The ideal world for the real world

This was written by Susan Somogyi Wells who is a social worker by trade with almost 20 years experience counselling individuals, couples and families. She currently works as a manager in a not-for-profit counselling agency. Susan's greatest passion, however, is parenting her amazing 9 year old daughter, Elizabeth.

by Susan Somogyi Wells

I was raised with old world values. I behaved well, worked hard and studied, because I was afraid to do otherwise. School for me was hard work, dreaded work, but so I was told, “it builds character.” I hated it! I did only what was required to avoid punishment, until adolescence when I rebelled. When in the real world I soon realized that the control and freedom I desired required the education I despised. 

Like so many young adults, when I attended school of my own accord it was no longer dreaded work. As I freed myself of the chains of pleasing others and avoiding punishment, I began to enjoy school. More importantly, I began to enjoy learning. Once intrinsically motivated, I excelled in school.

After a bachelor’s degree, two Master degrees and many life experiences I am now faced with my most challenging learning experience. How do I raise my daughter so she is intrinsically motivated to behave, to learn, to excel? This plan started when she was still a toddler. I began to evaluate my daily decisions and actions against this value of instilling intrinsic motivation. Thus far, it has worked well for me and my child. She has a passion to learn and to be a good, kind human being. As I relinquished my parental control to the public school system, it became more difficult to live by these values. At times I fear that the system of punishment and reward will lead us away from where we have grown.

I have kept some of my old world values. I still believe in hard work and I think it does build character. However, is it not ideal that the drive comes from within? I believe intrinsic motivation is far more sustainable than external punishment or reward. Imagine a world where everyone worked hard because it made them feel proud to do so. Imagine a world where people did the right thing because it reflects who they want to be. Imagine a world where these ideals where the basis of our productivity, rather than reward and punishment.

In my career I have settled for nothing less than this ideal. I am blessed with an employer who does not evaluate my performance based on a grade. My intentions are trusted. My strengths are valued. In my workplace we do not manage our human resources based on rewards and punishment. We have created a culture and environment where employees can excel, based on their own desire to do so.

Although my workplace is not the norm, I believe human resource practices are moving closer to this ideal. So this leads to the question – For which world should we prepare our children? 

I propose that if we prepare our children for the ideal, they will not settle for less than ideal. They will seek out those experiences that reflect their greatest expectations. By their choices and their actions they will also be part of creating this ideal in our society. 

I am concerned that our education system is preparing our children for the “real world” of yesterday rather than the ideal world of tomorrow. I am choosing to prepare my daughter for the best of what our world can be in the future. I don’t want her to settle for the “real world”. I want her to help build an ideal one.

Chinese students learn on IV drips

Some people claim that school's primary function is to prepare children for the real world. Those same people tend to say that the real world is very competitive and that we must prepare kids for that competitive world.

Is this what that looks like?

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Is school like work?

Some people suggest that school is like work and grades are like earning money.

Let's pause to take a moment to examine whether this is true.

I have two questions:

1. What do workers do at work?

2. What do students do at school?

I bet most answers look like this:

1. Work

2. Learn

You'll notice that these two questions have two distinctly different answers. This isn't just semantics. Work and school are very different places because working and learning are two very different goals.

Here's why:

At work, the product is the point.

At school, the process is the point.

The purpose of school is not simply to replicate the real world. If it was, we wouldn't need school at all. Instead we could just send our children out into the real world and work. The government could replace the department of education with the department of child labour.

Sounds pretty stupid when we put it that way, doesn't it? This is precisely why saying school should simply be like the "real world" (as if that is a fixed and predictable place) is often developmentally inappropriate.

Children don't go to school to work -- they go to school to learn.

Alfie Kohn writes in his article Students Don't "Work" -- They Learn:

To get a sense of whether students view themselves as workers or as learners, we need only ask them (during class) what they are doing. "I'm doing my work" is one possible response; "I'm trying to figure out why the character in this story told her friend to go away" is something else altogether. Better yet, we might ask students why they are doing something, and then attend to the difference between "Because Ms. Taylor told us to" or "It's going to be on the test," on the one hand, and "Because I just don't get why this character would say that!" on the other. 

Another way to judge the orientation of a classroom is to watch for the teacher's reaction to mistakes. Someone who manages students' work is likely to strive for zero defects: perfect papers and assignments that receive the maximum number of points. Someone who facilitates students' learning welcomes mistakes - first, because they are invaluable clues as to how the student is thinking, and second, because to do so creates a climate of safety that ultimately promotes more successful learning. 

Moreover, a learning-oriented classroom is more likely to be characterized by the thoughtful exploration of complicated issues than by a curriculum based on memorizing right answers. As Hermine Marshall has observed, for students to see themselves as learning, "the tasks provided must be those that require higher-order thinking skills." 

Does a rejection of the models, methods, and metaphors of work mean that school should be about play? In a word, no. False dichotomies are popular because they make choosing easy, and the "work vs. play" polarity is a case in point. Learning is a third alternative, where the primary purpose is neither play-like enjoyment (although the process can be deeply satisfying) nor the work-like completion of error-free products (although the process can involve intense effort and concentration). 

To question the work metaphor is not to abandon challenge or excellence. Rather, it is to insist that work is not the only activity characterized by those features - and play, for that matter, is not the only activity that can be experienced as pleasurable.

The first commenter on this post made an important point about how we do want school to be like the real world without falling victim to the job-place metaphor:

When I say I want learning to be like the real world, I simply mean that I want it to be genuine. I want kids to be out in nature learning about science. I want kids to touch, feel, and engage with the world around them. I want them to talk to adults that are doing good, helping others, or creating art. I want questions asked of these adults. I want museums to be explored. Civil war battlefields to be walked. Engineers to take a few moments to show kids their actual work- their actual plans and processes. I want kids to have the opportunity to learn like you and I do- I flow from one curiosity to the next. 

Or, we can sit 30 kids down at a desk and show them pictures of the world. "Look Billy, this is a picture of a tree. Yes there are real ones right outside this room, but we don't have time for that- study the picture." We can continue to let them read snapshots of careers. Give them math problems that have no relevance to anything they can think of. We have to change- not like child labor and not like learning is a job- we have to get the adults out of the way and let the kids learn- with the adults on the side guiding.

High Test Scores, Low Ability

This article appeared in the New York Times Opinion Pages.

Yong Zhao is the University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University. The author of "Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization," he often blogs about education issues.

Teachers sorting college entrance
exams in Chengdu, Sichuan Province,
in June 2009 (AP)

There's a frustrating paradox in Chinese education. On the one hand, millions of college graduates cannot find a job -- at least a desirable job that pays substantially more than what a migrant worker makes. On the other hand, businesses that want to pay a lot more can't seem to find qualified employees.

Multinational companies in China are having a difficult time finding qualified candidates for their positions. According to a recent survey of U.S.-owned enterprises conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, 37 percent of the companies that responded said that finding talent was their biggest operational problem. A separate study by McKinsey Quarterly found that 44 percent of the executives in Chinese companies reported that insufficient talent was the biggest barrier to their global ambitions.

The explanation: a test-oriented educational environment.

China invented the keju system, which used tests to select government officials. It was a great invention because it enabled talents from across the society to join the ruling class regardless of their family backgrounds. Hence, a great meritocracy could be created. But it evolved into a nightmare for China as the system gradually changed into one that tested memorization of Confucian classics.

Keju is dead now but its spirit is very alive in China today, in the form of gaokao, or the College Entrance Exam. It's the only exam that matters since it determines whether students can attend college and what kind of colleges they can attend. Because of its life-determining nature, gaokao has become the “baton” that conducts the whole education orchestra. Students, parents, teachers, school leaders and even local government officials all work together to get good scores. From a very young age, children are relieved of any other burden or deprived of opportunity to do anything else so they can focus on getting good scores.

The result is that Chinese college graduates often have high scores but low ability. Those who are good at taking tests go to college, which also emphasizes book knowledge. But when they graduate, they find out that employers actually want much more than test scores. That is why another study by McKinsey found that fewer than 10 percent of Chinese college graduates would be suitable for work in foreign companies.

Chinese educators are well aware of the problems with the gaokao system and have been trying to move away from the excessive focus on testing. But seeking other valid indicators of strong academic records will take time, especially in a country of 1.3 billion people.

To sit beside

The Latin root word for assessment is "assidere" which means to sit beside.

So... what the hell is going on here? 

I'm pretty sure "sit beside" did not imply rows upon rows of learners sitting alone in a crowd... kind of beside each other.

I'm almost certain that "sit beside" was suppose to be about the learner and the teacher working with each other.

And yet, look at this!

Are we out of our minds?

Have we lost the entire plot?

What's more is that defenders of standardized, fill-in-the-bubble, forced-choice examinations have the audacity to cite a 'real world' need for such examinations, and yet standardized testing is what constitutes an amazingly contrived and unrealistic form of assessment. 

Can you look at this picture and tell me what profession these people are learning to become?

No?

Does this resemble anything you do everyday in the real world?

No?

Do you see a problem with that?

What are you doing about it?