To improve its public schools, the United States should raise the status of the teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more, according to a new report on comparative educational systems.
Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the international achievement test known by its acronym Pisa, says in his report that top-scoring countries like Korea, Singapore and Finland recruit only high-performing college graduates for teaching positions, support them with mentoring and other help in the classroom, and take steps to raise respect for the profession.
“Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation,” Mr. Schleicher says in the report, prepared in advance of an educational conference that opens in New York on Wednesday. “Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”
via nytimes.comI don’t see that ever happening. Just like a junky, the US is going to have to hit rock bottom before steps are taken to improve. Not just with education, but a whole host of issues.
I guess I’m just feeling a little pessimistic today.
Government steps back from real-name system – oh, please, please, please eliminate this
This is incredibly inconvenient for everyone, not to mention that the requirement for “real-name” is a real censorship issue. I’d also suggest that this requirement is a real impediment for growing Korean internet services outside of Korea.
I will be glad, glad, glad when this terrible policy is reversed.
Dissent Magazine – Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule our Schools – A hacket job, but a good one.
Barkan certainly has an axe to grind and she grinds it and chops away in this piece detailing her account of educational philanthropists work over the last 10 years.
I have been a critic of many of these reform movements. Most are popular, with great ideas, yet tragic implementations. When I first heard of the Gates Foundation grants I was excited. I was in educational technology which would certainly see a lot of that money and I did (indirectly, of course). However, the projects chosen primarily focused on testing; more so, assessment of the basest nature. These were assessments that flowed from the same standardized tests used for years.
Teacher assessment has seen some more innovative suggestions, but practical implementations more often revolve around these same student test scores. If you judge teachers on how well students test, those teachers are going to prep students for the test. If you think that sounds like a good idea, remember that prepping for the test involves narrow instruction and training on how to take the test. This is not the kind of teaching you want for your kids, I assure you. They often point to Asian countries that did well on PISA. What they don’t indicate is that students in these countries might get as much as 20-40 hrs/wk of tutoring outside of school (or before/after-school programs). In a place like Korea, this can add $1000’s a month to the cost of raising children. Parents do this, and go into debt, with the hope that these kids will get into good schools, get good jobs, and thus support them in their old age. This is simply not the reality in America.
As Barkan brings up, poverty is the #1 determiner of school success. How are you going to get poor families to pony up for extra-curricular programs. Heck, many of these parents hardly see their children in-between their many jobs that just keep food on the table and a roof overhead. Without HUGE infusions of governmental cash, the amount of instructional time seen by students in Asia is an impossibility.
It’s not enough to put huge amounts of money into poorer districts. This only addresses part of the problem. The larger issues is the home. A small part of the problem is a lack of money for educational experiences in the home. A much larger issue, which goes beyond socio-economic status, is the American cultural view of education.
Somewhere along the way, Americans began to think of public schools as synonymous with education. What I mean is that schools become the sole educators. Parents removed themselves from the role of family educators and offloaded this responsibility to the schools. This might have started with reading and math, but it seems to have become all-encompassing, with schools taking on the responsibility of teaching reading, math, science, history, ethics, civics, economics (personal financial management), arts, physical education, cooking, sewing, typing (keyboarding), ………. You get the point. Many of these things were taught in the home, at least partially, in the past. If a parent didn’t take interest in math, it was because their kid was going to work in the mine on his 16th birthday. That was fine and still is, but those jobs are disappearing and those that exist don’t offer the same pay, benefits, or security that they once did. These days, any job/career that will boost folks above the poverty line requires advanced knowledge that goes beyond what can be done in most high schools. This is either going to come from self-/family study, college, or both.
You get the idea. I roam afar in this post. I suggest you check out the original article for a good read.
Deficiency in Foreign Language Competency: What Is Wrong with the U.S. Educational System? – WorldWise – The Chronicle of Higher Education
Deficiency in Foreign Language Competency: What Is Wrong with the U.S. Educational System?
November 9, 2010, 2:45 pm
It doesn’t take much to realize that the U.S. trails far behind other countries on the second language issue. Moreover, we constantly receive clear signals of the need to more seriously discuss the appropriateness and feasibility of implementing a second-language education policy. At the same time, we hear voices telling us that such an idea is just another unnecessary notion. The rationale used by many who justify this widespread second-language deficiency is that English is today’s lingua franca.
via chronicle.com
I really liked this post. It captures the immediate sense that learning languages is important in the global marketplace, but a lack of actions being taken my institutions and individuals to pursue this goal.
It seems a lot like the obesity crisis in the US (and elsewhere). We know what should be done to solve the problem, but our institutions and, more so, individuals will not do what it takes to live a healthier lifestyle.
I wish I knew what to do. Learning language in America is always compared to the rest of the world, but there are huge differences. The countries we are usually compared to largely have the ability to focus language learning on one or two obviously necessary languages. Just imagine if we, in the US, were able to focus all of our energy on teaching/learning Spanish. The outcomes would likely be much different.
The reality is that this is no focus in our education system across the country in languages for much of the same reason nothing is standardized in American education, local control. I’m not taking a position on good or bad here, just stating the obvious. There’s no agreement on whether or which languages should be learned. Also, there is no immediately clear reason why learning a language will be beneficial. My parent’s generation learned French for the most part. Asking them how they used French they likely answer either that they don’t remember any of it or that it was useful at a French restaurant once 🙂
The problem is, language isn’t something that you can learn in a short time frame when you need it. You can take 6 months of Korean before being transferred to Seoul and think that you’ll be able to function in society. How old are you and where are you from only take you so far. Try dealing with the local government office or diagnosing office problems with your 6 months of Korean study. Language learning takes time and lots of it. Learning a language early can result both in better performance in that language as well as improved ability to learn others.
Corporal Punishment Ban Undermining School Discipline – should read, lack of training undermining…
Around 12:30 p.m. Oct. 15 in a middle school classroom in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, a teacher approached a female student and asked her what she was writing in her notebook.
When the teacher tried to take the notebook, the student protested. The teacher hit her on the head and the student revolted, saying, “Is it right for a teacher to hit a student? Just teach!”
The student tried to leave the classroom but the teacher grabbed her neck and hair to force her to sit down. The student then grabbed the teacher’s hair.
An official at the education office said, “What teachers want most is alternatives to corporal punishment,” adding, “We will encourage implementing alternatives next week at the earliest.”
Aside from the fact that these problems occurred before the ban and stories are plentiful of large students beating their smaller teachers, this is a natural process of adjustment. There is a culture of violence in classrooms that relied on a mixture of affection and abuse to “control” students. New bans on corporal punishment are, thus, causing great consternation for teachers who relied on this method.
Schools need to provide better training and options for handling difficult students. One idea that some schools have implemented are “reflection rooms”. A mix of positive and negative engagement is probably best. The best way to improve student behavior is to engage them as individuals. Give them choice in their studies, projects, and interactions in the classroom. Respect their contributions. Of course, there are always going to be those who will not respond to this treatment (and teachers who are unable to do so for reasons of skill or simply oppressive teaching conditions and requirements). For those, more punitive measures may be more (at least immediately) effective. Detention, suspension, expulsion, labor (cleaning, volunteering), extra homework, seclusion, and removing of freedoms/opportunities discussed above are all possibilities.
Above was my measured response, and this is my emotional response. If you hit your student, you should not be a teacher. In fact, you should be arrested and charged with child abuse. Teachers who cling to these outdated, brutal classroom management techniques would be comfortable as prison camp guards, as their approaches are more akin to this profession than education. Those who cry that they cannot control their classroom without this brutality should ask themselves whether it is worth it? Is it worth torturing your students to help them? I hope that sounds as silly to you as it does to me.
Gyeonggi Province liberalizes student regulations – Still some defend the practice. Check out the pictures, just sick
Gyeonggi Province liberalizes student regulations The student human rights ordinance includes S.Korea’s first ban on corporal punishment 
» A collection of photos, provided by the students’ rights organization Internet Virus, shows bruises and scars from corporal punishment at South Korean schools. By Hong Yong-duk, Senior staff writer
A “student human rights ordinance” including a complete ban on corporal punishment for elementary, middle, and high school students and liberalization of student hairstyles has been established for Gyeonggi Province. Revolutionary changes are expected in Korean school culture, as Gyeonggi is first of the nation’s 16 metropolitan and provincial offices of education to establish an ordinance spelling out the ban on student corporal punishment, which has been a customary practice in schools.
Read the entire article. There are other changes as well that are long overdue, including fewer restrictions on hair style, expulsion of pregnant students, and forced attendance at religious events.
Liberal education chief vows to achieve equality – sounds nice…and won’t change a thing
Liberal education chief vows to achieve equality
2010-06-04 17:45
The new liberal Seoul education Superintendent Kwak No-hyun vowed to put the brakes on government’s policies he believes have been encouraging excessive competition.Instead, he said he would focus on realizing an unbiased learning education for students and work for their welfare.
Kwak No-hyun Kwak was elected as Seoul‘s first liberal superintendent.
He has worked for various private and state-run human rights associations and also was an adviser to late President Roh Moo-hyun.
To start off his term, Kwak said he would terminate autonomous private high schools.
“There will be no further designations of autonomous private high schools,” said Kwak in a press conference following his surprising victory Wednesday.
Twitter user booked for election law violation
Twitter user booked for election law violation By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff ReporterA Korean Twitter user was charged with violating the election law, the first time since the nation’s election watchdog said last month that it would crack down on unlawful political activities carried out through the poplar online social media.
The cyber crime investigation department of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Friday that they booked Kim, 43, nicknamed “doa” on Twitter, without physical detention for conducting an illegal poll and making the result public.
via koreatimes.co.kr
I’m not going to pretend to understand this law, but I’m glad the guy is fighting it. Of course, I am influenced by my upbringing in the US, but I feel that individuals should have the freedom to say what they like. While there are limits on free speech that I agree with (inciting harm, libel–untrue statements harmful to an individual or organization, and the such), I don’t agree with limited the speech of those who want to discuss their points of view. And in this case, this was simply a poll. What’s wrong with a poll?
Again, I don’t understand the specifics of the law, so I am open to be educated. I have to see this, though, as the continued assault on free speech by the Korean ruling class.