by Lucy Crehan
These skills need to be taught through subject content in order for students to actually be able to problem solve or think creatively about anything; attempting to teach thinking skills without a strong base of factual knowledge does not promote transfer to new situations or problem-solving ability.260 To the extent that features of problem-solving,261 self-regulation strategies262 or creativity263 can be taught as heuristics or strategies to use when working with already available knowledge, they are best taught directly by a teacher with a chance to then practise in a particular domain, rather than by putting students in situations where they are required, and hoping they develop. This does not mean that topics cannot be introduced through presenting an interesting problem to be solved, as they are in many primary schools in Japan, but that students require sufficient knowledge to solve most problems, and will therefore most likely benefit from some teacher instruction in order to solve it.
Another idea to overcome this time trade-off would be to accept that we want our children to both know and understand things, and to be able to be creative, think critically and solve problems in these areas, and so decide that an effective way of doing both would be to teach the content through the use of these skills: to teach maths through problem-solving for example, or to teach history through critical thinking. This would be a qualitative change in the way the academic concepts are taught, rather than just a quantitative change in how much time is spent on teaching each concept or idea, and would be a step change away from how subjects are being taught in Singapore, Shanghai, Japan, Finland and some of Canada. Is this more effective at teaching children concepts or skills?
It might save time compared to teaching the concepts first and then using them, but it is a false economy, because children don’t learn the concepts as well this way.264 Due to limitations in working memory (recall the dog stealing the ingredients from the kitchen counter), children find it difficult to discover concepts for themselves without having a secure understanding of the relevant concepts first. It is essential that they realise things for themselves, and have that light bulb moment, but this is best brought about in a lesson that is heavily structured by the teacher, in which she builds up students’ knowledge and understanding through clear explanations, open questioning, and modelling. Only when they’ve understood a concept can they think critically about it, make use of it to solve problems and be creative with it.
Rather than attempting to teach maths through problem-solving, you can teach problem-solving through maths. Rather than attempting to teach history through critical thinking, you can teach critical thinking through history. The only trade-off between educating for conceptual understanding and educating for 21st-century skills is how many concepts you can cover. Learning concepts deeply doesn’t take away from the skills our children need, it enhances them, just as subsequently applying these skills enhances children’s understanding of the concepts.
Last Word
When I decided, at age 20, that I wanted to work in education, it was because I couldn’t think of anything else that I thought was more important. Ten years later, that ideological belief has both grown and matured into something more tangible, first through my experiences as a teacher, and then through my encounters with children and young people in five different education systems.
Education has the ability to nurture talent, inspire passions, increase social mobility and provide a framework for the adults of tomorrow to develop into knowledgeable, creative, community-minded citizens. Education systems are also just as capable of demotivating students and teachers, limiting the life chances of certain individuals and amplifying pre-existing social inequality. This book was not written as a ‘How-To’ guide for developing the perfect system, but I hope that by exploring the approaches and policies employed by some of the world’s top-performing education systems, I have helped you come to a fuller understanding of what might work in your own. And lest you lament that it’s all about the culture, remember this. Finnish teachers haven’t always believed that all children can be educated to a higher academic level; the culture of the ‘old system’ took a while to disappear. Japanese parents haven’t always considered education to be important; when compulsory education was first introduced it was a challenge to get children to attend school. And Singaporean graduates haven’t always considered teaching to be an attractive profession; back in the 1980s there was a shortage which necessitated the employment of teachers from overseas. To attribute these countries’ enviable outcomes to culture and therefore dismiss their value as models would be a grave mistake. Culture can change. And it is schools and school systems that have the power to change it.
Endnotes
1 Charlemagne. Some remedial lessons are needed for European leaders. 2006. Available at: www.economist.com/node/5655172
2 New York Times; 6th December 2000; Available at: www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/us/worldwide-survey-finds-us-students-are-not-keeping-up.html; Date accessed: 27th May 2016.
3 Coughlan S. Pisa tests: UK stagnates as Shanghai tops league table. 2013. Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25187997
4 Bita N. PISA report finds Australian teenagers education worse than 10 years ago. 2013. Available at: www.news.com.au/national/pisa-report-finds-australian-teenagers-education-worse-than-10-years-ago/story-fncynjr2-1226774541525
5 Sjøberg S. PISA, politics, problems. Recherches en Education 2012;14(4):1–21.
6 Helsingin Sanomat. As translated in: Chung J. An Investigation of Reasons for Finland’s Success in PISA. PhD thesis. University of Oxford. Oxford, 2001.
7 Mahoney J. Canadians ace science test. 2007. Available at: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-ace-science-test/article18150672
8 The eighth grade sample is defined as: ‘All students enrolled in the grade that represents eight years of schooling counting from the first year of ISCED Level 1 (beginning of formal education), providing the mean age at the time of testing is at least 13.5 years.’
9 Bergesen OH. Kampen om Kunnskapsskolen. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2006. As translated in Sjøberg (2012).
10 Thrupp M. When PISA meets politics – a lesson from New Zealand. 2014. Available at: theconversation.com/when-pisa-meets-politics-a-lesson-from-new-zealand-26539
11 In case you worry that this is what I’ve done, please be reassured that I changed this whole section just one week before my final draft was due in, in response to coming across some convincing evidence that did not support what I’d previously said. I’ve taken the same approach across the book.
12 Barber, M., Donnelly, K., & Rizvi, S. (2012). Oceans of innovation: the
Atlantic, the Pacific, global leadership and the future of education. Institute of Public Policy Research.
Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007). How the world's best-performing schools systems come out on top. McKinsey & Company.
Mourshed, M., Chijioke, C., & Barber, M. (2010). How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better. McKinsey.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2013). Strong performers and successful reformers in education: lessons from PISA 2012 for the United States. OECD, Paris, France.
Stewart, V. (2012). A world-class education: Learning from international models of excellence and innovation. ASCD.
Tucker, M. S. (2011). Surpassing Shanghai: An agenda for American education built on the world's leading systems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
13 An exception to this is Amada Ripley's engaging book on the experiences of
American exchange students in schools in Finland, Korea and Poland:Ripley, A. (2013). The smartest kids in the world: And how they got that way. Simon and Schuster.
14 For more information on my methodology, go to my website:
www.lucycrehan.com.
15 OECD. Learning Beyond Fifteen: Ten Years After PISA. Paris: Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2014.
16 Whitebread D. The Impor
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17 Kupiainen S, Hautamäki J, Karjalainen T. The Finnish Education System and
PISA. Helsinki: Ministry of Education Publications, Helsinki University Print, 2012.
18 Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Malta, Mauritius, Samoa, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago.
19 Suggate S. School entry age and reading achievement in the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). International Journal of Educational Research 2009;48:151–61.
20 McGuinness C, Sproule L, Bojke C, Trew K and Walsh G. Impact of a play-based curriculum in the first two years of primary school: literacy and numeracy outcomes over seven years. British Educational Research Journal 2014;40(5):772–95.
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21 Prais SJ. School-readiness, whole-class teaching and pupils’ mathematical attainments. Discussion Paper No.111. London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1997.
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22 Suggate S, Schaughency E, Reese E. Children learning to read later catch up
to children reading earlier. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 2013;28:33–48.
23 My scepticism never leaves me completely – it’s dangerous to be too convinced of anything in a field this complex.
24 Dee, TS, Sievertsen, HH. The Gift of Time? School Starting Age and Mental Health. 2015. Available at: www.nber.org/papers/w21610
25 Black S, Devereux P, Salvanes K. Too young to leave the nest? The effects of
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26 DfES/Institute of Education. The effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE). Project: Technical Paper 12 – The final report: effective pre-school education. London: University of London, 2004.
27 OECD. PISA 2012: Key Results in Focus. France: OECD Publishing, 2012.
28 Save the Children. Early Language Development and Children’s Primary School Attainment in English and Maths. Save the Children, 2016.
29 National Audit Office. A Literature Review of the Impact of Early Years Provision on Young Children, with Emphasis Given to Children from Disadvantaged Backgrounds. London: National Audit Office, 2004.
30 Sylva, et al. (2004).
31 Melhuish (2004). Melhuish does not define what is meant by ‘developmentally
appropriate’, but recent research has shown that the key factor in determining whether a child is ready for a particular activity is not their age (as children develop at different rates) but whether or not they have mastered the prerequisites for that activity.
32 Suggate S. The parable of the slower and the long-term effects of early reading. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 2015;23(4):524–44.
33 Goswami U, Bryant P. Children’s Cognitive Development and Learning. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, 2007. Available at: http://cprtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/research-survey-2-1a.pdf
34 Sylva, K, Nabuco, ME. Research on quality in the curriculum. International Journal of Early Childhood 1996;28(2):1–6.
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See also Spinath and Spinath (2005) and Jacobs, et al. (2002) who show that children’s perceived self-competence affects their learning motivation.
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Jacobs JE, Lanza S, Osgood DW, et al. Changes in children’s self-competence and values: Gender and domain differences across grades one through twelve. Child Development 2002;73:509–27.
35 All Work and No Play? Presented at: Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, 27 May 2016.
36 Kiiveri K, Määttä K. Children's opinions about learning to read. Early Child
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37 Leppanen U, Niemi P, Aunola K, Nurmi JE. Development of reading skills among preschool and primary school pupils. Reading Research Quarterly 2004;39:72–93.
38 Ibid.
39 Suggate (2009)
40 Chung J. An Investigation of Reasons for Finland’s Success in PISA. PhD thesis. University of Oxford. Oxford, 2001.
41 Ministry of Justice. Greater focus on education in youth estate. 2013.
Available at: www.gov.uk/government/news/greater-focus-on-education-in-youth-estate
42 Begin to Read. Literacy statistics. Available at: www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html
43 Hanushek E, Woßmann L. Does educational tracking affect performance and inequality differences in evidence across countries. Economic Journal 2006;116:63–76.
44 Woessmann L. International evidence on school tracking: a review. CESifo DICE report in: Journal for Institutional Comparisons 2009;7(1):26–34. The UK is not included as it did not enter both of these tests
45 Woessmann L, Luedemann E, Schuetz G, West, M. School Accountability, Autonomy and Choice around the World. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2009.
46 Horn D. Age of Selection Counts: A Cross-Country Comparison of Educational Institutions. Mannheim: Unniversität Mannheim, 2008. Available at: www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/wp-107.pdf
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47 Solsten E, Meditz S. Finland: A Country Study. Washington: Government Publishing Office for the Library of Congress, 1988.
48 Schuetz G, Ursprung H, Woessmann L. Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity. Kyklos 2008;61(2):279–308.
49 OECD. Reviews of National Policies for Education: Lithuania. Paris: OECD Publishing, 2002
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50 Kerr S, Pekkarinen T, Uusitalo R. School tracking and development of cognitive skills. Journal of Labour Economics 2013;31:577–602.
51 Both John Hattie and the Education Endowment Foundation provide summaries of this research. Hattie J. Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Higgins S, Katsipataki M, Kokotsaki D, Coleman R, Major LE, Coe R. The Sutton Trust-Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit. London: Education Endowment Foundation, 2013.
52 Aho E, Pitkänen K, Sahlberg P. Policy Development and Reform Principles of Basic and Secondary Education in Finland since 1968. Washington: World Bank, 2006..
53 Pink DH. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books, 2009.
54 Deci EL, Ryan RM. The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behaviour. Psychological Inquiry 2000;11:319–38.
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55 Grant AM. Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Academy of Management Review 2007;32:393–417.
56 Strictly speaking, this addition is not something that contributes to intrinsic motivation, but does contribute to internal (as opposed to external) motivation. These distinctions will be addressed in the Singapore section.
/> 57 Menzies L, Parameshwaran M. Why Teach? Available at: www.lkmco.org/why-teach; 2015.
58 Varkey GEMS Foundation (2013). Global Teacher Status Index. London: Varkey Foundation, 2013. Available at: www.varkeyfoundation.org/sites/default/files/documents/2013GlobalTeacherStatusIndex.pdf
59 According to some data which is somewhat contested (Altinok. An international perspective on trends in the quality of learning achievement. Paris: UNESCO, 1965–2007.), Finland’s international test results began improving in the mid-1960s. This is a decade before teacher training in Finland was moved from colleges to the universities as a master’s-level profession in the mid-1970s. However, they did then continue to improve for 30 years, leaving open the possibility that the newly trained graduates contributed to this continuing improvement.
60 Izadi R. The impact of school closures on student achievement – evidence from rural Finland. Helsinki: VATT Institute for Economic Research, 2015.
61 Autti O. The Role of Small Primary Schools in Rural Communities. European Conference on Educational Research, 2011.
