In a recent article titled Five Myths About U.S. Kids Outclassed by the Rest of the World, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post cites a conversation between Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and Singapore's education minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. In it, Shanmugaratnam was asked why his country consistently ranks higher than the United States on international math and science exams, yet fails to produce top-ranked scientists, business leaders and inventors.
Shanmugaratnam answered that America, "is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well -- like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are the areas where Singapore must learn from America."
How can we--as teacher leaders--make the case for the return of intellectual curiosity to our classrooms? How can we help to convince policymakers--or more importantly, parents--that creative thinking and innovation should be a part of every classroom, every day?
We often bristle at the increased role that standardized testing is playing in our profession because we know that meaningful instruction and assessment is far more complex than the skills often emphasized in test-driven classrooms, but what have we done to make the case for more sophisticated measures of student--and school--achievement?
Have we--as a profession--allowed America to become an exam meritocracy? Have we stood silent, watching as educational decisionmakers pushed creativity and innovation aside in order to secure a higher ranking in international exams?
What do we lose when we sit on the sidelines during these debates?
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1 comments:
What a fascinating observation. It reminds me of one of the greatest strengths, and one of the oft-cited criticisms, of professional learning communities.
One of the strengths of PLCs is that they encourage the spread of innovation. As teachers identify successful teaching strategies and approaches, and as they develop creative and innovative lessons, there is an organizational mechanism in place (i.e., the regular collaboration that occurs through professional learning teams) to spread those practices and lessons.
On the other hand, one of the knocks against PLCs is that they lead to too much "standardization" and stifle individual teacher creativity. The argument is that, because PLTs involve teachers using common assessments, teachers will gradually move toward teaching the same way, thus reducing innovation. Furthermore, if common assessments are primarily multiple-choice type tests (which easily produce comparable data, which PLTs are supposed to use in making instructional decisions), this can restrict the type of teaching that occurs; if you're preparing your students for a common assessment, and that common assessment emphasizes basic skills over open-ended problem solving, then the teaching will emphasize basic skills over open-ended problem solving.
So how do we make sure that PLC practices lead to improvements for all students both in "exam" scores and in intellectual curiosity?
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