Japan, schools, the New York Times

An editorial appeared in yesterday's New York Times, describing No Child Left Behind and comparing American ideas about education to Japanese ones. The writer, Brent Staples, acknowledges that Japan and the US are very different countries, but his analysis is nonetheless insightful.

It brought to mind something I heard or read by Michael Kirst, who I guess you could describe as an educational economist and the guru of California school finance. Anyway he said that historically, the quality of US schools has been measured by inputs, for example: the number of teachers per student, the number of computers per student, the amount of money spent per student. More recently, with the push for accountability, schools have been measured by their outputs, namely test scores. This seems reasonable enough. But the problem with NCLB and similar legislation of the last two or three decades is that--and I believe I have said this before, so excuse the repetition--it assumes that you can improve the outputs by simply focusing on them more diligently than you have ever focused on them before. It's like when a student is struggling to grasp a concept and the teacher, instead of explaining or asking questions or interacting at all with the intellectual task that the student is facing, simply repeats, "Think about it. Use your brain!" But the kid doesn't know how to solve the problem. Yelling, "Think harder!" won't help her. Similarly, to quote Staples' editorial: "What has become clear ... is that school systems and colleges of education have no idea how to generate changes in teaching that would allow students to learn more effectively."

Staples suggests that we look at what more effective education systems abroad are doing. One aspect of the Japanese system is the assumption that teachers have a lot of learning to do themselves, and that working with other teachers is a good way to accomplish that learning. This seems kind of obvious, but when you contrast it with the typical experience of a novice teacher in the US, you realize that it must not be. At most schools here, you get hired and you start teaching. There is little or no time set aside for you to work with or observe other teachers. There is little or no support for you to attend teacher conferences. Most of the time, professional development consists of a bi-monthly workshop led by an outsider, which has about a 50/50 chance of being relevant to what you're doing.

I do think we need a greater focus on inputs, particularly teachers. This is an important moment for teacher education and school reform! I can't wait to go back to school ... I love theory. Yet I am a horrible reader of non-fiction. That will be my downfall as an academic.

I feel really lucky to have had the experiences that I have as a teacher. STEP took teacher preparation really seriously, and YWLCS takes professional development really seriously. Even so, almost nothing about teaching is coming easily to me.

We're having parent-student-teacher conferences yesterday and today. The girls were very excited that I wore lipstick for them. One of the teachers commented, "That's really nice! You finally look your age." Thanks, I guess.