It is no secret that I love living in Thailand. I love the vibrant city, the peaceful countryside and the gorgeous beaches which are all in close proximity. I like the ancient traditions and architecture. A trip to Ayutthaya is a step back in time that has one romanticizing about days gone by, and for me, visiting the Muay Thai stadium is never dull. Food in Thailand is the most delicious I have ever tasted and every meal seems to get my taste buds dancing. But the thing I like about Thailand most of all is its people and their ways. In all my years in Thailand I have never experienced aggression directed towards myself. I love the friendly and easy going ways of the Thais. I guess I have the personality that fits well with the attitude that is in tune with Mai Pen Rai (In English a kind of way of saying Don’t Worry About It and It’s OK).

It’s true that most Thais would prefer a Mai Pen Rai kind of outcome over confrontation, which should not to be taken as a form of western weakness but understood as coming from deeper cultural and social aspects of Thailand. Thailand is a land rich in culture and traditions. It is a society that seems to function largely on respect. One can see respect being practiced in the daily lives of Thai people, through the act of the wai: putting together of the hands and raising them to the face as a sign of respect that is used for such things as when greeting someone older, or paying respect to a Buddha image. Most Thais hold great respect for traditions, the Buddhist religion, their parents, elders, and of course the monarchy. All of these Thai ways have made Thailand the successful, amazing country that it is today.

But moving deeper into the 21st Century, what role will Thai traditions and culture play in making Thailand a success nation. No one can deny that the world is dramatically changing. Internationalization and globalization have crept in to all aspects of our human existence. It is more important than ever for countries to be competitive on the world market. Technology has brought with it massive changes in the way we do business and live our lives. No one can predict what the future will look like but one thing is certain, to be successful in the future one will need to be technologically savvy, innovative and have strong Leadership skills. And as if that wasn’t enough change for the youth in Thailand to have to adapt to, by 2015 ASEAN will have thrown open the doors of its ten member state. Put all of the change together and you get a clear vision of what the up and coming generation of Thailand need: English, Innovative and Leadership Skills.

ASEAN + 21st Century requires English + Leadership + Innovation

To become proficient in a second language requires confidence. For whatever reason, many Thais lack the confidence to speak English around foreigners. This has to change. To help Thais develop their confidence in speaking English, schools need to drop lessons where English is taught by explicitly teaching grammar and replace these lessons with a more communicative approach to teaching. Teachers need to find ways to foster in their young students the desire to learn English. Real life task based learning can help create a need for a student to learn English.

Many English language schools focus so hard on teaching the language that they miss the opportunity to provide a greater learning experience. In any lesson, the whole of the child should be considered. Sure, teaching the basics is certainly very important, but the idea that you can’t teach them and at the same time help develop a child’s thinking and leadership skills is wrong. You would be surprised to find out for example, how many teachers at big mainstream schools fail to teach their students how to think because they are so concerned about teaching them to pass exams.

The children of Thailand need an education that helps them to develop into innovative adults with strong leadership skills. The old customs, traditions and ways of the Thailand should be preserved, they teach us much about leadership and compassion but young people should now be shown how they can also provide support for creativity and innovation. Innovation and creativity amongst its people is what Thailand needs right now in order to guarantee its success in the future.

I have recently read an essay written 3 months ago by The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) called ‘Oceans of Innovation’. A lot of what I have written above is supported in this document. The essay discusses the future of education in Asia and how schools in countries like Singapore and South Korea will need to change their approach to education in order to remain strong economic hubs in the future. The essay puts forward the following formula:

Well educated = E(K+T+L)

Where K is knowledge, T is thinking, L is leadership and E is Ethics.

I very much believe in this description of what a good education should provide. The essay itself is a very insightful read and you can get the full publication at
http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/9543/oceans-of-innovation-the-atlantic-the-pacific-global-leadership-and-the-future-of-education

The IPPR recently rated 40 countries in order of most highly educated to least educated. Thailand placed disappointingly towards the bottom of the list.

As a teacher over the past two decades I have to say that in retrospect I feel somewhat let down by the formal PD that I received over the years. Those seemingly out of the blue workshops that ranged in topics from brain based teaching to how to differentiate learning in the classroom, to teaching vocabulary to ESL learners. It is not that some of the information in these sessions was not interesting and useful; I did manage to pick up some very nice classroom tidbits along the way. However, what I gained from these sessions does not reflect the time, money and effort that each demanded. Admittedly, I must share some of the blame for not getting the most out of these times, not grabbing the torch and running with it, not following up what I had heard by delving deep into educational research to learn more. But for me, and I suspect many other teachers, the relevance of a great deal of what we patiently sat through was lost to both timing, the absence of a familiar context and the critical missing link to the bigger educational picture. Besides, we had in place a school curriculum that was non-negotiable along with some well worn teaching practices that seemed to be written in stone.

It is my experience that teachers are very busy people in schools. There are lessons to plan, classes to teach and work to mark. It is also my experience that a lot of what makes a teacher busy has very little to do with good teaching practice. Teachers are on a whole a fairly unimaginative lot, programmed to follow lesson plans and school protocol. I think most of us sense this about ourselves but to confess it would throw too much of a spanner into the works; heaven to Betsy we would all have to change! Well, I am changing and there lies the problem. Instead of simply accepting the norm I now have a question in my mind that I cannot avoid asking. It is a question that I believe all teachers should ask themselves before devoting their limited time to a task. They should ask, ‘How is this going to help my student(s)?’

Of all the disjointed workshops, boring meetings, and realms of paperwork that has come my way, my biggest regret to date is not being prepared the day Paul Ginnis came to our school. He presented a passionate, practical, enjoyable, modern view of education. I loved that day and thinking back it was probably from him where I first heard the idea that a teacher could and should question the validity of doing something if that thing could not be seen to benefit their students. Paul came to our school eight or nine years ago and injected a positive vibe. He illuminated a better way of teaching. Teachers were excited; they had been shown an alternative way of teaching that they all knew was better than what they were currently doing. Off we went back to our classes. We tinkered and tankered, scribbled and scrawled, chitted and chatted, tried and trialed. Then the memory of Paul Ginnis faded and we returned to our ways.

It is my opinion that the bulk of PD teachers receive makes very little difference to a school unless the school has the both the structure and willingness to allow teachers to implement change. Teachers generally learn to accept that although a two day seminar on 21^st century learning may have been great, the suggestions thrown around could not possibly be implemented at their school.

So here I am, now devoting the majority of any spare time on looking at how students learn best and what skills they will need to go on and lead flourishing lives. A year and a half in and I am very happy that I took this path. My personal growth as a result all of my own study has been quite extraordinary to me. It has set me on what can best be described as a mission of lifelong learning. It’s not that I didn’t see the value in learning beforehand but that I now see it as a key to self enlightenment and happiness.

So why am I currently feeling so disappointed, frustrated and angry. I am angry, I’m even angry that I’m angry. I am angry that I feel I must spend time writing this when I could be working on my thesis. But I know that the act of writing is good therapy. If I can just get this out of my system I can return to my study. The following quote fits nicely with my situation:

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn’t matter.

– Edward Albee

 

Ok, so here it is. In the course of looking for the truth in education I have developed a rather cynical view of the way education is delivered in schools. Armed with a greater understanding of the gap that exists between what most schools do and what is actually good teaching and learning practice, I am motivated to understand what reforms can be made to improve schools. My heroes have become cognitive scientists, and educational researchers and writers; Howard Gardner, Guy Claxton, Stephen Covey and John Dewey to name a few. On top of acquiring subject skills and knowledge I am working on my own list skills and attributes that I think students should learn at school including:

1. Recognition (awareness)
2. Response (sensitivity)
3. Logic (Reasoning/deducting)
4. Creativity (Imagination)
5. Reflection (attention)
6. Resolve (resilience/projection)
7. Leadership for a better world
8. Communicative
9. Confidence
10. Collaboration
11. Self-reliance
12. Pro-active
13. Happy
14. Social
15. Curious
16. Energetic
17. Resourceful
18. Synthesizing
19. Investigative
20. Experimentation
21. ICT
22. Global awareness
23. International mindedness

I view it as my responsibility as a teacher to provide learning experiences that are going to help my students acquire the kind of skills and attributes listed above. So when someone comes along and implements a school policy that will take up my time and do nothing to benefit my students, I start to feel sick in the stomach. If it could be explained how such a policy could help my students, if an educational rationale for the policy could be given, if it could somehow be explained why the policy is being implemented other than it’s a policy that has been copied from over administrative educational managers of the past, then I would be able to comfortably accept it. But I am afraid many of the policies that get put into place at schools have no sound justification and certainly nothing to do with education.

I’ll end here. I have spent more time than I wanted to on this. Time to get back to reading Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future.

Continue reading →

 

 

 

I am a teacher and I am guilty. I was guilty as a child and I am guilty as an adult. Allow me to explain.

It’s the nineteen seventies and I’m sitting in a lower primary school class with my fellow students. Mr. X is our teacher and he is pretty strict, in fact he is infamous for using the one meter ruler to practice his golf drive on none other than the backsides of his students. It was better to be on the good side of Mr. X than going through the pain and humiliation of a public canning. Anyway, there I sit as Mr. X goes through his all too familiar routine of calling out test results. I always did pretty well in tests so I never had much to fear, although one could never be too sure.

Mr. X had this way of setting the scene. Doom and gloom was the order of the event as he began to verbalize his extreme disappointment. If one didn’t know otherwise, you could be forgiven for thinking that some students in the class had committed a serious public offence. What would follow is a berating of those students whom found themselves in the bottom percentile for test scores. It was always the same students although if for some reason one of the ‘class stars’ found their name on the list they would get away with an, “I expected better things from you,” comment.

I’m guilty for going along with Mr. X’s evil little game and for, in some kind of twisted way, actually enjoying it. I guess that’s because I had for various reasons (not related to test scores) found myself on the nasty side of Mr. X and it was kind of a satisfying relief to know that someone else was going to have to experience the same embarrassment. Besides, Mr. X had completely sold me on his theory of why these students always failed their tests. Clearly, coupled with the fact that they were lazy, they were simply born stupid. Looking back now, I realize that I contributed to a system that set many kids up for failure. It’s no wonder that many adults look back on their school days with horror.

As a young kid I can be forgiven for not knowing any better and needless to say that as a practicing teacher I am now appalled by the education system of the past that allowed such practices to exist. It is now the twenty first century and while I am pleased to say that corporal punishment is no longer an option that teachers have to threaten kids with, that one dreaded and feared beast that they call the ‘Test Paper’ is still alive and well. I have, in a previous post, written about the dreaded exam paper and why I feel it has been an obstacle to schools providing a meaningful education for their students. At http://thecurriculum.edublogs.org/the-british-curriculum/ I discuss what I believe is wrong with administering SATS tests.

We have an educational system that demands that students pass exams in order to earn their rightful passage into university. However, most universities realize that a student getting high grades on national exams does not necessarily guarantee success in their degree programs.  Hence it is becoming more and more common for universities to require that candidates pass the universities own forms of assessment including in many cases an interview and even in some instances more exam papers. As long as doing well on national exams continues to play a part in students gaining a place at university, then schools cannot ignore preparing their students for exams. But for the love of life, can we please stop administering test papers in primary schools.

Why do we sit primary school kids down to do test papers? To get a score? To rank them?  Who do we do this for? The teacher? The kids? The parents? I imagine a little girl going home and telling daddy that she scored an A plus on her science exam. Daddy is delighted and for the rest of the week beams with pride. But what do the results mean? Is little Jenny a budding little scientist destined to pick up the Nobel Prize for her scientific contribution to mankind? Please excuse my sarcastic tone but as I have argued in previous posts, most written tests administered in primary schools are not only a waste of time and money, they can be detrimental to the development of a child. Let’s get rid of ‘Assessment of Learning’ and replace it with ‘Assessment for Learning’ and ‘Assessment of Learning skills’.

Assessment for learning is about using assessment to improve learning. It kind of sounds obvious but it is rarely achieved through test papers. Let’s for a minute consider a situation where a school administers ‘Assessment of Learning’ but never utilizes ‘Assessment for Learning’. A Math topic, let’s say simple fractions, is taught to a Year 3 class over a four week period culminating in the students completing a test. The test results show a wide spread of answers. Johnny gets the first three questions correct but the fourth and fifth question wrong. Maria gets part b of question 5 wrong. Michael gets most questions wrong. Kevin gets most questions correct. Everyone gets question 6 wrong. And so on and so on. What is the teacher to do with this information? It seems as though most students have gaps in their knowledge of fractions but what are they and how can the teacher go back and make sure that the blanks are filled in. I would argue that the opportunity has been lost and that in most cases the test results will be entered onto the computer system, attached to the students profile and that will be the EOS. The teacher will move on to symmetry, the next topic in the curriculum.

So let’s consider what happens if we abolish ‘Assessment of Learning’ and embrace ‘Assessment for Learning’. Now when the teacher is delivering the topic on simple fractions, they are constantly on the lookout for opportunities for ways in which students can receive immediate feedback regarding their learning. I am referring to the kind of feedback that is specific and actionable by the student with or without support. This kind of assessment can come from the teacher, a peer or the student themselves. It is a form of assessment that acknowledges what a student knows and allows them to see the next step that they need to take. This form of assessment helps students become better learners, and the way I see it, ‘Learning to Learn’ is what schools should be all about. And if ‘Learning to Learn’ is so important then it makes sense that schools would want to make provisions for ‘Assessment of Learning skills’.

The five R’s (Resourcefulness, Remembering, Resilience, Reflectiveness and Responsiveness) refer to learning strategies that can be taught and, yes, assessed. Wouldn’t it be great for parents to know how little Johnny was developing as a learner? Isn’t that the kind of information that universities need to know in order to determine the chances of a student being successful in their degree programs?

I’m upbeat about the future of education. The 21^st century will demand of schools that ‘Assessment for Learning’ and ‘Assessment of Learning Skills’ become common practice. The eventual abolition of exams as we know them today will bring back a joy of learning for the students along with a joy of teaching for the teachers. But what do I do until this moment comes? What if I am handed a test paper to give to my class? There are bound to be questions on the test that some of my students don’t know, nor should know, the answers to. I will lodge my complaint and fight for the cause. Whether or not my students continue to sit meaningless test papers, one thing is for sure, I will not be teaching to the test, nor will I allow those occasions to destroy the confidence of my students.  Learning should be an enjoyable and empowering experience!