“Is it standard practice to refer to these moral character traits as “skills”? That way of framing them is going to bite us in the can down the road. Remember that Daniel Willingham paper on how much damage it does when we try to teach things that are not skills as if they were skills? The sooner we can start labeling these as character traits, the sooner we can get serious about figuring out how schools can help students form them.”

At that moment, I thought of grit as a mental health component that may not do a whit of good in being successful in work and life in the 21st century, when one considers the times we are living in. But having high levels of grit, could beat off depression, angry tirades and substance abuse. The stuff in life that wears down a person, and be able to handle stress differently. The economic times of the 21st century are not the kind that gives people a break and more so for people who are living from one pay check to the check.

Hello Malkin,

You blogged yet another bit of Americana.  I think everyone here is familiar with the old chestnut,  ‘you cannot see the forest because of the trees’.  Here is a view of the forest:  http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/programeforinter.

It is an OECD synopsis of promising reform efforts with a global perspective.  “Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education:  Lessons from PISA for the United States”

Ch1: Introducation
Ch2: Viewing Education in the US through the prism of PISA

Ch3: Ontario, Canada: Reform to Support High Achievement in a Diverse Context.

Ch4: Shangai and Hong Kong: Two distinct examples of education reform in China.

Ch5: Finland: Slow and steady reform for consistently high results.

Ch6: Japan: A story of sustained excellence.

Ch7: Singapore: Rapid improvement followed by strong performance.

Ch8: Brazil: Encouraging lessons from a large Federal System

Ch9: Germany: Once weak international standing prompts strong nationwide reforms for rapid improvement.

Ch10: Vignettes on education reforms : England and Poland

Ch11: Lessons for the United states.

There is little to be gained by pointing to the US for the direction of educational reform.  They are spending more money and getting very poor results.  When international data is compared by researchers the US is at best in the middle of the pack while Canada is one of the leaders.

cheers.  Mirka

Now forgive me Mirka, but pray tell me where is the leading research in Canada that is pertinent to education of children? Let me know, because there is little evidence of it in Canada. On a side note, back in 2005 or so, I spoke to two leading Canadian scientists in the learning and cognitive fields. Very curious, the scientists’ interest was piqued that a parent would be calling, a very revealing conversation emerge from my first question - where can I find Canadian research specifically on dyslexia, reading and learning disabilities. The gist of the conversation, the vast majority of research in areas of learning disabilities, reading, learning and other cognitive research takes place in the context of replicating and confirming U.S. research and European research. The second part, most of the research that does take place in Canada, is not and I will repeat the word not, does not filter down to the schools, the educators and the general public.

The vast majority of research that takes place outside of the ivory towers of the public education system that is pertinent to education are sent to the Ministers’ of Education and education faculties. From there the research sits on a dusty shelf, collecting dust but never is the research passed down to the staff of education department, the school board staff or to the classroom educators.

Going back to the research of non-cognitive skills,  the roots of the research rests in the LD research fields, and by the 21st century research interest in non-cognitive skills is taking place inside and outside of the education system. On a global, national and yes even at a school district level. The OECD has taken a great interest in non-cognitive skills.

“This project is about empowering and preparing individuals for tomorrow’s world that can be prosperous yet challenging, unpredictable and uncertain. Those empowered can better contribute to a society that demands active citizenship. They are more capable of preventing physical and mental illness by following healthy lifestyles and interpersonal relationships. They are more likely to weather the storms of life such as victimisation, hospitalisation and family disintegration through forward-looking coping strategies. Education can empower individuals by raising their cognitive skills which is reflected in, for example, literacy and problem solving skills. Moreover, education can reinforce non-cognitive skills such as self-efficacy and self-esteem that have been shown to be as powerful as cognitive skills in promoting individual success yet malleable even beyond childhood.”
http://www.oecd.org/innovation/research/educationandsocialprogress.htm

At least in my first post, I have an answer that grit is indeed a component of mental health. Its too bad, in our Canadian schools, non-cognitive skills of our students are not emphasized as part and parcel of the education of our children. It shows clearly with students who have lower levels of the 3 Rs, and the schools that will not provide effective education services that will raise the levels of the 3 Rs to average and above.

Mirka protests too much - “There is little to be gained by pointing to the US for the direction of educational reform.  They are spending more money and getting very poor results.  When international data is compared by researchers the US is at best in the middle of the pack while Canada is one of the leaders.”

Even the OECD has pointed out many of a time, that the global results are pointing to worrisome signs in the developed countries and yes it includes Canada, the education systems are not doing enough to raise the levels of academic achievement for all children, to prevent and weather the storms of adulthood. One just has to read the front pages of the news media for a week to understand why adults are not coping in the 21st century. Finland may be one of the top countries for education, but they also have one of the highest youth and adult suicide rate. Canada can’t brag either. Nor can they bragged about students being fully prepared to meet the rigors of post-secondary and work after 12 years of schooling.

Thou protests too much…........perhaps because the public education establishment has not put their seal of approval on such weighty topics such as non-cognitive skills research?  If there is one thing that is a given in Canada, research that lies outside of the public education ivory towers,  that can be applied to the education of children is buried so deeply in Canada by the very education establishment - the public education institute who want to control the agenda to serve the best interests of the education stakeholders.

Hello group,

Nancy I *did* give you Canadian sources they are found at the end of Chapter 3 of the resource I posted above, “Strong performers and successful reformers”

they are- just from one article:

1. Barber, M. and Mourshed, M. (2007), How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, McKinsey and
Company, London, available at http://www.mckinsey.com/App_Media/Reports/SSO/Worlds_School_Systems_Final.pdf.

2. Bussierre, P. and F. Cartwright (2004), Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD Pisa Study, Statistics Canada, Ottawa.

3. Bussierre, P., T. Knighton and D. Pennock (2007), Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD Pisa Study, Statistics Canada,
Ottawa.

4. Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network (2009), Evaluation Report. The Impact of the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat:
Changes in Ontario’s Education System, final report submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Education, available at http://www.edu.gov.
on.ca/eng/document/reports/OME_Report09_EN.pdf.

5. Davies, S. and N. Guppy (1997), “Globalization and Educational Reforms in Anglo-American Democracies”, Comparative
Education Review 41(4): 435-459.
Fullan, M. (2010), All Systems Go: The Imperative for Whole System Reform, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA , and Ontario
Principals Council, Toronto.

6. Guppy, N. and S. Davies (1998), Education in Canada: Recent Trends and Future Challenges, Statistics Canada, Ottawa.

7. Leithwood, K., M. Fullan and N. Watson (2003), The Schools We Need: Recent Education Policy in Ontario. Recommendations
for Moving Forward, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto.
Levin, B., A. Glaze and M. Fullan (2008),

8. “Results Without Rancour or Ranking: Ontario’s Success Story”, Phi Delta Kappan,
Vol. 90, No. 4, 273-280.

9. Levin, B. (2008), How to Change 5000 Schools. A Practical and Positive Approach for Leading Change at Every Level, Harvard
Education Press, Cambridge, MA.

10. Manzer, R. (1994), Public Schools and Political Ideas: Canadian Educational Policy in Historical Perspective, University of Toronto
Press, Toronto.

11. OECD (2006), Where Immigrant Students Succeed: A Comparative Review of Performance and Engagement in PISA 2003, OECD
Publishing.

12. OECD (2010), PISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science (Volume I), OECD Publishing.

13. Pascal, C.E. (2009), With our Best Future in Mind. Implementing Early Learning in Ontario, report to the Premier by the Special
Advisor on Early Learning, available at http://www.ontario.ca/ontprodconsume/groups/content/@onca/@initiatives/documents/document/
ont06_018899.pdf.

14. Pedwell, L. et al. (in press). Building Leadership Capacity Across 5000 Schools. International Handbook on Leadership for Learning,
Springer Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

15. Supovitz, J. (2009), “Can High Stakes Testing Leverage Educational Improvement? Prospects from the Last Decade of Testing and
Accountability Reform”, Journal of Educational Change, Vol. 10, No. 2-3, pp. 211-227.

16. Tibbetts, J. (2007), “Canadian 4th Graders Read Up a Storm,” The Gazette (Montreal), November 29, 2007, p. A2.

17. Ungerleider, C. (2008), Evaluation of the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Student Success / Learning to 18 Strategy, final report
submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Education, available at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/studentsuccess/CCL_SSE_Report.pdf.

18. Young, J., B. Levin, and D. Wallin (2007), Understanding Canadian Schools: An Introduction to Educational Administration, 4th edition, Nelson, Toronto.

These sources are relevant to Canadian issues.
This is one chapter in a very important dissertation.  Anyone interested in understanding - I repeat - understanding the global scene and Canada’s place in it - needs to read the paper.

Finland and Canada have been at the top of international analysis of results for 10 years.  America on her best days in the middle of the pack. 

cheers.  Mirka

Hello again Nancy.

Your post suggests, ’ Finland has one of the highest youth suicide rates’

In the journal of World Psychiatry 2005,
June 4(2): 114-120 is a data comparison of suicide rates per 100,00 young persons aged 15-19 in 90 countries.  It is based on the WHO mortality data base from February 2004.

Russian Federation   23.6
Luxembourg           16
New Zealand           15.3
Ireland                 12.3
***Canada                 10.8
***Finland                 9.5
Iceland                 9.1
Poland                 8.4
US                     8.0
France                 5.0
Sweden                 4.3
Slovakia                 3.9

very interesting, eh?  Mirka

The list provided are all inside organizations of the public education system. The only organization that is listed that did not have direct ties is the Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network. Before I get to the CLLRN, the OECD does not work for the public education systems across the globe nor do they work for the global education gurus.  “The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.”
http://www.oecd.org/about/

The OECD can be seen as the collectors of the global data streams and try to make sense of them to improve the economic and social well-being across the globe. The OECD do not formulate education policy. That job is left up to the individual countries and their education systems.

Nevertheless, education research has always been a closed shop in Canada. In 2013, more so then ever when one considers the direction of the federal and provincial governments concerning research. The CLLRN lost their federal funding in 2010. “Between 2001 and 2010, The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet) supported research, training and knowledge exchange programs to improve the language, literacy and numeracy skills of Canadian children. This work was supported primarily by Industry Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence Program. That funding ended in 2009, and the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network ceased operations on March 31, 2010. “
http://www.cllrnet.ca/

Another organization that lost its funding was the Canadian Council for Learning - “As announced in the fall of 2011, CCL will close its doors permanently in the spring of 2012. ”  http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Releases.html

The fallout of the CLLRN, another organization closed its doors, who had an ongoing partnership with the CLLRN and was a wonderful resource for parents - ” A national organization dedicated to supporting and educating parents as they raise their children says it will be winding down its operations at the end of September. The charitable group Invest in Kids issued a statement Thursday, saying that it has been struggling since the economic downturn began two years ago, and has determined it can no longer continue operations.”
http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2010/09/10/invest_in_kids_shuttering_its_doors_at_end_of_september.html

The next national organization to fall but not shuttered its doors was the the National Canadian Learning Disabilities Association who was force to closed down and go virtual. “Although it is necessary for us to close our physical office, LDAC has realized that it can continue to operate in a new and updated form. Many believe that a national presence is necessary and the Board of LDAC certainly agrees.”  The LDAC lost their federal funding as well.

All the above organizations had strong interests in improving literacy, language and numeracy outcomes of children. As a collective, the organizations were vocal on the education practices and policies of the education system that hinder improvement in the 3 Rs.

Suffice to say, the silence from the public education stakeholders was deafening. Not even a whimper from the education stakeholders.

I have yet to find the funding sources for the CLLRN. but as of yet, I have had no luck on the Federal government sites, but what I do know the federal government cut funding to the CLLRN in 2009. In 2010, the web site has been continued to be redeveloped by the School of Communications Sciences and Disorders at the University of Western Ontario.  http://literacyencyclopedia.ca/

Now Mirka, on this site one will find research based on the science. Yet, I somehow doubt any of it can be found within the ivory towers of the public education K to 12. Actually, if one review the material, a classroom educator would learned a few things that were not taught in the education faculties that are rooted in the 19th century ‘knowledge’ matrix. And just maybe a few things on the non-cognitive and cognitive skills to nurture conscientiousness of students.

I stand corrected that Finland no longer is at the top for suicide levels. However they were at one time, but still remain being number one in suicides in the Nordic countries.

Finland still remains 19th in the world, where Canada stands at the 40th spot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Greenland holds the first spot. The researchers have no idea why suicides have spike. Is it the long dark winters?

One article on Greenland - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2009/10/the_suicide_capital_of_the_world.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

One article on Why the Happiest States Have the Highest Suicide Rates

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-states-have-the-highest-suicide-rates/#ixzz2cqaQ5Ql3

A study published in 2013 - “: The Nordic countries provide a suitable setting for comparing trends in suicide mortality. The aim of this report is to compare suicide trends by age, gender, region and methods in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden 1980-2009”  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23293897

A 2013 paper by the Conference Board of Canada - a report on suicides - Canada has maintained a B since the 1960s, and Finland has maintained a D.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/society/suicides.aspx

The suicide rate includes youth. However, in the last 5 years attempts have been made to separate the youth suicide rate from the adult suicide rate.

A 2012 report by the OECD

“Around 2008 the highest suicide rates were observed in Chile, Finland, Ireland and New Zealand with more than 10 suicides per 100 000 teenagers. By contrast, countries with the lowest suicide rates were Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain with less than 3 suicides per 100 000 teenagers. Most countries with large decreases in the suicide rate are those with historically high suicide rates compared with the OECD average.”

A 2008 study - “Youth suicide trends in Finland, 1969-2008.”  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21294729

So the jury is still out, but nevertheless there is patterns and relationships between political, economic and the education systems still being teased out. A lot more questions being raise. I find it quite interesting that given the state of Italy and its economy, a low suicide rate. Or could it be put down to the cold long dark winters versus the warm long winters, with lots of sunshine?

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

In the 1950s Adlai Stevenson was running against Eisenhower for US President. AS was touting the merits of Sweden and its Social-Democratic policies, longer lives health etc Eisenhower countered that Sweden had the world’s highest suicide rate. The next day the Swedish embassy sent the chief over to the white house. Sweden explained the Swedish suicide rate was not the highest in the world it was the highest in Europe and BTW “catholic Europe” underplays suicide on purpose so many are classified as accidents since suicide is a sin.

BTW The official could could not resist, if a high suicide rate said something about Sweden what does the highest murder rate in the world and the highest prison % say about the USA?

You know when someone brings up suicide in nordic nations which has been clear for 200 years under all types of regimes you know they are running on empty.

Funny thing Doug, the jury is still out among the experts trying to figure out why. No doubt its a number of variables at play that crosses at the intersections of politics, economies and social.

What does it say about the U.S. prison rate? Not much, but indicates that U.S. policies are not very effective to prevent people from committing crimes. The other night, I watch a U.S. documentary, RAM - Remote Area Medical.

Of the richest countries in the world - and some Americans are no better off then the Haitians living in their tents.  The one that I watch, RAM was in West Virgina. Some people were walking in as far as 30 miles to received free medical services.  http://www.ramusa.org/expeditions/schedule.html

What does that say about the U.S.?  Just remember Canada does not have any bragging rights either. There is no free dental or eye care services either.

My point Doug, in the developed countries - none of them have bragging rights. When we see UN aid agencies in Spain and Greece, there is implications in the other data streams. One of them just happens to be suicide and another one is infant mortality - the latter Canada cannot brag. Look it up some day Doug…........and considered the implications in other data streams.

Doug, great points especially comparing suicide rates in one country to homicide rates in another.  Context is king.

Nancy,  thank you for your links on the suicide scene.  You may be surprised but I read all that information as well *before* I posted my data above.

I discounted the data that you provide in your   links as they are comparing Canadian data that is 5 years old to very current data from the Netherlands.  Most suicide rates internationally are not in the same year and there may be a ten year lag between many countries in one of these charts - especially in wikepedia.

The reason why I posted the data from the Journal of World Psychiatry 2005 was deliberate.  It provided rigor and not noise.

cheers. Mirka

If you insist Mirka - But I would not trust the Journal of World Psychiatry. Why? Pretty soon, psychiatrists will have a disorder to cover pretty well all typical human behaviour. Its a boon for the schools because SE means extra funding for the schools, and bonus very little of the funding ever reaches the students with the new label.

Did you hear about the new label?  Difficulties in reading means that the student is having mental health issues and not a reading difficulty that needs correction. The new mental health rage coming to a nearby school in your neighbourhood.  Soon the educators will be hearing about, Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder,  Minor Neurocognitive Disorder and excessive eating will now be diagnosed as Binge Eating Disorder.

Being normal will soon become a mental disorder…....its why one should be wary of journals that hail from the world of psychiatrists.

Good morning Nancy,

If you are saying that you prefer data from Wikepedia or a British newspaper (they have an international reputation for their discipline -grin)  over that of an established and respected professional journal, we simply agree to disagree.

I see the data from a professional journal a better source as before any data is published in professional journals it goes through a rigorous evaluation by experts in the field.

best. Mirka