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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Something is rotten in the state of Finland
As a follow-up to yesterday's blog about Finland's results on the latest TIMMS, Anne Stokke sent me a link to this analysis by Richard Askey, professor emeritus of mathematics at University of Wisconsin - Madison. Dr. Askey looks at one particular question on the TIMMS, and compares how well students in various countries did on it. Canadian students did poorly on this question, but Finnish students did even worse.
There are some worthwhile links embedded in Dr. Askey's analysis, but perhaps the most interesting is this one - a letter signed by more than 200 Finnish mathematicians warning that there are serious problems with the way math is being taught in their country.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Picking Winners and Losers
Is anybody had enough yet of all the fawning over Finland's education system? Yesterday, for example, Pasi Salsberg, a big education cheese in Finland, was on CBC's Sunday edition with Michael Enright, claiming that Finland is at the top of international rankings and suggesting that other countries follow Finland's example. Mr. Salsberg has his own website and he's pretty hunky. You can see why he has rock star appeal.
There's just one problem with this picture. The trouble is - Finland didn't do all that well in the recent TIMMS, being skunked (like everybody else) by Asian tigers Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. It's true that Finland did well in the grade 4 reading assessment, being neck and neck with the leaders - Hong Kong, Florida, Russia, and Singapore (Japan and Korea did not participate). However, there are a couple of non-educational reasons that may have contributed to the reading proficiency of Finnish children.
For one thing, Finnish spelling is very regular - with every sound almost always being represented by its own letter. It's as if Finns need to read only sentences like the following: A BIG CATAMARAN MUST NOT BUMP ITS MAST. Secondly, most Finnish children watch a lot of Swedish TV, a language they can't understand. Although the programs for very young children are dubbed into Finnish, most programs for older children are sub-titled in Finnish - meaning that children have to be good readers if they are to enjoy their TV shows. Thus Finnish kids get a lot of extra reading practice.
In contrast, English spelling is highly irregular, and most English-speaking children need very skillful teaching if they are to become fluent readers. Try teaching kids to read the following sentence, with its seven different pronunciations of ‘ough’: I THOUGHT I HICCOUGHED, THOUGH, AS I WENT THROUGH A TOUGH TROUGH in the BOUGH. Then there’s the sound /oo/ (as in “moon”), which can be represented in at least 12 different ways: for example, stew, soon, glue, judo, soup, do, lose, tune, shoe, fruit, neutral, and through. And of course the letter ‘y’, which can be a vowel or a consonant and represent several different sounds: for example, yes, key, happy, boy, gym, sky, type, day, and they.
The bottom line is that what happens in Canadian Grade 1 classes really matters. But what happens in Finnish Grade 1 classes is far less critical. The success of Finnish kids on reading tests may not have all that much to do with Finnish schools.
All of which begs the question: why is so much fuss being made about the Finnish education system? Why are Canadian educators not interested in what the Asian tigers are doing? The answer has got to be that Canadian educators like what is happening Finland but don't like what is happening in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Canadian educators like to point to Finland, which pays its teachers a lot and which doesn't have many private schools. Canadian educators don't like to point to the Asian tigers, which use direct instruction and drill and large classes and sequential curricula.
If Canadian educators were truly interested in high student achievement, they would stop making pilgrimages to Finland and start packing their bags for the countries that are producing far superior results - Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Benjamin Carson)
This 27-minute speech is worth watching, if only to watch President Obama squirm from time to time. The speaker keeps your attention the whole time, and he has some interesting things to say about education. H/T FG
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished
In Ontario, the Trillium List (the Ontario government's list of textbooks that schools are allowed to spend their money on) excludes textbooks that don't align with the dominant child-centred philosophy - meaning, for example, that there are no phonetic readers or sequential math texts on the list (or in Ontario publicly-funded classrooms). Because textbooks have a very strong influence on what happens in the classroom, the exclusion of phonetic readers and sequential math texts lowers standards and student achievement.
Along comes the digital revolution and with it open source textbooks. Mainly in use in post-secondary institutions at present, the phenomenon is starting to trickle down into secondary and even elementary classrooms. Sooner or later, probably sooner, schools and teachers will be able to access textbooks that cost nothing.
At that point, the Trillium List will lose its relevance and, unless the government flat out prohibits phonetic readers and sequential math texts, teachers will be able to use them and standards will rise. H/T JE
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Prestigious but unemployed
There was an excellent editorial in the KW Record yesterday, talking about the gap between recent post-secondary graduates' qualifications and the job market. Everybody wants his kid to go to university - because it's prestigious - but these days a university degree and $1.30 will get you a cup of coffee at Tim Horton's. The hundreds of thousands of university graduates sitting at home because they can't find a job or driving a taxi would have been smarter to attend a community college and learn a trade. Meanwhile, many employers are having to import trained workers from the Phillippines and elsewhere.This mismatch is bad for young people and bad for our economy.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Cradle to Grave
Tim Hudak wants to halt the expansion of all-day kindergarten in Ontario until the deficit has been eliminated. Kathleen Wynne, the new premier, says it is essential. more Now President Obama wants to expand "high-quality preschool to every American child".
Click here for six reasons why President Obama's idea is a poor one. I especially like #6. H/T JE
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
What if the experts are wrong?
Most people intuitively think that it's a good idea to teach young kids as much as possible about the world - vocabulary and general knowledge and useful skills and stuff like that. And of course the way to maximize learning is to organize information in a comprehensive and sequential way and teach it directly. Young kids are hungry for this information and they just eat it up. But many early childhood educators are opposed to the practice of sequential curricula and direct instruction of children, preferring young students to learn "through active engagement with each other and the world around them". This quote is taken from a column by a couple of early childhood experts.
The column is worth reading, as are some of the links embedded in the column - most especially the linked-to "Critical Review of the Research". This in a nutshell is the mindset that is keeping disadvantaged young children from direct instruction. You can judge for yourselves how well it is working.
I want to leave you with a quote from the column, as it nicely illustrates the superior attitude of many early childhood experts. After taking a couple of shots at the authors of the K-3 Core Currciulum standards for having no experience in child development or early education, the authors call for an entire rewriting by early childhood educators "who will use their professional knowledge and experience to design standards that will nurture and support learning and growth, not undermine them".
It's nice to feel superior, but you have to wonder how anybody can be SO SURE. H/T Chas
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Prof or Hobo
Today's blog is just for fun - and also a reminder, I suppose, not to judge a book by its cover. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to determine whether each of the ten individuals is a prof or a hobo. I scored 3/10. H/T DJ-F
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Look a gift card in the mouth
I know YOU don't make mistakes, but the rest of us do, and so I'm currently reading Why We Make Mistakes: How we look without seeing, forget things in seconds, and are all pretty sure we are way above average by Joseph T. Hallinan. The following excerpt (pp. 203-204), while giving excellent advice about Christmas gifts, at the same time illustrates people's surprisingly poor ability to predict how they will behave in the future. More later.
We make this kind of error often enough that it can be - and is - reliably used against us. Rebate coupons, for instance, are a great way to get people to buy things; studies have shown that our purchasing decisions are often swayed by rebate offers. But here's the catch: many of us never use them. By one estimate, 40 percent of rebate coupons are never redeemed. If you've ever wondered why merchants offer rebate coupons instead of just cutting prices by an equivalent amount, that's why: they know that consumers (like high school smokers) will mispredict how they will behave in the future.
This misprediction is why gift cards are such a bad idea for you - but a really terrific idea for hte companies that issue them. Gift cards have become tremendously popular in recent years and are now the No. 1 gift choice in America, with two-thirds of consumers saying they plan to buy one. There's only one problem: the people we give them to don't use them. On average, U.S. consumers have between three and four unused gift cards apiece lying around in purses and dresser drawers. And these unused cards add up: Americans lose about $8 billion annually by not redeeming gift cards. But this is money in the bank for the companies that issue them. In 2008, for instance, Limited Brands, owner of the Victoria's Secret chain of lingerie stores, reported a quarterly pretax gain of $47.8 million, or eight cents a share, from unused gift cards. And it isn't alone. Big retailers like Target and Home Depot also make a killing on unused cards.
Researchers call this type of error a projection bias, and it pervades even the most intimate of decisions Spouses, as you may know from your own personal experience. often aren't very good at predicting what types of presents their mates would like for Christmas or other occasions. What often happens is that spouses first decide whether they would like the present in question, then adjust from there to decide whether you would like it, too.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (The Edmonton Model)
Michael Zwaagstra explains that, just as you are free to shop at the grocery store of your choice, you should also be free to send your children to the school of your choice (as Edmonton parents can). YouTube link