When I was ten years old, younger than most, I entered Form 1 of 5 in high school. In the British system of education, effective on the island of St. Lucia where I grew up, you needed to take and pass the Common Entrance Examination in order to get on the academic track. If by the age of 13 you had not passed the test, you were sent to vocational school where you would learn a trade; when you graduated you could support yourself and a family, and feel some satisfaction at being a valued part of society. Having done well enough to place first the year the test was given, and then succeeded in school, even today I find it difficult a system to argue against, after fully embracing teaching in the United States for twenty years. In Form 1 I was placed in a classroom according to my last name; in Form 2, the top third of each class (our rankings were posted outside the headmaster’s office at the end of each term), was skimmed off to form the “S” group. The competition was public, fierce, and very important. As a result of my Caribbean high school experience, I was able to relate too closely to the picture Zhao painted about his journey in China. I feel I was taught different things, top among them was grit. When you grow up in a culture where there is a middle class only slightly better off than poor, you know your chances of being “without” are very high. Only the top kids in the class have any chance at the few opportunities that exist in the work world beyond school. Therefore, if you are tackling a mathematics word problem and you “don’t get it” there is no option of skipping it, because your competitors will have stuck with it, impressed the professor, and left you behind -- so you stick with it until you figure out a way to the solution. Of course, there is little room for sports and no time or money from the school for much in the way of arts and extracurriculars. If you make that time, it’s in addition to, not instead of academics. When you get into Form 5, you prepare for and take the GCE’s (General Certificate of Education) in subjects you will further explore in university. Students basically pick their career path in high school -- the option of burning two years of humanities courses in college until you declare a major is nonexistent. The top academic students are very focused, driven, and stressed out. Things have no doubt changed as, for better or worse, high school for this author was a long, long time ago. (Humor). So when Zhao talked about gaokao, the Chinese National College Entrance Exam, it made me shudder. Another thing the British system showed me was that humiliation was not constructive. Since rankings were posted publicly, each of the thirty of us knew exactly where we stood (St. Mary’s College was a Jesuit boys’ school). Generally speaking, there was not a whole lot of shuffling outside of your respective quartile. This did not serve to motivate boys much beyond the lead quartile where the effort given was in truth, way more than U.S. students’, but certainly did little to develop the whole child, or inspire innovation. Zhao reports that China is taking steps away from the intensity that often teaches things outside of what will be needed to succeed in this global, interconnected world. In redefining success they are accepting that “the range of knowledge and abilities that are of value includes more than math and reading.” (Zhao, Kindle Location 2877). Using the metrics created under NCLB, school district teachers are forced to have their instruction strangled by the tests. If communities, from parents to real estate agents, use API scores to judge the school’s success, then that’s what’s going to continue. These output-based measures, Zhao says also make no sense since they don’t account for variables in the child’s life that affect performance, like health, or what’s going on at home at the time of testing. To adjust for these deficiencies, Zhao refers to “an input-oriented accountability system measures the quality of schools by looking at the quality of educational resources and opportunities they provide to each student” (Kindle Locations 2895-2896) as follows: I find that these indicators are hierarchical in nature, almost in the way Abraham Maslow organized his levels of needs through which people are motivated to pass, from physiological to self-actualization. (See graphic below). In that same way that proponents of Maslow do not have self-actualization or self-transcendence (which he later added), as a measurable place to be, I believe that Zhao’s indicators are more focusing and recalibrating than they are a usable accountability tool. In order for a public school using tax dollars to justify replacing testing with an input-oriented accountability system, an exhaustible metric of standards would have to agreed upon, against which to compare an equally exhaustible scoring scale. For instance, how do you measure the level of inspiration a school’s physical environment deserves? Of course, it can be done, but would take a level of commitment unlikely to attain. It would, however, seem to allow the five disciplines of Peter Senge to take hold. (See graphic below). In an environment of continuous learning, people could strive for a shared vision while working toward personal mastery. Teams could provoke and support one another to learn together, while staying aware of the mental constructs they bring to the table, all under the lens of systems thinking. In essence Zhao would beget Senge. In a small school district like Rancho Santa Fe, well-funded by a parent foundation, and very agile in administration, I believe if relieved of the burden or responsibility of remaining a high achieving school per API scores, adoption would happen in a flash. Private schools and Charters with more flexibility, are also well positioned to adopt and adapt. It simply seems healthier to strive toward enabling learning through Zhao’s inputs. Let the journey be led by the natural curiosity and industry of the students, coupled with the dedicated professionalism and vision of the adults in charge. Resources: Cropper, Bill (2009). 5 Learning Disciplines - The Change Forum. Retrieved July 29, 2016, from http://www.thechangeforum.com/Learning_Disciplines.htm. Zhao, Yong (2009-09-18). Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization (Kindle Locations 2895-2896). Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Kindle Edition.
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AuthorTwenty-one years of teaching, and I'm still fascinated with my role as an educator. What will it be like as a principal? Archives
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