Now, the next high profile education survey has come our way. What should we do with this one? The recently released “Global Teacher Status Index” (2013) by Varkey GEMS Foundation aims to measure and compare the “level of respect for teachers and their social standing.” Questions on the survey include the comparative ranking of teachers against other professions, the amount that the public thinks teachers should be paid, the degree of trust that teachers can deliver a quality education and if a parent would want their child to be a teacher. Surveyed in 21 countries, this blender mix is supposed to tell us something.
What we find is that in China, teachers are considered equal in status to doctors. China is number one, followed by Greece, Turkey and South Korea. Finland, so famous for their high level of teachers, comes in a distant 13th. Germany is 16th and Japan ranks 17th. The immediate response is to wonder what we should do with these numbers other than just award medals. It’s a loose assumption if we think these rankings are related to student achievement and motivated by salaries. It sounds good, but it’s probably not true. Peter Dolton and Oscar Marcanero-Gutierrez, two economics professors at the University of London and the University of Malga make this very claim, basing their findings on data from OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). They say that a 10% increase in pay increases PISA scores by 5-10% because higher pay attracts new teachers and improves the status of teachers. This is kind of true since the Varkey GEMS survey determines that the average of the 5 countries with the highest wages rank at 6.2 in PISA scores while the average of the 5 countries with the lowest earnings rank at 13.4. Considering the wealth of South Korea, Singapore, US, Japan and Germany, this should come as no surprise. Isn’t this more about the wealth available for educational infrastructure rather than simply the salaries of teachers? The pay/performance correlation does not apply in the case of Chinese teachers since they are the second lowest paid even after PPP adjustments. Despite their small salaries, they produce the third highest PISA scores. We might think there’s a relationship between China’s high respect and high PISA scores, but Greece and Turkey quickly dispel this hope. Respectively silver and bronze in teacher status, they rank a distant 17th and 19th in achievement scores. The PISA gold, silver and bronze go respectively to Singapore, Finland and China. For teacher status, China is awarded 100, Singapore 46 and Finland a disrespectfully low 28. Pay also is all over the charts even after PPP adjustments with China $17,730, Singapore $45,755 and Finland $28,780. We have failed at any attempt to triangulate status, pay and performance. This might be because of the ill-defined index of “teacher status.” What if we use “power distance,” one of the four indices in Hofstede’s landmark study on cultural value dimensions? Power distance measures the degree that less powerful people accept the unequal distribution of social power and status and can be applied to what we could call respectful and deferential behavior toward teachers. Looking at the numbers again, there is a definite correlation between the Varkey GEMS survey on teacher status and Hofstede’s mapping of power distance. Comparing teacher status with power distance, we have; China 100/80, Singapore 46.3/74 and Finland 28.9 / 33. Most of the other countries in the survey follow this pattern. Defining “status” and “respect” as a power relationship explains better why China and Finland, on the opposite extremes of this spectrum, can both deliver results. It explains why unquestioning obeisance wins good grades in one system while critical questioning wins points in another. The vertical structure of a Confucian society has always produced top scholars. In contrast, progressive and egalitarian societies are created through progressive and egalitarian schools. There is a danger in conducting too many award ceremonies for the international gold, silver and bronze, especially when we might be comparing apples and oranges. At the end of the day, let’s think what these surveys really say. Shanghai secret
Now that we get easy information with the swipe of a finger, we have more data to compare countries. Who is ahead? Who is behind? Who needs the Olympics? Yet another report tells us that Finland tops the chart, but why Shanghai? How about the monolith of China and its success in improving education so quickly? There’s got to be a secret. According to a New York Times column, “The Shanghai Secret”, by Thomas Friedman, October 22, 2013, there is no secret. Educators are simply doing what they should be doing and then it all works. The claim is that China is already reaping the rewards of 30 years of investments in infrastructure and education. Shanghai’s public secondary schools rated near the top in 2009 for the PISA tests (Program for International Student Assessment) comparing 15 year-olds in 65 countries. The tests cover reading, science and math skills. The reason the columnist claims there is no secret is because everything that appears to be in place and working are the basics of a functional education system, namely committed teacher training, professional development, peer learning, parental involvement and the earnest pursuit of quality. In a nutshell. While 70 percent of a workweek is spent teaching, 30 percent is devoted to developing teaching skills and planning lessons. Training includes work online or collaborating with peers. Teachers watch each other, give feedback and share ideas. There are opportunities to observe master teachers in action. There is even training for the parents who come three to five times in a semester to learn computer skills, enabling them to assist their children at home as well as follow their children’ progress online. Teachers chat by phone or online with parents two or three times a week to solidify their communication with parents. The article summarizes, “The system is good at attracting average people and getting enormous productivity out of them.” The results are not from just urban privileged schools, but from across the board including the most challenging of conditions. The formula is to give teachers enough time to prepare and to give enough peer and master support to develop their expertise. If the claim is that all of this is not a secret, it implies that everyone should be able to implement it. The constraints are not about budgets, about the lack of materials or the size of a classroom. Is the real dirty secret that we already have the solutions but don’t have the skills or the will to carry it out? We can imagine how a tiny rich country like Finland can do it, but Shanghai itself is already three times bigger in population. 30 years of investments in infrastructure and education is not a secret, but neither is it an easy solution for most countries. The idea of giving teachers more time to think and prepare lessons and support them with master trainers is not a TED talk, but neither is it something that most countries can do. Strapped for human resources and the money to pay teachers, we’re lucky to get them to saunter into the classroom. There is no secret and no silver bullet that will shoot from every gun. We need to come up with solutions country by country, district by district, school by school and sometimes teacher by teacher. That may not be a comfortable revelation, but the sooner we resign ourselves to the hard work down the road, the sooner we can get where we want to go. In daily life, I speak Lao so I’m not sure how well the average Lao person speaks English, but tourists in Luang Prabang say it’s not spectacular. Not to feel inferior though, most populations in most countries are struggling with English. Yet, considering the opportunity and the need, Luang Prabang could rise above the rest.
A student in the backwaters of Phongsali has an excuse. Try as they might, they might not find a native-English speaker to converse with in years. As the rare alien stumbling through some rural town, I’ve had the experience of being snatched up by the eager student who had been waiting for eons for someone like me to pass through. Working and studying in Luang Prabang as many young people do, you wouldn’t have to stumble far to find an opportunity to communicate in English. It’s a strength, not a weakness that one would be exposed to any variant of world English. The exposure to the world through tourists is a living university of diversity. It just takes the initiative. In most tourist cities, vendors, waitresses and receptionists can function fairly well with a basic level of English. They’ve mastered what’s required of them to do the job and there isn’t a great incentive to go further. Employees who operate according to their supervisor’s orders are not likely to take much initiative on their own and even with hours of idle days during the low season, most seem to educate themselves simply with Thai dramas played at high volume. It’s not fair to compare. Isolated experiences can’t typify a population, but one encounter I had in which English competency went far beyond check-in and check-out was in Ho Chi Minh City. I found that the average receptionist in any number of budget hotels could talk like lawyers. “I’m sorry, but we can’t take responsibility for your lost camera as I explained that we do have a safety deposit box and that this is the appropriate precaution against theft.” They could negotiate prices as easy as eating a bowl of noodles which they sometimes simultaneously did. My feeling is that their language abilities reflects their perceived need and their perceived need is pretty high. In another unfair comparison, I met some avid communicators in Yogjakarta in Java. Borobodur is nearby and tourists come from around the world. The average service industry worker has minimally passable English, but one student in particular struck me as being unusually proactive. He set up an English club at his university and through online social networking like couch surfing, would invite a steady flow of travelers to join and converse. He taught Bahasa Indonesia through Skype with someone in France and worked with several academics doing research. He was inquisitive and dug into conversations in a way that showed he had no only mastered language, but culture as well. In Luang Prabang, students work in guesthouses to make it easier to pass their classes. The potential for not only language learning, but of experiencing and interacting with the world is right under their noses. Without fluency, language remains quaint and tourists leave without a deep understanding of this country. Some day soon we will see schools promoting international business and international communication, but it all begins with a conversation, an open mind and the recognition that language is the bridge. It’s a bridge that we can cross as soon as we dare to take that first step. When we say there aren’t enough teachers, we recruit and hire them, but when we say there aren’t enough competent teachers we’re talking about finding something that can’t be cooked up on short order. It requires a generation or two to create competent teachers. When regenerating a forest, seeds must fall, sprout and grow. Leaves must fall and accumulate inch-by-inch to create a topsoil thick and rich enough for the next generation to take root. This is not so different from an education system.
Old-growth forests are accumulated biological histories so it’s hard to know how they start and how they develop, but in some rare cases land is reduced to ground zero as is the case of volcanic eruptions. Some thirty years Mount St. Helens in Washington State collapsed on itself and erupted violently enough to wipe out every identifiable living thing in a gigantic swath of destruction. It became an ecological lesson on how once destroyed, nature is not something easily regenerated. The first plants have to colonize bare ground and must survive without soil. Lichen can live on rocks and are called pioneer species because they scrape out the first foothold for other species to follow. Then shrubs give shelter for the seedlings of taller trees to germinate which eventually top the low growth to form forest cover. This process can take centuries. With Mount St. Helens, scientists believed that regrowth could be sped up with the introduction of outside species, but evidence shows that “biological legacies” in the form of fallen trees, buried seeds and surviving amphibians were instrumental as restarters of green cover. Ecology is not simply a metaphor for human systems. Natural cycles of devastation and regeneration help us to understand how culture and education are also fragile ecological systems that are sustained by more than superficial elements. A human knowledge base depends on resources, parents, communities and a consensual commitment to learning. The life source of this cycle centers on the quality of the teacher. There will always be books and repositories of knowledge, but in the case of survivors of the Khmer Rouge, it was only a handful of tenacious artists that could pass on centuries of cultural knowledge on the verge of disappearing. They were biological legacies, resilient as lichen and as important as the last genetic evidence in a seed bank. A healthy education system is like an old growth forest that is fertile from the deepest roots to the highest forest canopy and one that can provide homes for the widest variety of species. In contrast, plantations are easily started and appear green from a satellite image, but monocropping will eventually leach the soil of its nutrients, only to export its wealth away without natural regeneration. To see the future, we can take a look at our schools and make a quick assessment. What do the students and classrooms look like? Is it a virgin forest full of life or a factory for agricultural products? What do the teachers look like? Do they look more interested in sowing seeds and cultivating growth or more concerned about production rates and output? The reason why this difference is important is because the real and significant difference is something we will see in 20, 50 or 100 years. 2015 is just around the corner. That’s when the ASEAN economic community (AEC) will be inaugurated, meaning closer and more competitive economic relations and the use of English as the official language among the ten countries. Some countries like Singapore and Malaysia saw this coming and have been ready for years. Others have been scrambling in an attempt to get English operative. The value of English appears unquestioned. That’s why it is of great interest to look at a country that is contemplating a retreat, not from economic integration but from English language education.
The new July 2013 curriculum for Indonesia has been reduced to six key subjects; religion, nationalism, Indonesian language, math, art and sports. Science and social studies are to be integrated into Indonesian language classes. This is in response to the present curriculum which some say is overwhelming students with too many subjects. One major reason to cut English is the low performance of the official language, Bahasa Indonesia. Before dismissing this policy as uninformed or parochial, it is worth looking closely at the argument. Even language experts at the World Bank attest that learning a second language is best done after the first is learnt well. A large body of research is now showing that children are learning best when they begin with their mother tongue. Second languages are gradually phased in as the language of instruction only after literacy has been reached in the first language. If this is so, the true argument is not that literacy in Indonesian should precede English instruction, but students should be literate in mother tongues before instructed in Indonesian. Most do not hear Indonesian in their homes. For 80% of the population it is not their first language. Bahasa Indonesia is a standardized Malay dialect selected in 1928 as a unifying language, but is only one among 700 languages in Indonesia. Javanese alone is spoken by 84 million people. 18 languages in the archipelago have over one million speakers. As an official language, Bahasa Indonesia has been used as the language of instruction for almost 90 years now, but what is alarming policy makers is that Indonesia ranks 58 out of 66 countries for student reading ability. This is one proof that children being made to learn in a language they don’t understand doesn’t work. Using mother tongues for instruction not need be at the expense of national unity. If anything, it facilitates learning, lays the foundation for mastering the national language and ultimately is in the interest of nation building. Education policy in Indonesia does support native languages, but leaves promotion and teaching to the provincial authorities. With only two hours a week, it is unlikely that students get a good native language education and left to their own defenses, it is becoming apparent that many teachers use the hours for something else. Sometimes the scramble for English makes us think that the earlier we immerse students in it, the better. The idea of language immersion holds some water, but not in every case. Babies don’t learn to swim just because they are thrown into the pool. Regional competition is the mantra for AEC, but too eager to reach the finish line, we might need to look at where are respective starting blocks are. I’d been in Thailand for more than five years and was still struggling with the language when I had a conversation with a young man in a crisp white shirt. I’d overheard him speaking in Thai and he sounded fluent. I brought this up and he furrowed his brows, expressing his concern that he hadn’t learned enough in the two months he’d been there.
It may be the best kept secret, but the most successful language learning program around might very well be run out of Utah. The Missionary Training Center (MTC) has been in operation since the 1920s and one online explanation modestly states that they simply learned along the way on how to train quickly and efficiently in any language in the world. We might not really know how they do it short of becoming a member, but somebody has thought of this and has written a book, “Second Language Acquisition Abroad: The LDS Missionary Experience (Studies in Bilingualism), edited by Lynn Hansen. Relying only on a book review does not reveal many secrets and the review itself does complain that only one chapter out of eleven tells us how they really teach and learn, but it’s clear that they’re not channeling special help from above. There is no mention of messianic motivation other than the pressure of being thrown into a new country, not as a tourist but with a message to communicate. When it gets down to it, the method they claim that works is something we already know, but not always disciplined enough to follow. In short: Be dedicated and diligent – Learning a language takes time and effort. Don’t stop improving language skills just because people start to understand what you’re trying to say. Take responsibility – Make clear goals on why you want to learn a language. When you have a clear purpose, you have a clear idea what is most essential for you to know. The purpose essentially is to communicate. Find chances to communicate - Maybe this is where missionaries have the advantage because they will always be interacting with people from a wide range of backgrounds. Don’t be shy about asking for help. Make a plan – People often overlook the importance of being self-directed in learning a language. Don’t depend only on class time. Make goals and stay on track. Choose your tools – There are lots of resources that you can find or make including dictionaries, books, websites, your own cards, notebooks, etc. Find what works best for you. Memorize words and phrases – That’s what language is about. Keep looking for new words and ways to use them. The same goes for grammar and sentence patterns. Listen actively – Listen and imitate. Listen for words and structures you’ve learned, but find out how people actually use them. This is especially important for idiomatic use. Learn through culture – Language is culture and the more you understand the culture, the more you will understand the language. This is a rather long list, but it worth knowing that even with the best program and the best results, there is no magic elixir. Language learning requires self-direction and self-discipline and for us, that’s either good new or bad news. At one school, students are especially skilled at drawing so it was curious to find that they are ashamed about their work. They cover their sketches with their hands when I come around to look. I guess they they’re not supposed to be drawing in their notebooks. Drawing is doodling and doodling is a defilement of what should be precise replications of what’s on the board.
The reason why there’s so much drawing in this school is because students cannot read and write Lao. The teachers don’t speak their first language and don’t know what to do. With all the time that’s supposed to be filled every day, an easy out is to doodle. It’s a great way to make the hours pass by. When there is some assignment to be done, time can be stretched by drawing every line with draftsmanship precision. The idea is to doodle and dawdle. There’s not much value in dawdling but much could be said for doodling. Doodling is dismissed as absent-minded scribbling, but could also be considered the tire tracks of someone learning to drive or the true traces of a pure stream of consciousness. Doodling can be understood as a protest against analytic and linear tyranny. When the brain wants to develop, it needs to explore, not just replicate. Children have no problem doodling. You can find evidence in notebooks, chalked walls, etchings in the dirt and unsupervised chalkboards. When asked to draw, however, students often freeze. That’s when many start saying, “I can’t draw. I don’t know how.” Somewhere along the line, they’ve been taught to believe it, one effective method being to scold a child for scribbling. Scribbling is famous throughout art history from cave drawings to Cy Twombly to Keith Haring. Jackson Pollock didn’t stop with a crayon but went for buckets of paint. The last thing imaginable in a Lao curriculum is a grade school tutorial on modern art, but that’s too bad since every inscrutable attempt to learn seems to head in that direction anyway. Looking at modern art could very well strike a private chord in developing brains. I showed examples to young adults. One woman liked a Dan Flavin neon installation more than a Rothko color field though she understood they were both about the same thing. Most laughed at Duchamp’s bicycle, but one person was puzzled and wanted to know what it was for. I didn’t want to ruin her curiosity by giving an answer, but did say that artists try to get us to see things in ways we usually don’t and sometimes that takes turning things upside down. Learning a new language is a form of doodling though most students are afraid to say anything other than a straight line. That’s why the serious learner is more interested in asking questions about grammar than engaging in a playful linguistic way. I remember one student’s turning point when she just started making jokes with the 10 words that she knew. She sounded like she had gone crazy, but that’s precisely how she saw the light. Learning a language is fun because the mistakes we make are hilarious, that is when we are allowed to work in a doodle mode. When the teacher is holding a stick and we’re afraid to make a mistake, it’s not fun at all and you can just see the synapses fading. That’s when dawdling starts. They’re not the same things. Observe and you will see. When you’ve been here long enough, you can listen to how people talk and figure out where they’ve learned their English. If someone uses “like” a lot, they may have worked at a guesthouse and have been talking with young backpackers. Monks have a particular patter, characterized by questions asked in a series of expressionless order. Many men who have been both a monk and a guesthouse attendant often become guides and the unpunctuated patter and casual confidence of their pasts can be identified. They often sound like a tape recorder. Ask a question and the closest related monologue will start.
Of course, there are dozens of good excellent guides out there, but I am targeting them because of their comfortable position on the hierarchy of desired jobs. They are revered because they can own guesthouses, drive vans and look cool with foreigners. They are admired because they look like they’re communicating in English. If their crown is left uncontested, the bar will never be raised. On one occasion, I was impressed with the abilities of a secondary school student and felt he was full of promise. I asked the, “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” question and was surprised that his highest aspirations were to be a soldier or a guide. Maybe that’s not that different from children in developed countries who aspire to be a professional athlete or a singer. There aren’t many role models to choose from. Nonetheless, I begged him to reconsider, only later to understood that being poor and connected, it could be unrealistic for him to aim to be a doctor. In another case, I met a student who had worked his way up through the highest cadres of academic performance. More aware of his choices, said he wanted to work in a private company and make money. That’s a very sensible plan though I have to admit I was hoping he was going to say something like, “I want to use my talents to give something back to society.” Reality check for me. Maybe the hard realities of life here is that most students don’t have the luxury to have dreamlike futures. In contrast, A LinkedIn survey of developed countries confirmed that 70 % of the respondents feel that taking pleasure in their work is the highest priority. 8% said that helping others is important. The average Lao is probably most concerned about job security, a pension and health insurance. That narrows the choices way down. Can’t being a teacher be a good compromise? Working for the state will give them security and benefits. Pay raises will wipe away that era when people would say, “If you want to be a teacher, it’s better to raise pigs.” In fact, there has already been a dramatic increase in applications for teaching colleges and there is the hope that all those empty rural classrooms will be filled. The next step is to produce good teachers. Not just good teachers, but excellent teachers. Will students some day dream about being a teacher, a profession in which they will gain personal satisfaction and pleasure? Can helping others become a priority? We’re hoping that once the status of teaching is higher than raising pigs again, our teachers will have chosen their professions for the right reasons. We need to remember that real learning happens in the brain, not necessarily in an institution. Schools have walls, but the brain has no limits. A school is a social construction while our master organ is a work of nature. If this spongy pink mass is likened to a verdant cornucopia of thoughts and ideas, schools determine how we cook it. The problem is that developed education systems can either offer the best in exquisite culinary mastery or can be as cold as canned soup. Some will even argue that cold canned soup is good because it can be eaten during power shortages and can be mass-produced in the millions.
Selling canned soup requires factories, production lines, management and distribution systems and sophisticated advertising. A good cook on the other hand can be found anywhere. The most talented by far is the one who can whip up a feast with just a handful of bamboo shoots and a wood fire. I’d like to see that happen in the country schools of Laos. A shack will do. The students will come if the teacher can inspire. Their desire to learn is natural. They’re too young to give lip service to the merits of schools degrees or to even justify education as an exit from poverty. They haven’t pegged their future dreams as a waiter or a guide. There is something else that compels them to learn. In the countryside, they don’t get much intellectual stimulation. There is nothing really to read and the wider world on the news doesn’t make much sense. But yes, they will jump up and down in delight if they learn how to spell a word correctly. They’ll recite English phrases like they’re nursery rhymes or fun songs. Once students experience learning with their own brain, they say they don’t want to stop. They want to continue the lesson even though it’s already been two hours without a break. Students visit us early in the morning and late at night and if I ask them to get a notebook and pencil, they’ll run home and be back in a flash. Learning is exciting for them. They don’t know how to make excuses yet. They’re not telling us they can only learn if they have their own tablet or ask for funds for a library. Learning is not about external objects, but about the fizzy feeling inside the brain as it shifts into gear. What I believe they’re inspired by is the sincerity of a devoted teacher. They know a teacher’s intentions and express their gratitude with small but meaningful gestures like a bag of hot sticky rice in the morning. Teachers don’t want to teach here in this remote village. It’s inconvenient, it’s dusty and there are no food choices. Maybe they haven’t seen the star studded sky at night. You wouldn’t suspect such a dramatic show since mornings are shrouded in mist, but at night, the dome above becomes a live planetarium where giant constellations swing in tremendous arcs. People in this remote village see the universe above their heads every night and understand that it’s just a bit of gravity that keeps them glued to their mountaintop as the earth continues to spin. If we could just make education work here. Keep students rooted to where they are; where they can refer to the starry night above them if they need to be reminded that the universe is within their reach. I want to track these students and these schools. I want to prove some day with hard numbers that their performance can be stellar and not outdone by anyone else. |