Smartest Kids in the World

EDU 600Fall 2013

Programme for International Student Assessment Created by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD)  15-year-old students are assessed in mathematics, science, and

reading. First administered in 2000 and then every three years subsequently. Goal: to improve education policies and outcomes. “The data has increasingly been used both to assess the impact of

education quality on incomes and growth and for understanding what causes differences in achievement across nations”

The test is a hand-written 2-hour test. Part is multiple choice and part requires fuller answers

After the test, students spend and hour filling out a survey on their background.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

What is PISA?

Effects of World War II led to oppression

Nazi party was replaced by Soviets

In 1997 the Constitution of Poland replaced and amended the communist statue

Poland joined the European Union in 2004

Heartbreak in Poland

1997: Poland’s government was transitioning Handke was appointed the Minister of

Education Handke was a chemist heading AGH University Distractions:

◦ New government was dealing with health care and pension reform

Because the public and the government was concerned with the new reforms, Handke’s ideas were not in the spotlight.

Mirisolaw Handke

Half of rural adults finished primary education

Low skill = low wage work

Handke studied education systems

In1998, the Orange Book was introduced to begin the transition phase

“Achieving a New Equilibrium”

Four points of the new plan:

◦Rigor

◦Accountability

◦Expectations

◦Independence

Orange Book

New Core Curriculum

Replace many brief topics with a few solid ones

Set goals

Government required a portion of teachers to go back to school to improve their education

Rigor

Regularly scheduled standard tests

Target testing

Primary education ◦ Meant to show what students/teachers needed help

Secondary Education◦ College entrance criteria

Accountability

Students would extend their education by one full year, extending tracking by one year

4,000 new junior high schools were created to accommodate for the extension of tracking

Raised Expectations*

Ages:5-15

16

vocational

academia

Teachers would have freedom to teach how they see fit

Teachers could pick the texts they wanted from an approved list of over 100 options

Teachers can earn bonuses for participating in professional development opportunities

Principals have full authority in hiring decisions

Local communities determine budget allocation decisions

Independence

The Orange Book Transition would happen in the span of a year

• By the end of the first rocky year 60% of Poles surveyed did not think the reforms would work

• Handke resigned in 2000 after he could not secure funds to give pay raises to teachers

2000 2003

Reading 21st 13th

Math 20th 18th

Results Shown by PISA

2/3 of the students who had been vocationally tracked were in the lowest literacy level in 2000

Students who would have been tracked to vocational schools scored 100 points higher in

2009 than in 2000

Poland was outperforming the U.S. in math and science but spending half the money

The poorest students in Poland outscored the poorest students in the U.S. in reading and math

85% of Polish students graduated and 76% of U.S. students graduated

Over 1/3 of Polish students scored in the top two levels of literacy

Comparison to the U.S. 2009

No Sports in Poland◦ Students dress up for a test day like it’s game day

No lunch hour◦ Students bring a sandwich or a small snack

Several daily smoke breaks◦ Students can make adult choices (even if they are bad)

School in Poland was less forgiving◦ Scores were announced◦ Many kids flat our failed exams

Tom’s school got $4,681 per student◦ His school at home got $11,000 per student

Tom’s Comparison

16 and 17 year olds that took the PISA after being tracked to vocational schools scored significantly lower compared to their peers who were on an academic track

The public still does not approve the reform and many administrators are not happy with the changes

Poland is still in an educational transition but is proof that poor failing countries can turn their system around in a short amount of time

Pending Problems

Eric from MN Studies in Korea

Paul MenardEDU 600Fall 2013

Attended Minnetonka High School in MN

Had already graduated from a rigorous I.B. program before heading to South Korea

Enrolled in college for the following school year: South Korea was a break and an opportunity

Accustomed to feeling like an outsider: came out to family in high school

Eric

Eric traveled from MN to Busan, South Korea

Attended Nam Sam High School

He and another female exchange student from Canada were welcomed and treated like pseudo rock stars

Eric attended classes with students that were two years younger than him due to the fact that students his age were in “solitary confinement” studying for college entrance exams

Eric’s New Korean Home

Do you live on a farm?

Do you own a horse?

Do you own a gun?

Have you ever been shot or shot anyone?

What Eric’s Classmates Wondered

A huge red brick building: function over fashion

No smart boards: integration of modern tech components almost non-existent in school

30+ students in each class

Nam Sam High School

Student’s expressed individuality thru socks

Extremely long school days: students sleeping in class is a common occurrence

Longer school year than American schools

Highly competitive college preparation: school as a meritocracy

Student Life at Nam Sam

Korean SAT test: determines not only what university a student attends: scarcity of prestigious universities leads to intense pressure to excel

Test is only offered once per school year

Most grades curved, all scores made public to whole school

College Preparation

The “school day” typically starts at 8:00 a.m. and “ends” at 4:00 (Eric leaves at 2:00)

At the “end” of the school day, students clean entire school. Students with demerits for bad behavior get the dirty jobs

After that, students have two hours of test preparation

Typical School Day at Nam Sam

After two hours of test prep, students eat a wholesome dinner at school.

After dinner, it’s Ya Ya time: two hours of reviewing notes from school day and watching online test prep lectures

After Ya Ya, the school day is finally over

The School Day Still Isn’t Over!

After leaving school, the overwhelming majority of students head to a Howgan, which are described in the book as private tutoring academies where “the real learning happens”

By law, Hogwans must be closed by 11:00 p.m.-Law imposed in response to students studying too much

Or is it? Hogwan Time

Civil service exams have been around in Korea since the 7th Century◦Since that time, test prep tutoring has

been a standard for those willing and able to pay private tutors

1950’s: vast majority of citizens were illiterate

Education as a currency: no natural resources

History of Education in Korea

No legacies

No Athletic Scholarships

Scarcity of spots available in Korean Universities

The Pressure Cooker

• Motivation has historically been the driving force in education, not curriculum

• Korean families spend more individually than American families on education support services

• Private, for profit self-study libraries are very popular

• Even as more Universities have opened, students continue to obsess about getting into the top 3 universities

Fairness in School: An American Concept

In November 2011, police issued a warrant for the arrest of an eighteen year old male Korean student who murdered his mother

Ji’s mom told him that he had to be #1 on the college entrance exams no matter what

Ji explained that he murdered his mother to prevent her from attending a parent teacher conference, where she would have learned that he scored in the top 1% of students in the nation (4,000th)

The details of the story and public discourse regarding the matter are revealing to how Koreans perceive the intense pressure students face to succeed in school

The Pressure Cooker Boils Over

At the time of his arrest, Ji was a senior In the past, Ji’s mother beat him, deprived

him of food and would force him to stay up late at night to study when his grades didn’t live up to her expectations

After he killed her, he sealed her bedroom and left her dead body to rot for more than eight months

Ji’s estranged father returned for a visit and discovered her body

Ji

In a popular news periodical, the story was cast as a tragic “reflection of a study-driven culture driving kids mad”

Popular opinion: “She invited her own murder”

Ji sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison

Public Discourse Regarding Ji’s Mothers Murder

Rigor matters: success is a product of hard work, resilience, and a refusal to accept anything short of concept mastery. Mastering complex academic material is paramount

Don’t lose sight of the purpose of learning:◦ “The U.S. spends more on athletics and

technology and less on teacher salaries, with little evidence of positive impact except for corporate balance sheets”

Lessons Learned

Eric’s take on the Korean education system

“Math is rigor distilled: to master concepts, students are required to detect patterns and make informed conjectures…Routine failure is the only way to learn”

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” –Churchill

Successes in Korean Education

Geometry: trigonometry and calculus interwoven into lessons: real-world situations◦ To figure out how shapes change in a video game,

you need to use both.

Eric thought that math moved fluidly, and he observed sophomore Korean students understanding calculus analogies

Math in Korea

Minnesota is one of two states to score close to Finland and Korea on PISA assessments◦ Common Core

U.S. math text books are too big

Six years on fractions and decimals is too long

Lessons to Learn

Why in the U.S. is the understanding of mathematical concepts considered an innate ability and not a necessity to excel in life, while mastery of reading is not optional?

How can we apply the lessons learned from the successes and failures of the Korean education system as urban teachers?

Discussion Questions

Math is a language

Incorporating the language and concepts of math into every class you teach

Collaborating with math teachers to incorporate mathematical concepts and language into lesson planning

Additional Thoughts

Kim was going to high school in Sallisaw, Oklahoma

She was always good at school, but was beginning to get bored and discouraged, thus her grades were suffering and she was losing her drive and motivation for it

She knew that she wanted to get out of Sallisaw and that would help

Kim’s Story

When Kim started to lose her motivation for school, her mom, who was an elementary school teacher in town, became concerned but credited it to the fact that she was a teenager and it was common teenage behavior

In seventh grade, Kim’s English teacher invited her to take the SAT. Kim’s standardized test scores qualified her to take the test at age 12 and see where she compared to other students in the country

Although the test was challenging, Kim managed to score better than 40% of the graduating seniors in the Critical Reading portion of the test

Her response when she heard about the scores:◦ “I’m very disappointed in my state right now”

Before Finland

Kim was beginning to get extremely bored with school and wanted something different. Due to a recent divorce between her parents and tight finances, many options such as private schools or boarding schools were out of the question due to high tuition rates.

Kim’s sister mentioned that she should look into studying abroad. Although it was not at all what Kim was thinking when she said that she wanted to get out of Sallisaw, Kim looked into it and brought it up with her mom.

Before Finland

After some studying and research, Kim presented her mom with a paper on Finland and why she wanted to study there for a year. Her mom agreed and said that if Kim was able to raise the $10,000 to go there, she was allowed to go.

After fundraising, getting donations, and selling some of her belongings, Kim was accepted and going to be spending the next school year as an exchange student in Finland.

Before Finland

Kim was going to be living with her host mother Suzanne, who was a single mom of twin 5 year olds. Although she loved Suzanne, the kids did not appreciate Kim staying in their house which did create problems for Kim during her time there.

During the school day, the sun would not rise until after she was already in school and was down by the time she was done with school. Kim was not used to this and eventually became diagnosed with depression during her time over there, partially due to the lack of sunlight she was experiencing

Kim’s Experience

Suzanne had finally told Kim that she had to go see a doctor because of her change in behavior. This was a scare for Kim because the program would have to decide if she was able to stay or would have to be sent home early.

Ultimately, they allowed her to stay, however she was going to be relocated to a different home because of the problems she was having with Suzanne’s kids.

Luckily, she was able to stay in good contact with Suzanne and even volunteered at the newspaper that Suzanne worked at

Kim’s Experience

Kim was shocked in many ways by the schools in Finland; they were very different than her experiences back in the United States.

She was surprised that the school building itself was pretty much the same as her high school in Oklahoma. She actually said that from the outside that it was even more depressing than her school back home.

On the inside, there were trophies on display like we might see in schools in the US, but very few and the newest one was 10 years old

Schools in Finland

One big difference that Kim noted was that there were no white boards or other high tech devices that U.S. schools cannot live without

There were also no police officers in the building There were the “Stoner Kids” as Kim put it- the

kids who were quiet in class but would be talkative outside when they were smoking with their friends. However, unlike the US where those kids are usually struggling in school, these kids were actually model students who obtained great grades

Schools in Finland

Becoming a teacher in Finland is very different than becoming a teacher in the US. It is a very prestigious job that has the mindset of becoming a doctor in the US. You must have high enough test scores, it is a six year program, and every teacher MUST have a masters degree.

Getting into a teaching school in Finland is equivalent to a student trying to get into Georgetown, Berkeley, or MIT here

Training included a whole year of student teaching and a 200 page thesis before graduating

Page 89: “The Finns decided that the only way to get serious about Education was to select highly educated teachers, the best and brightest of each generation, and train them rigorously.”

Schools in Finland

Finland did have a No-Child-Left-Behind type method in their schools, however, due to their highly selective teacher training, Finland found that what they had in place was unnecessary and more of a burden to the schools, so they were able to get rid of it

In 2000, all of Finland’s new teachers graduated high school in the top third of their graduating class.

Although teachers in Finland do make more than teachers here, there is no correlation between high salaries and student success◦ Page 94: “The world’s highest paid teachers lived in Spain,

where teenagers performed worse in math, reading, and science than students in the United States.”

Schools in Finland

One day when Kim was talking to a group of students, she asked them why they cared so much and what motivated them to be so successful in school:◦ “It’s school… How else will I graduate and go to

university and get a good job?”Students in Finland had much more freedom- they were able to have free time in which they were allowed to hang out in commons areas, go to a coffee shop (even during school hours), and parents were a lot less concerned about rules, etc.

Schools in Finland

Parents are a lot less involved with schooling as they are here- it is the kids responsibility, therefor it should not include the parents

There is a test that could be comparable to our ACT or SAT tests in the US, however, it is much longer, more vigorous, and caused the students a lot of stress that concerned teachers.

The test took 3 weeks to take, 50 hours. Teachers need to follow students to the bathroom to ensure that there is no cheating. The Finnish section itself took 2 days, one day of reading texts and writing short essays for each one, one day for writing a long essay on a topic provided that took all 6 hours to compose

Schools in Finland

When comparing her experience in her Finnish high schools to her high school in the United States, Kim was shocked

The superintendent in Kim’s school district made $100,000 a year, making him one of the highest paying people in Sallisaw

He also has an assistant superintendent and 8 managers serving on a school board- all for a school district that served 4 schools

When he was asked what the biggest challenges that schools in Sallisaw faced, the superintendent said that it was lack of parent involvement

School in Sallisaw

After graduation from Sallisaw, many students who went to college were forced to take classes for no credit in order to catch up with other students. This would cause them to either rack up college debt or drop out all together. Sallisaw schools do not see this as a problem, and give the students credit for trying

School in Sallisaw

Becoming a teacher in the US is much less difficult. Kim’s math teacher wanted to become a teacher so that he could coach football, and actually majored in Physical Education in order to help his coaching, and was interested in math in high school and so he minored in math in order to teach that when he wasn’t coaching

Education in the US is thought of as an easy major and will let anybody in

When it was suggested to make the requirements more difficult, schools and teachers did not like the idea. Rather than seeing it as an investment for the students to get better teachers, it was thought of as a threat to the teachers instead.

School in Sallisaw

One thing that an exchange student from Finland who was in the United States did appreciate was that she got to know her teachers- they took the time to share their own lives with the students, took interest in the students lives, and allowed themselves to become friends with their students. This is unheard of in Finland, and while schools in the United States were very easy compared to schools in Finland, this student did like that idea in the classroom

School in Sallisaw