By Allan Alach
Here’s an article I wrote about the PISA tests - targeted at New
Zealand but with a lot of relevance all over.
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| Read NZ Listener article |
If PISA is the answer,
what is the hell was the question?
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it
to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
The Fear Factor: What’s
holding us back from moving ahead?
‘In contrast to the world’s
most innovative organizations, innovation happens slowly in public schooling.
In this article, the author explores the “fear factors” that hold us back from
educational innovation, which include both structural blockers and cultural
blockers. Nevertheless, there is plenty education leaders can do to support
innovation, based on the characteristics observed in centres of innovation:
look outside their own discipline for inspiration; create their own success
criteria; create a safe space for experimentation; give people trust, time and
permission to fail.’
Pearson Education’s creepy
vision confirms Common Core fears
George Orwell must have used Pearson Education as a model for Big Brother...
‘
Pearson Education, an
official partner in the development of resources and tests for the Common Core
State Standards, recently released a video series to share their ‘vision for
the future of learning’. Although the technology shown is impressive, these
videos confirm what many teachers and parents have feared most about Common
Core, unprecedented control and an invasion of student privacy. In these
videos, educators’ teaching styles are monitored by real-time cameras in every
classroom and evaluated on the use of specific points of instruction.’
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Beyond
teacher egocentrism: design thinking
Useful article by Grant Wiggins:
‘As teachers we
understandably believe that it is the ‘teaching’ that causes learning. But this
is too egocentric a formulation. As I said in my previous post, the learner’s attempts to learn
causes all learning. The teaching is a stimulus; the attempted learning
(or lack of it) is the response. No matter what the teacher says or does, the
learner has to engage with and process the ‘teaching’ if learning is to
happen.’
Secret Teacher: low morale and high pressure leaves no
time for inspiration:
Management's obsessive drive for 'outstanding' will prevent our next
generation from fulfilling their personal goals and dreams
A story from England that will feel very pertinent to teachers in
other GERM infected countries.
‘We are so caught up with data and so many progress checks
that we don't give our students the time to shine. I wonder what would happen
if the greats of the world like Einstein, Gaudi, Picasso and Martin Luther King
were to attend school in 2013, would they be able to cultivate their talents
and thrive?’
Learning
Theory
An interesting infographic detailing
learning theories.
On
Montessori and the Common Core standards
‘But
then I remembered what Maria Montessori once said: “Before elaborating any
system of education, we must therefore create a favorable environment that will
encourage the flowering of a child’s natural gifts. All that is needed is to
remove the obstacles.”’
China’s Schools Teaches Kids to Take Tests, Obey
the State, and Not Much More
This week’s PISA
results have provided excuses for school and teacher bashing. Maybe we should
look at why China (and other Asian countries) seem to be better.
‘In China, memorization and
(consequently) the ability to perform on tests are the keys to academic
success, rather than the ability to think or question.’
Art
Makes You Smart
‘Clearly,
however, we can conclude that visiting an art museum exposes students to a
diversity of ideas that challenge them with different perspectives on the human
condition. Expanding access to art, whether through programs in schools or
through visits to area museums and galleries, should be a central part of any
school’s curriculum.’
What
Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain: Cursive
Writing Makes Kids Smarter
‘Yet
scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for
cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional
specialization,”[2] that is capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning
cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates
both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal
that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive
writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.’
Why
geniuses don’t need gifted education
‘I
have interviewed many bona fide geniuses, because they tend to make news. Their
life stories suggest that such people are best left alone to educate
themselves, as long as we make sure that they can get to all the riches of our
culture and science and that we don’t require them to take grade-level courses
that hold them back.’
A
Sampling of articles about PISA:
The PISA Results and the
Crisis of Authority
‘Thus, the entire practice
of publicly presenting international comparisons of test results as league
tables and in turn measures of school system quality is arbitrary, and thus
properly understood as pseudo-science and ultimately against authoritative
knowledge.’
Among the Many Things
Wrong With International Achievement Comparisons
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‘...I have long felt that
these international assessments are a mess of uninterpretable numbers providing
a full-employment program for psychometricians, statisticians, and
journalists.’
John Kuhn: Our Kids --
Coddled or Confident?
‘Perhaps instead of being
hobbled by a mathematical deficit, our kids are instead empowered by a
superabundance of hopeful freedom that allows them to dare big things. A child
who is not allowed to fail becomes an adult who is afraid to try. I posit that,
unchecked, our test-and-punish craze will hurt America's trial-and-error
economy.’
Are
Finland’s vaunted schools slipping?
A thoughtful article by Pasi Sahlberg -
important to inform you in any debates about the PISA results.
‘Finland
should also continue to let national education and youth policies — and not
PISA — drive what is happening in schools. Reading, science, and mathematics
are important in Finnish education system but so are social studies, arts,
music, physical education, and various practical skills. Play and joy of
learning characterize Finland’s pre-schools and elementary classrooms.’
This week’s contributions from Bruce
Hammonds:
Creativity
of the Artist: Observe
How would you apply this in your classroom?
‘Probably
the biggest way that artists differ from non-artists is in how the former
observe things. For instance, on a sunny, windy day in the countryside, have
you ever watched the wind blow across the trees? It is fascinating to watch. As
the leaves flutter in the wind, they reflect and deflect the sunlight rapidly,
causing them to flicker and dance in a flow of changing colour and tone.’
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Importance of developing
talents of all students; the challenge for 21st C education
Bruce’s latest blog:
‘....Louise Stoll and Lorna
Earl write what is, to me, the real challenge of educational organisations for
the 21stC to develop all their talents to the full and to realize their
creative potential, including responsibility for their own lives and
achievement of their personal aims’.
Are We Preparing Graduates
for the Past or the Future?
‘If we can foster more
students and graduates who develop ingenuous ideas and are undaunted by what
they don’t know, support them with mentors to coach and challenge them, and
encourage within them a bold vision backed with adaptive and strategic
thinking, soft and hard skills, then we will have the players who can
create a thriving, dynamic economy.’
From Bruce’s ‘Oldies but Goodies’ blogs from the past.
Educational
change and leadership - bottom up!
‘Creative
principals are concerned with influencing positive changes within the school.
Once again personal mutual relationship and trust between all are vital. To be
able to influence others the staff must see the principal as part of the
working community not isolated worrying about achievement data. In this respect
a successful principal is not unlike a sensitive class teacher.’
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