasteful system where 50% of the people who enter the profession are gone within five years. We have a system now for recruiting people into teaching in which the standards get lower and lower. Teach for America has raised US$500,000,000 in the last decade. They have become the focus of philanthropy and government investment. They offer college graduates a five week summer training program and then they are placed in the classroom as a teacher. They agree to stay for only two years. Many of these graduates are also sent into very difficult schools. When I told Finnish educators that we have teachers with five weeks of teacher training, their eyes just popped. There are some states where there is no requirement for becoming a teacher other than having a college degree. In other states, teacher training is done online. We have a recruitment system that does not work, a support system that does not work, and no system to retain teachers.
Are we allocating education monies in the wrong places?
We are spending way too much on accountability right now. In addition, a very large percentage of what we do spend goes into special education, which is necessary of course. Other countries find better ways to categorize the funding. I do not think we are spending more than other countries. I think we are just allocating our monies differently. I think we should be spending more money on high quality pre-school education. The achievement gap is not created by schools. The achievement gap begins before the children are born. The parents are poor. They have no education. We see the results in every testing program. Kids who come from these poor communities do badly compared to kids who come from the other end of the spectrum. Those who live in affluent families begin life with great advantages.
What other work has to be done to support children’s schools in poor communities?
The first thing I would do would be to make sure the schools are in excellent physical condition. The condition of a school sends a message to a child. Many children are attending schools that are old and decrepit. That says to a child: “You are not considered to be worthy of a beautiful school.” A beautiful facility says “This is a safe place. This is a place where you are respected.” Secondly, I would want a school with teachers who are committed to teaching children and to dealing with all the social and emotional problems that poor children bring to school. Many poor children come to school hungry, many have medical issues that need to be addressed. You need teachers who are prepared for all kinds of disabilities. And then, after the facilities are taken care of and the right teachers are in place, I would put a tremendous focus on the curriculum, especially the arts.
Successful school systems such as the one in Finland place high importance on the arts. What are we doing in America?
This is a very important topic. Many districts are cutting the arts, which is really outrageous. What I saw in Finland was that the arts are very important and center stage in every single school I visited.
Diane Ravitch and C. M. Rubin (Diane Ravitch photo courtesy of Jack Miller)
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon, 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), Professor Dylan Wiliam (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
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
“We need to focus on the kind of human beings we want to have and the kind of society in which we want to live” — Howard Gardner (photo courtesy of Harvard University)
What Do We Value Most?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
What do the 81.5 million students in this country believe their families value most?
Money?
Success?
Happiness?
Knowledge?
Power?
Celebrity?
Truth?
A Healthy Planet?
Good Work?
Engaged Citizens?
A Cultured Society?
What should the 81.5 million students in this country believe their families value most?
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from 26 colleges and universities. In 2005 and again in 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. The author of 25 books translated into 28 languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner directs the GoodWork Project— a study of work that is excellent, engaging, and ethical. With colleagues at Project Zero, he is also investigating the nature of trust in contemporary society and ethical dimensions entailed in the use of the new digital media.
Dr. Gardner, what is your view on standardized testing?
Our analysis of the educational problems in the United States is very distorted. What does it say about the kind of a society we aspire to be, when we are analyzing our educational success almost entirely on standardized test scores in a few subject areas? Even the focus on global competitiveness, particularly with respect to test scores, is misguided. Instead, we need to focus on the kind of human beings we want to have and the kind of society in which we want to live. That is why, for two centuries, we have been much admired (and even imitated) around the world. Once we get that straight, I am not worried about our test scores or our rankings in one or another international ranking system.
What elements are missing from our current system’s definition of educational excellence?
My belief in why America has been doing so well up to now is that we have been propelled by our immigrants and our encouragement of technical innovation and, indeed, creativity across the board. Historically, that’s been more important than the schools we have and the test scores we post. I believe this is what has enabled America to take a leadership role in the last century. And yet we talk about the problems in America being about the kids in school, particularly the kids in the inner city, who aren’t performing well. Of course we would like to improve education for all children.
But, look at what has happened since 2001. Enron, Lehman Brothers, AIG – all synonyms for great malpractice on the part of the so-called “best and the brightest.” The unvarnished market model – everything can and should be counted, ranked, bought and sold – has brainwashed the culture. We’ve lost our sense of values. Success is being evaluated in one dimension only, and that is getting wealthy at all costs. There have been many casualties and probably will be more. We need to go beyond fear and greed – we need to re-establish a sense of trust, and to identify persons, practices, and policies that are truly admirable.
For the past 15 years, my colleagues and I have been working on the study of Good Work (GoodWork: Theory and Practice project—see goodworkproject.org and goodworktoolkit.org ) as a model for forward thinking that should be nurtured in the educational system. Good Work is about how we can help young people live a life of good work and good citizenship. We and the youth whom we hope to inspire should strive to live by 3 E’s, which are firstly, technical Excellence (the worker knows his work and keeps up with the latest knowledge and techniques); secondly, being Engaged in the world around us (it feels good, it feels right, and it is personally engaging); and finally, good work is good in a moral sense, and that means it is carried out Ethically in a way that is responsible.
Let’s apply this simple lens to our current educational system. I would say that in the inner city, the issue has been Excellence, and we’re spending plenty of money trying to get that right. In the heartland, the problem has been about Engagement. Kids go to school and college and get through, but they don’t seem to really care about using their minds. School doesn’t have the kind of long term positive impact that it should. The upper middle class children who populate the suburbs have weak ethical muscles. On one calculus, they may be the best and the brightest, but they have been dominated by Money, Markets, and Me. To my mind, that’s been the wrong dominating figure in America over the past years. Of course, that is not the problem of the young people – it is the problem of the models that we older people have established and the kinds of signals that we give from birth onward… and I am afraid that it is many of the readers and writers of this blog. We need to ‘heal ourselves’.
The countries who do the best in international comparisons, whether it’s Finland or Japan, Denmark or Singapore, do well because they have professional teachers who are respected, and they also have family and community which support learning. I worry about the messages we send when we have such a focus on tests, data, and rankings.
“Success is being evaluated in one dimension only, and that is getting wealthy at all costs.” — Howard Gardner (photo courtesy of Harvard University)
How do we improve the capabilities and stature of teachers in the US so that they compare favorably with the capabilities and stature of teachers in Finland and Japan?
I sometimes say that if we tripled the salaries of teachers, the problems would evaporate. That’s not literally true, but the low status of teachers and the lack of a career path are problems, perhaps fatal ones. [Editor’s note: 2011 OECD report shows US teachers’pay level is 22nd out of 27 countries researched.]
How do we send the right messages to kids about citizenship and community?
Powerful leadership needs to send new and different messages about the definition of success. I don’t see how this can be done without the media – traditional and informal – and without gutsy leaders. When I think about the Republicans who are competing for the presidency, and the lackluster response from the current administration, I weep.
What are your thoughts on how might use the internet to achieve the objective of helping kids become better citizens – e.g. changes in online behavior?
The biggest communities in which young people now reside are online communities. These are like the ‘wild west’ – there are no solid norms, and so everyone is going her own way or improvising. At our GoodPlay project (see goodworkproject.org) we are trying to work out suitable ethics and citizenship for these young people, our future leaders. At that site you can read about our collaborations with the New Media Literacies project and Common Sense Media.
How might colleges assess children on multiple levels (other than standardized tests)?
The better colleges have more resources and are able to and need to allocate more of these resources to assessing incoming students so that test scores alone (vs. multiple measures) don’t play a dominant role in the admissions criteria. Nonetheless, colleges (including the ones with which I am associated) brag about the combined SAT scores. Even more hypocritically, those that have made the tests optional still attempt to recruit from the ranks of the higher scorers. Lloyd Thacker and his educational conservancy are trying to address this dilemma.
Should we be assessing values, discipline, respectfulness and good citizenship more?
Such assessments can and need to be done, but not by paper and pencil or computer-delivered tests! The traditional British system of knowledgeable inspectors is the best way that I know. Judgment by informed, disinterested (in the literal sense of that word), and wise individuals is the way that we can and should make our most important decisions as a society, and indeed, as a planet.
World Wisdom
In educational reform, focus on the kind of human beings we want to have and the kind of society in which we want to live.
We should not evaluate our educational success based on standardized test scores in a few subject areas.
The better colleges are able to and need to allocate more of their resources to assessing incoming students so that test scores alone do not play a dominant role in the admissions criteria.
The countries that do best in international comparisons have professional teachers who are respected, and they also have family and community which support learning.
Professor Howard Gardner and C. M. Rubin
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), 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), Professor Dylan Wiliam (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 has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
More Arts Please Sir (Photo Courtesy of Beechwood Sacred Heart School UK)
More Arts Please
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“To lose our culture is to lose our memory.”
More Leonardo da Vincis, more Martha Grahams, more Ludwig Van Beethovens, more Luciano Pavarottis, more Marlon Brandos, more Antoni Gaudis, more Coco Chanels, more Bob Dylans, more Zhang Xiaogangs, more William Shakespeares, more Julia Margaret Camerons, more Gustav Vigelands, more Andrew Lloyd Webbers, more Francis Ford Coppolas, more Meryl Streeps, more Alice In Wonderlands, more Anna Pavlovas, more Michael Jacksons, more Vincent van Goghs, more Harry Potters, more Phil Knights, more Rabindranath Tagores, more Pablo Picassos, more John Steinbecks… Please Sir – can we have some more?
Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is one of the internationally recognized leaders in the development of education creativity and innovation. He has received numerous honorary degrees from universities, and many awards from cultural organizations and governments, all over the world. He was knighted in 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the Arts. He has advised governments in Europe, Asia and North America on the Arts. In 2005 he was named one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s Principal Voices. His book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, is a New York Times best seller and has been translated into 21 languages. His latest book is the 10th anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative.
Sir Ken, what do you believe an arts curriculum should look like in primary and secondary school education?
I believe that the arts should be on an equal footing in schools with the sciences, humanities, languages and physical education. In most school systems there is a hierarchy. Arts programs are being cut ruthlessly since “No Child Left Behind” came out ten years ago. In the UK, they still talk about core foundation subjects, i.e. English, Math, and Science. In most countries the arts are a second tier activity. My first point is that the arts must be given equal footing. That’s what we argued in The Arts in Schools, the book I published in 1982.
There’s a need for a balance in arts education in several respects. One of them is that a proper arts curriculum would provide for music, dance, visual arts, literature and drama. When we did The Arts in Schoolsproject, I made a point of not trying to define the arts in any form. The reason for this was that the arts are a vibrant set of disciplines, and when you go into different cultures they don’t think of there being 4 or 5 different art forms. For example, for an audience watching a dance performance, that is a visual art form; if you look at musical theater, that is a combination of different disciplines: acting, dancing, music. So even defining 5 or 6 different art forms can become problematic.
More Arts Please Sir (Photo Courtesy of Beechwood Sacred Heart School UK)
Secondly, I think there should be a balance within the teaching of the arts. I ran a large project in the UK in the 80’s called the “The Arts 5-16” in which we offered a clear framework for arts education. There should be a balance between actually doing the arts and secondly, engaging students in understanding other people’s work. In other words, making and appraising. In some schools you will find that there is a greater emphasis on the latter, i.e. appraising. Students read books or listen to music, but they’re not encouraged to create it themselves. In other schools, you will find the opposite, i.e. students doing their own work and never looking at anybody else’s. A balanced arts education has to include both.
Under each of these areas of creating and appraising, we have to teach that creating arts is a discipline based process. It is not just free form. You must learn the skills and techniques of any area but they have to be taught in a way that enables you to think differently and imaginatively. There are forms of teaching that are highly uncreative and where the emphasis on discipline can kill the passion to make art. So there has to be a direct relationship between learning the skills involved and having the freedom to use them and to think creatively through them. The balance is about technical and creative development.
In terms of appraising other people’s work, arts education should include a balance between contextual knowledge and critical judgment. A full appreciation of a work includes understanding something of the history and context in which it was produced. For example, some people look at modern art and think it’s nonsense and that’s often because they don’t understand the context in which it was produced or what the artists’ intentions were. It’s like looking at a page of Romanian if you don’t speak it. So an important part of arts education is helping people understand context, background, and cultural references. The second process is developing skills of critical judgment. In the end you can understand a piece of art in the context and the background to it and still not like it. Enabling students to formulate, express and defend their own aesthetic and critical judgment of the arts is an essential element of a properly balanced arts education in any discipline.
Can student performance in the arts be assessed?
It is absolutely possible to assess people’s work in the arts. I’ve worked with arts academies and with conservatoires in music and visual arts; with specialist arts teachers in school who are assessing students all of the time. Assessment requires that you understand what you are looking at and for and that you are clear about the criteria that you are applying. For example, when a six or seven year old produces a drawing, an art teacher needs to have a frame of reference for what’s normal for a child that age. Part of that is the creative content of the work. But what you would also be looking for are the graphic capabilities and the level of execution. The same is true if you are looking at children who work in dance or theater. There are multiple levels at which you make judgments. Part of the problem in schools is that the arts are not taught regularly or systematically, and too often they are not taught by people who have had a proper grounding in the disciplines.
Another problem is that in this country there is a culture of standardized testing based on right or wrong types of answers. However, if you are looking at someone’s paintings, reading their poetry, or listening to music, then you are focusing on a whole array of factors. We have a tendency to make the measurable important versus the important measurable. The arts are about textures of meaning and understanding, and qualities of perception and expression. This does not mean that they cannot be assessed, but it is difficult to reduce them to simple paper and pencil tests.
Our education systems are obsessed with a particular type of academic ability, and that is a rather narrow view of knowledge and what it means to be intelligent. For all kinds of cultural and historical reasons, the arts have not been seen as being a part of that view. In my book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, I tried to explain why the arts are marginalized. It’s partly for economic reasons. People believe that if you do the arts you simply won’t get a job. The other part is the restrictive culture of intelligence in schools that I just mentioned.
We’ve covered teaching the arts as separate and interdisciplinary forms. Can art also be integrated into other academic subject areas to enhance learning?
I don’t think “subjects” is a very good term. “Subjects” implies an area that is defined by its content. Mathematics isn’t a subject to be studied as much as a set of disciplines to be practiced. In other words, you do mathematics, you do not just study it. The same is true of sciences such as chemistry and physics. Music is exactly the same. It is a set of disciplines. There are physical skills, hand eye coordination, aesthetic sensibilities, ideas you need to absorb. So I think “disciplines” is a better term than “subjects” because it captures the concept of practice as well as of ideas.
The other thing I like about “disciplines” is that it opens up the idea of inter-disciplinary. There is a lot in common between the arts and the sciences. In my conception of a great school, there would be all these disciplines represented and there would be a lot of traffic between them. I’ve been working on this idea with schools for over 40 years. Science being taught through music. Music being taught through history. If you want to understand the time and sensibilities of other periods or other cultures, you need to listen to their music.
The more dynamic and collaborative we are in our approaches to teaching, the more likely we are to deepen our understanding of ourselves and of other times as well. Part of our problem is that we have constructed education systems that are like production lines. There is a big separation in our schooling systems between the arts and the sciences. They are taught by different people in different rooms at different times of the day. One example I give of the consequences is from the Natural History Museum. If you visit the insect rooms, you’ll find wonderful displays of butterflies, all arranged in glass cases on the walls. They’re dead, but beautifully arranged by classification, i.e. size, color, etc. In the room next to them you’ll find the beetles. In another room you’ll find the spiders. But, if you go out into the world, that is not how you see them. You do not see the butterflies keeping to themselves over in one corner or the spiders lined up in columns keeping their distance. In nature, they are interacting with each other.
It’s the same in human cultures. They evolve by ideas from different disciplines affecting each other. They flow into each other and inspire people to think differently in their own fields. Schools can stifle this creative interaction by classifying subjects too tightly and keeping them too firmly in separate boxes.
Sir Ken Robinson with C. M. Rubin
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), 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), Professor Dylan Wiliam (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 has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
Early Steps to School Success, Save the Children US Programs (photo: Rick D’Elia)
More Focus on Change
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children alike.”
— President Barack Obama, 2008
Change is painful. Change takes time. Change is trial and error, but isn’t Change ultimately brought about by leadership which has the ability to rally all the policy makers around the all important higher purpose - that of educational excellence?
Yes we can close the achievement gap. Yes we can improve our teachers. Yes we can improve our overall education system. Difficult as these changes are to face now, what is the alternative in five years time for our students and our nation if we don’t?
This week in The Global Search for Education, I asked Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, with her vast experience in education research, teaching and policy, to focus on Change we can believe in.
Linda is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. In 2006, Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation’s ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade. In 2008-09, she headed President Barack Obama’s education policy transition team. President Obama owns a copy of her best-selling book, The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine our Future.
What is the impact of poverty on educational quality?
Poverty influences outcomes around the globe, but the effects of socioeconomic status on students’ achievement are larger in the US than in most other countries. Students in more affluent communities do very well. For example, on PISA, US students in schools serving fewer than 10% of kids in poverty rank above all other countries in the world in reading. Meanwhile, students in schools with high poverty rank near the bottom. One of the unspoken issues in the United States is that we have more and more kids living in poverty (1 in 4 overall - far more than any other industrialized country), and more and more schools catering to children in concentrated poverty (ratio of over 50% of children). Those are schools that also often get fewer resources from the state. Because of the recession, our tattered safety net, our not paying attention to the issues of growing poverty, the share of high poverty schools is increasing. In high-achieving countries, there are virtually no schools where more than 10% of the children live in poverty because in general, childhood poverty rates are much lower.
What does that mean in terms of changes we need to make?
I would argue that we have to think about changes in two ways. The last time we made major headway on these issues was in the 1960’s and 70’s when we had the war on poverty and we brought poverty, unemployment and segregation rates down. The achievement gap (between rich and poor) closed by more than three quarters in a very short period of time (15 years between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s). There were investments in urban schools, in teachers, in teacher training, in teacher distribution that made a huge difference. Had we continued with those policies, we would have had no racial achievement gap by the year 2000. In the 1980’s, we ended all those programs and never really regrouped.
We have to address the problems now from both sides. On one hand, poverty and segregation are getting worse, and policymakers do not want to talk about it. On the other hand, we also have to address the issue of what we do to improve schools. A recent analysis of the achievement gap shows about a third of the achievement gap between affluent and poor students in 9th grade is present at kindergarten. That’s because kids are growing up in very different kinds of communities with different learning opportunities within the family and within the community. We’ve seen huge reductions in the achievement gap where communities have put high quality pre-schools in place. New Jersey is an example. The other two-thirds of the achievement gap is due to summer learning loss. Wealthy students continue to increase their learning during the summer, while low-income students lose ground. We have to improve education from September to June, but we also have to put in place summer learning opportunities.
Then inside of school we have to equalize access to high quality teachers, and we have to improve the training of our teachers, which other countries have done. We have to get a curriculum that is focused on high order thinking and performance skills instead of bubbling in on multiple choice tests. Our kids are definitely disadvantaged because they are never asked on our tests to do the kinds of things that PISA asks them to do and other countries teach them to do: more focus on skills of research and analysis, requiring writing, thinking and expressing your ideas.
Is there a fast track to fix this?
Many of the countries that were low achieving and are now high achieving made huge gains in a decade. We could make strong gains quickly if we could get focused. A couple of things need to happen. We need to end the practice of allowing people to teach without training. There are states like Connecticut and North Carolina which put in place reforms in the 1990s where they raised salaries for teachers, raised standards for teachers for entry, preparation, and licensing, put in place induction programs to measure good teaching with strong performance assessments as well as support. In a few years they went from teacher shortages to surpluses, improved the quality of the teaching force, and raised student achievement. One of the problems we have in the United States however is that we tend to focus, make progress, and then backslide. We’re good innovators in terms of starting successful projects and programs in schools, but without the emphasis that is needed to maintain the system.
Save the Children ESSS program builds strong foundation for early learning (photo: Rick D’Elia)
Is there a disconnect between education systems and the real world, i.e. the kind of education systems kids need to excel in the 21st century?
I believe the disconnect is a concern in the UK as well as the US. Too often policy makers and educators think about a curriculum that consists of the facts you need to know across your 12 years of school, and schools are asked to make sure that students learn those facts instead of being able to use knowledge for complex problem solving, or being able to collaborate effectively. We need to expand students’ experiences to connect to the world out of school and we need to enable them to use technology to explore the world of ideas and to create new products. The change in mindset has to happen, first, at the governmental level, and it has to be reflected in student assessment. You see this change in mindset In places like Finland and Singapore where the governments are moving ahead with an idea about what schools should be doing to accommodate the kinds of jobs that are going to be available, the kinds of thinking and knowledge and creativity that are going to be needed. You do not see this change in mindset yet in the US. Nearly all of our curriculum is organized around multiple choice testing.
Is academic pressure creating a problem for the well being of students?
Human beings are learning creatures. From the minute human beings are born there is a drive to learn. The question is how do you build on that drive to learn in the school environment? When people are faced with challenges they feel are irrelevant, that drive to learn diminishes. Of course, children might not think they need to do some of what is needed to be a productive adult in a challenging world. However, so much of what we need to accomplish can be done in a way that is engaging, productive, and can combine the joy of learning and work.
I saw this vividly in two different classrooms that one of my children experienced in 1st grade. One was a school that was all about control. The kids could not talk or move. They were punished when they made a sound. It was an awful environment, so we moved her. She went into a new classroom where kids were being scientific in their spaces (their community, their school), doing stimulating projects, writing their own books and publishing them. All the kids were engaged, wanted to work hard, and learned about ten times more than in the rigid school. So part of the stress issue has to do with the way we are structuring the work in schools, because it is often at odds with the way people really learn. We need to rethink that and need to rethink the backward-looking testing systems that we currently use, which make people believe that is what you have to do in school.
How do you see the role of the arts and creativity?
I am a musician by training. The arts are important for their own sake for all of the things they develop in a human being: ways of being, ways of thinking, ways of expressing. We also know that the arts help kids learn other subjects like math and English. Our problem with this in the US is the narrow view of much of the policy community. It’s not that schools or educators or parents don’t see the value of the Arts. It’s lack of awareness from the policymakers who have a narrow old factory model view that school is all about producing reading and math scores. The problem is worse in poorly funded schools.
We need a balanced vision of education where there is an appreciation for the whole person and for what it means to develop a human being. I wish I had a magic wand. My message to the policy community would be “wake up and smell the coffee.”
In the US we have been on the opposite course of countries that have been succeeding educationally for at least the past ten years. The conversations in Washington are very remote from the conversations in everyday people’s lives across the country. The politics are still very narrow. We need enlightened leaders who are willing to learn more about education internationally and at home. Let’s think about what we want to achieve. Let’s think about how we’re going to get there.
Linda Darling-Hammond and C. M. Rubin
In The Global Search for Education, join C. M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), 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), Professor Dylan Wiliam (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 has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
Prime Minister John Key and young New Zealanders celebrate 100 Days to Go to Rugby World Cup 2011 (Photo courtesy of RWCNZ 2011)
New Zealand is Ready!
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
New Zealand’s “Stadium of Four Million” is ready to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup on September 9. In its world cup bid for the championship, this unique multi-cultural nation (with the most highly ranked rugby team in the world) promised to provide optimum world class rugby facilities where players would be inspired to perform at their very best. New Zealand also promised to create an environment where players and fans would be safe and welcomed.
So how does a country which values its sports so highly support and nurture its younger fans and players in their equally important educational paths? It should be noted that New Zealand ranks much higher than the US in the global standardized PISA test (7th in both Science and Reading and 13th in Math). What is New Zealand’s vision for its teachers, its students, its curriculum, and for learning?
I recently got the opportunity to discuss these important questions with Dr. Rosemary Hipkins, the distinguished Chief Researcher of New Zealand’s Council for Educational Research.
What kind of educational system will permit a country to have the people skills needed to compete globally?
A system with a high trust/low stakes model of accountability. If you have a high stakes/low trust model of accountability, then you’re in trouble before you begin because teachers won’t feel safe enough to be innovative. If you don’t believe that your teachers are professionals and can try things out in different ways, then you are never going to change anything. So I put a system with a high trust and low stakes model of accountability at the top of the list.
A system where curriculum and assessment policy are conveyed via flexible frameworks that leave space for local interpretation based on student learning needs. If you have the right model, it will leave space for teachers to interpret and use it based on their learners. The New Zealand Curriculum is a framework that applies some very high level principles that all schools are supposed to use. It specifies why each principle is important but it leaves it to schools to assemble the pieces as they believe they will work for their students. So there are a lot of different models. Each model should be implemented in conjunction with the whole school community so that everybody (parents/teachers/students) understands what the school is trying to achieve. Our secondary school system also has a flexible framework that I think is very unusual around the world. I don’t think many people have been brave enough to do what we’ve done in New Zealand.
For an educational system to achieve, it has to involve the whole community. Parents need to understand why schooling is different from the time they were schooled.
And again, we need to believe that teachers are professionals and create the conditions that make it possible for teachers to work like professionals.
For example, something we’ve been experimenting with in New Zealand is building professional learning networks for teachers, both inside schools and across schools. While this is not yet national (roughly about a third of our teachers in secondary schools are in the program), it’s going very well. Another learning initiative we’ve undertaken in New Zealand is the Te Kotahitanga, which is a Maori phrase. The goal of this is to get teachers to listen to the voices of the Maori children to sense their learning needs better so as to understand what they need to do differently to accommodate their learning needs.
Another initiative that our government has resourced is a numeracy project that aims to strengthen the abilities of primary school teachers, particularly in schools in our low socioeconomic communities, which we’ve targeted first. The goal is to teach numeracy in a way that lays a strong foundation for all students. It’s a problem solving approach, a measured approach of making students very aware of the strategies that they are using.
Teacher and Students at Albany Senior High School NZ (Photo courtesy of ASHS NZ)
What is your view of standardized testing?
I think that if you can give teachers a powerful diagnostic tool to help them get positive insights into what a student’s learning challenges might be, then actually you are handing them a very powerful enquiry tool. It depends on how the assessment tools are used. If you can use those tests in a high trust/low stakes model, then they might be valuable.
If generalization is possible, what elements are missing from the preponderance of the current systems?
There is a small group of people who talk about school learning being based on epistemology and forget the fact that school is also about shaping who children are and who they can become. Learning must focus on who students can be and become, not just on what they know and can do.
What is the state of emotional well being among New Zealand students?
Generally speaking, kids have been able to follow the study pathways they’ve wanted to in New Zealand. Maybe that’s the luxury of having a small country where you don’t have population pressures and ferocious competition. Obviously, if you want to get into a competitive entry course such as a medical school, then you’ve got to work really hard to do that, but there have always been other learning pathways for our students here. Perhaps we’re a bit more laid back as a society – some people would say too much.
From a larger perspective, does your country’s definition of educational excellence take into account the quality of life of individuals and of a society, including its artistic and cultural achievements?
The words that describe our overall vision for our students within our curriculum are confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners. Students are encouraged to value excellence, innovation, curiosity, diversity, community, ecological sustainability, and integrity. Excellence is defined in a learning to learn framework, aiming high and persevering in the face of difficulties. One of the eight learning areas in our curriculum frames is a vibrant arts curriculum. One of the things that are unique about New Zealand is our Maori culture, and our location as a Pacific nation with people here from many different Pacific island communities. We feel that makes us unique and different to other parts of the world. Certainly in our schools, we see the need to be aware of this strong cultural diversity. We also believe the arts are powerful forms of expression that recognize value and contribute to the unique bi-cultural and multi-cultural character of New Zealand, enriching the lives of all New Zealanders.
World Wisdom from New Zealand
If you have a high stakes/low trust model of accountability, then your educational system is in trouble from the onset. Empower teachers to implement curriculum and assessment guidelines according to the needs of their students. The Arts are powerful forms of expression that contribute significant value. For an education system to succeed, it needs to involve the whole school community — parents, teachers, and students.
In The Global Search for Education, join C.M. Rubin and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Leon Botstein (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), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), 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), Professor Dylan Wiliam (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
Dr. Rose Hipkins and C. M. Rubin
C.M. Rubin has more than two decades of professional experience in development, marketing, and art direction for a diverse range of media businesses. 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
