Thirty years ago Finland’s education system was quite mediocre and very inequitable. In short, it was a mess. Sound familiar?  Today, Finland’s education system is a stunning success.  I know I’ve argued time and time again Finland’s success is irrelevant to us because we’re so different than Finland, but after looking more carefully I think there are some things we can learn from Finland’s education reform and apply to our education system.

The thing that made me think the reforms Finland made to its education system wouldn’t work here where I teach is because Finland’s population  is so different from  us. Finland’s population is  a homogeneous one while ours here in the Greater Toronto Area isn’t.  Five percent of  Finland’s population is foreign born while here  in the Toronto area  50% of the population is foreign born. Half of the immigrants in  Toronto have lived here less than 15 years.  Our schools are mosaics of 140 different languages and dialects- talk about heterogeneous  Finland has a low poverty rate of 5%.  Thirty percent of families live at the poverty rate here in Toronto. Poverty affects kids.  There is  an inequality in  educational outcomes for kids  who live in  poverty, the greater  the prevalence of poverty in Toronto , the greater the number of kids won’t be able  to  do as well as they might.  We are not going to be able to help poor kids improve their performance in school by teaching to the standardized tests.

Let me just say here  I discovered the definition of poverty is a bit more complex than I thought.     This link does a excellent job of defining poverty  in terms of absolute poverty (inability to meet basic needs) and relative poverty(distance from community norms). This other site  goes into more depth about absolute and relative poverty.  I’ve included the link in case you’re curious about the topic of poverty. You just never know!

OK, back to Finland.  What can we take from Finland’s education system to improve our education system?  Finland  instituted a number of educational reforms in the 1970′s that turned the education system around and made it the success it is in 2012. Finland’s reforms in education are based on the belief education is a tool to equalize members of society. There shouldn’t be extreme the gaps between rich and poor, that 1 percent  we read about who is ultra rich and powerful.  In Finland for the sake of equity, all students are offered free school meals as well as easy access to health care, psychological and individualized counseling . Kids don’t start school until they’re seven and spend the first 6 years of school  getting  ready to learn and find their passion. Homework is discouraged. There are no mandatory standardized tests, although at the end of upper-secondary school (American high school) students can voluntarily take the National Matriculation Exam.  Students receive report cards at the end of the semester and student assessments are based on individualized teacher created evaluations-quizzes, tests, assignments etc. 95 percent of students go on to vocational or academic schools. In other words, 95% of kids graduate.  We should do as well!

Teachers are well respected in Finland and are given much prestige as well as responsibility.  Surprisingly, it’s more difficult to get into teacher training programs than into law or medicine. Since 1970 all teachers in Finland must have a master’s degree which is paid for by the state (I can only wish the state would pay for mine. I’ve been spending $$$ to get my MEd. Thankfully, it won’t be much longer ($$$) until I’m finished.) In Finland, cooperation not competition amongst teachers and schools is encouraged.  There are no private schools in Finland. It’s the principal’s responsibility in Finland to deal with teacher’s who are not living up to their responsibilities.

I’m not sure how many of the reforms Finland implemented we could apply to our schools.  We certainly need to do something different though. The education system is failing our kid’s, especially our kids who live in poverty.

Which reforms would you want to see implemented?  Which of these reforms do you think we could implement?

We can learn from Finland’s school success despite the differences in our cultures originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on February 8, 2012.

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I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.

–Haim Ginott

Yes, teachers possess a tremendous power to make students’  lives miserable or joyous.  Teachers are a decisive element in the classroom in many ways. Ginott focuses on the effect a teacher can have on the emotional well being of students.  But, teachers can affect more than students’ emotional well being.   A recent study found teachers are a decisive factor in students’ potential lifetime earnings .

Researchers Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia University  have concluded poor teachers significantly reduce students’  life time earnings. Replacing poor teachers with average teachers  can boost a single classroom’s life time earnings by approximately $266, 000.  A poor teacher teaching for ten years can reduce the  life time earnings of his or her classes by approximately $2.5 million. I find that statistic remarkable.

You can access Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff ‘s paper ” The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers : Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood”  here.

Poor teachers dramatically reduce students’ life-time earnings originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on February 1, 2012.

• sent a message to a female student telling her how he dreamt of preforming oral sex on her;
• invited four female students to his room and they cuddled on his bed while on a field trip to England :
• invited a  female student to come over to “spoon”or cuddle  while his wife was away.

received a 30 day unpaid suspension from the Toronto District School Board and a transfer to Toronto’s Adult Education Centre while the Ontario College of Teachers completed its investigation.  The OCT suspended the teacher for 12 months and then advised him if he took a “boundary violation” course he could go back into the classroom.  Presumably, the teacher did take the “boundary violation course” because the OCT now says he is a member in “good standing” and can teach again. The Star could not determine if and where the teacher is teaching now.

I must confess, I don’t have much forgiveness in my heart when it comes to teachers who take advantage of their students in this way. Especially, when a teacher does it repeatedly.  I want to ask questions like

• Where is the teacher’s common sense?
• Why was the teacher hired in the first place?
• Where is the mutual respect teachers and students ought to have for one another?
• How can we be sure the violations don’t happen?

Donovan also tells us that the criminal back ground check that all teachers have to have  isn’t worth much.  In fact, these criminal background checks can give a false sense of security. He notes that all but one of the teachers who sexually assaulted, abused or exploited young students over the last ten years had clean records before they were convicted.  Sometimes teachers will give false information in order to hide a criminal record. Some of these teachers go on to  conduct themselves inappropriately and not respect  teacher/student boundaries. Even  Michael Salvatori , OCT’s registrar, maintains that relying on a criminal background check of teachers  isn’t enough to ensure that individuals are of good character.

What more can we do to make sure individuals are suitable to be teachers? In a report dated 2000, retired Judge Sydney L. Robins suggested that each school board needs to do a complete background check on individuals.  This background check needs to include a detailed interview with a  teacher before hiring.  What do you think the system should do to protect students from the criminal  actions of teachers?

You can read more on this topic here and  here at the Toronto Star.  I’d like to thank Kevin Donovan and the Toronto Star for making us aware of the deplorable situation.   Things need to change.

Update:
Canadians for Accountability Blog has taken the OCT to task for it’s lack of transparency. I encourage you to read the article. I wasn’t aware of the issues involved. The grassroots needs to get involved here. I’m going to ask how I can help bring about the requisite transparency.

Photo of stop sign thanks to doublegrande

Ontario College of Teachers and school boards need to do more to protect students from teachers’ criminal behaviour originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on October 2, 2011.

I don’t want to read another thing about how successful the education system is in Finland . I congratulate Finland for their fine education system, but I don’t want my school in Mississauga to be compared to schools in Finland because doing that is like comparing apples to oranges. Mississauga is not the same as Finland. Finland has 2.5 % foreign citizens. Mississauga has many more. 46.62% of residents in Mississauga (almost 700 oo0 ) were not born in Canada.  Apples to oranges. Apples to oranges for Pete’s sake.

Mississauga has one of the largest, if not the largest, cluster of ethnic groups in Canada. At my school, the student body speaks over 60 languages.  All this diversity is what makes Mississauga so great. I love it. But, all this diversity brings with it challenges that a more homogeneous country like Finland doesn’t experience.

I don’t want to write a post outlining all the challenges new immigrants face that can affect the them as they enter our schools. But, some students who are immigrants come to grade 9 illiterate in their mother tongue, and we are expected to teach them so they will pass and earn 16 credits by the time they are 16 years old. Some parents are struggling to learn English themselves and can’t support their kids and help with homework or assignments. Some parents work at two jobs to put a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table and aren’t there for there for their kids after school.

O.K., O.K. I’m going to stop now because I’m starting to write a post about the challenges of being an immigrant living in Mississauga and that’s just what I didn’t want to do.  I just don’t want apples to be compared to oranges.

photo thanks to Dano

Don’t tell me anything more about students in Finland and how great the education system is there. originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on July 19, 2011.

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Sometimes we can get the wrong idea about what it takes to successfully teach kids who are academically at-risk.  You don’t have to be a superhero like Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers. You just have to be “good enough”. I’ll explain what I mean by “good enough” in a minute.

For those of you who have seen the movie Freedom Writers, you’ll know what I mean when I say Erin, the teacher in the movie, is a superhero.   For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, I’ve embedded a trailer here so you can have a better idea of what I’m talking about.

I mean no disrespect to Erin Gruwell, the teacher Freedom Writers is based on. What she did with her students was truly extraordinary. I’m in awe of her. But I think because she’s a superhero, teachers who watch the movie might get the mistaken notion you have to have super-teacher powers to teach students who are academically at-risk. You don’t. You don’t have to be a super-teacher. You only have to be “good enough”.

When I say teachers of students who are academically at-risk don’t have to be superheros they only have to be “good enough”, I don’t mean they can be mediocre. Far from it.  Let me explain what  I  mean by “good enough” teachers.  ”Good enough” teachers

• • have good  emotional intelligence
  • establish inviting student centered classrooms;
  • have excellent listening skills;
  • willingly treat their students with respect and demand the same from their students ;
  • have expertise in the teaching subject;
  • can differentiate teaching, assessment and evaluation strategies to suit students;
  • help students be successful using the students’ strengths;
  • are firm but fair;
  • are creative;
  • are life-long learners;
  • are flexible;
  • are skilled at teaching and assessment;
  • realize and accept they’re not perfect;
  • realize tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to get it right.

 

“Good enough” teachers realize it’s not their job to “fix” students who are academically at-risk; it’s their  job to help students realize better choices will lead to better outcomes and help them develop their critical thinking skills so they can make better choices.

Erin Gruwell did all this and more. She is a superhero who teaches, but we can be just “good enough” and still be successful at teaching students who are academically at-risk. We don’t need to be superheros ; we can just be humans who teach. I want teachers to realize that.

If you’ve been teaching academically at-risk students, what do you think it takes. How would you define “good enough”?

You don’t have to be a superhero to teach kids who are academically at-risk originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on July 8, 2011.

Lindsey Wright is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.

Some educators specialize in teaching at-risk youth, while others may have only a few members of a particular class who they would deem at risk. How is an at-risk student identified? The most obvious criterion for at-risk students is their grades. If they begin a new school year or term with low grades, this may be a sign of a child whose focus is not on education. A sudden drop in grades can be another indicator that a child’s focus has shifted away from education to make way for other matters that may seem more pressing to the student. Consistent tardiness or absenteeism are also common indicators.

If you teach at an online school you are in luck, as this is an issue that you probably only rarely encounter, if at all. However, if you teach in a tough school, many of these signs are likely all too familiar. In fact, all, or the majority, of your students may exhibit these behaviors. Students whose main focus is not on education during school hours are notoriously difficult to teach. Their minds wander, they pass notes, they act out inappropriately, and generally disrupt the learning process. In these situations it is easy to quickly become frustrated. Despite your best intentions, on some days it may just seem as though it is impossible for the class to make any progress.

However all is not lost. There are actually a variety of ways you can minimize in-class interruptions when working with at-risk students. For instance, many such students are living in poverty. Sometimes they act out at school or find it difficult to concentrate simply because they are hungry. If you can ascertain that a student cannot concentrate in the morning because they haven’t had breakfast, you might consider checking into getting the child enrolled in a breakfast program so they can start the day off right. Alternatively, keep a few healthy, nutritious snacks on hand if there is a particular child you know will be coming to school hungry. You might slip an apple or a granola bar into their desk before the day begins, giving them a chance to fuel up and be ready to learn.

If there are hungry students in your classroom, and it is causing disruptive behavior, take the opportunity to teach the children about proper nutrition and how it can affect their overall health and energy level. Many students bring home what they learn and lessons about proper nutrition may start up a dialog in a student’s home that results in better dietary habits for the whole family.

Another useful technique for redirecting inappropriate behavior is to relate your lesson plans to something that the children you are teaching will find familiar and interesting. You might teach a lesson about physics by using dirt bikes as an example, or explore the connections between a social movement and a popular television show. However you decide to bring it about, showing your students there is a connection between what they are learning in school and the world that surrounds them outside of the classroom can be a valuable way to redirect their focus and keep them concentrating on the subject at hand.

You can also change disruptive, off-task behavior by catching a typically misbehaving student doing something right. If you notice that a child who generally has difficulty focusing in class pays attention well during a particular class segment, recognize that achievement, while overlooking a minor infraction of the classroom rules. The positive reinforcement will often be very powerful for at-risk youth who frequently do not receive any kind of positive feedback from anyone in their lives. A few kind words from you can help change that child’s pattern of behavior, perhaps even outside of the classroom.

Teaching at-risk youth is always a challenge. Their focus tends to wander because they may have other, more pressing matters on their minds. However, you can take this off-task behavior as an opportunity both to get to know the student better and to help turn their distraction to collaborative learning effort. By setting aside a little class time for fun, making certain that the child’s basic needs are being met, using positive reinforcement and relating lessons to real life experiences, you can help at-risk students succeed in school and in life.

Teachers Can Transform Off-Task Behaviors into Powerful Learning Tool originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on June 28, 2011.

 
Last month Elona wrote a post about the closing of school libraries and the cuts to librarians. It is no secret that library programs are the next to be cut. Over the past few years, arts programs including music and drama have been cut drastically to the point that they are entirely absent from some schools. Next they cut classroom aids and teachers that they deemed unnecessary.

How will our students become the next generation of successful adults if we continue to cut their education down to the bone and strip them of all sources of creativity?

With the librarian program cut it is more important than ever for teachers to take an active part in teaching literacy to their students. Reading is not only important for reading comprehension and literacy, but also for creativity, imagination, knowledge and language. The brain is an organ that needs to be exercised regularly. Reading is a great way to do this.

This is why it is so important to help our students learn to enjoy reading. There are tons of ways to help students become better readers. Correne Constantino uses graphic novels in her classroom to get students into a story and work them up to a full text version. Elona told me she has a colleague who obtained funding to buy each of his students their very own new book from Amazon. It’s the little things like this that help students become lifelong readers.

Laura works for Concordia University in the Master of Education department. She values reading and communication as the building blocks for education as a whole.

 

Image by librarianishish via Flickr

Creating Lifelong Readers. originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on June 13, 2011.

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve had to think about student YouTube-use management strategies in my class ever since the Board unblocked YouTube. From the moment my students discovered YouTube was unblocked, they kept sneaking onto it instead of focusing on the online assignment I’d given them. (I’ve written about my frustrating experiences here , here and  here.) Notice, I said my students “kept sneaking” onto YouTube. I can use the past tense because now my students don’t do that anymore- well almost not anymore.

What made the difference? I now give my students independent time on the computer for the first 15 minutes of the class to explore any topic that interests them. Students are free to access any site they wish during that time. My thinking here is that my students can meet their emotional needs (the need for undue attention, the need to feel important, the need for fun and the need for freedom) at the beginning of the class using their free time on the computer and then settled down and do the work I assigned to meet the needs of the curriculum for the last 60 minutes of class.

I can imagine that some of you at this point might be thinking that taking 15 minutes of class time to let my students explore what they will online is wasting time. Well, it actually isn’t. Let me explain. I teach struggling, reluctant students. Many of them are “at-risk” academically and find school offers them little. Usually my students will trickle into class for the first 15 minutes. I have to be pleased they come to class at all. I make my classroom as inviting as possible so students will come to class on their own accord. Mostly, it works. I don’t have many skips at all. Honestly, I’d rather they come to class a bit late than not at all. Since I’ve started letting my students explore their interests online at the beginning of class, they are coming to class earlier and earlier. They don’t want to miss out on the fun. Yes, the fun for most of them is YouTube. However, some students do choose other sites such as Wikipedia or coolmath games. We usually do have class discussions around what they choose to see. Mostly the discussion starts with me asking why they find the particular video they’ve chosen so interesting. I don’t ask this question to criticize their choices of videos, but to help me better understand my students. Believe me, I’m learning a lot about the culture of 14 and 15 year olds, and to think I have YouTube to thank for that. Who knew.

The other classroom management strategy I use to help my students focus on the assignment I give them is to block YouTube after the 15 minutes of free time. A large padlock appears on the screen indicating time is up. Students aren’t resentful that I do this. They get it. They know our tacit or perhaps not so tacit agreement. First I give them freedom and fun, then they settle down and do their work and give me completed assignments. We’re both happy. Our needs are met.

I’d like to thank Liz, teachermom, Sam and Melanie for leaving comments about their classroom experiences with students using computers as learning tools.   I appreciate their suggestions and  insights on the topic.  I do appreciate all the help I can get.

Independent time on the computer at beginning of class is helping my students stay focused for the rest of class originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on June 7, 2011.

Ages ago, I learned about Glasser’s Behaviour Choice theory.  The idea is that students act certain ways to try to meet certain basic needs.  Sometimes these students try to meet their needs by inappropriate behaviour. These needs are are

• Survival- the need for for, shelter, clothing
• Power- the need to feel important
• Love/Belonging- the need to feel accepted and loved by others
• Freedom- the need to choose what we want to do with our lives
• Fun- the need to find enjoyment in life by learning and playing

For example, a child might try to meet his need to feel important by getting undue attention.  When my students are off task and go to other sites online and turn up the volume so that everyone crowds around them, they’re getting undue attention from other students and from me.  They might be thinking they’re only important when they  keeping me busy and keep getting the attention of other students.   That scenario seems to fit a couple of kids in my class.

Students could try to meet their need for power by going off task repeatedly and promising me when I try to redirect them that they will stop going off task and stay focussed but don’t, and I have to continually refocus them.  They may think that they only belongs if  they can be boss and prove I can’t make them do anything. I see that explaining some of the behaviour I see in my class.

Some of my students have profound learning disabilities that makes school difficult for them, and they don’t do as well as some of the other students.  They often feel stupid even though they have average or above intelligence. Since they have difficulty learning or demonstrating their learning,  learning isn’t much fun and they meet their need for fun by amusing  themselves by going to other sites like YouTube which they find entertaining.  When I ask my students why they go to other sites, they  tell me the other sites are fun. I can see why they think that  that because these fun alternative sites don’t expect anything from them like the sites I assign that support the curriculum. For at least one student,  learning how to take tests or write a strong paragraph can’t compete with  the fun of listening to various body sounds (farting sounds)  on www.soundboard.com. No, I’m not kidding.  A student, a grade 9 student, went  to that site and played back farting sounds to amuse himself while while other kids worked quietly on task- quietly, that is, until they heard the farting sounds.

Students could meet their need to chose what they want to do with their lives by refusing to do the assignments in class because they don’t want to be in a special education class. They want the freedom to choose what to do, and they don’t have it. They don’t want to be in my class so they choose not to do the work.  I’ve  heard students tell their friends my class is another English class even though it isn’t.  Students will even ask to keep the door shut because they don’t want their friends to see them in the learning strategies class because it’s a special education class.

When I think about some of the behaviour  goíng on in my class ín light of  Glasser’s theory, the behaviour makes sense to me. I now understand why some of my students act the way they do when they are completing assignments online.

Since I use computers  in my class, students are not sitting in the usual classroom configurations of rows or  tables.  They’re  sitting at computers facing the outside walls of the classroom. They don’t have the opportunity to  interact with me or their classmates in the same way as before I had computers in the classroom, so they have to figure out how to meet their emotional needs in the new context of a classroom with computers.  Students are trying to meet their needs in this new context  in inappropriate ways and this leads to a less than a positive learning environment.  The challenge for me is to help students  meet their needs in positive ways using appropriate behaviour in this new context. .

Any ideas?

photo thanks to sanjoselibrary

New classroom management issues arise when students who use computers in the classroom try to meet basic emotional needs through inappropriate behaviour. originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on June 5, 2011.

In an earlier post  about homework I argued

For some high school students, any amount of homework is too much. For others, no amount of homework is too much. I’ve had students tell me that they don’t do homework. They’re at school all day long, and they’re not going to take school work home with them at night. School’s school, and home’s home, and apparently the twain should never meet. I’ve had other students tell me they have no time to do homework. They have to work after school to help support the family. Other students tell me they want homework, the more homework the better. They want to do homework so they can earn those high marks that will enable them to get into the University of their choice and have the life they want.

Teachers are divided on the homework issue as well. Some teachers tell me their students should do lots of homework. There’s lots to learn after all, and there isn’t enough time in school to learn it all; consequently, students need to continue school work at home. Other teachers tell me there’s no point in giving homework to their students. Their students aren’t going to do it anyway, so why create more problems?

What do I say? I say that the amount of homework students should do needs to respect who the students are, their life circumstances and their goals. I don’t think a one-size- fits- all homework policy would be respectful of all students. My students who are disconnected from school and are at risk academically and my students who are headed for university need to have different amounts of homework. Students who are disconnected from school and are in danger of dropping out of school aren’t coming to class or working in class. Giving them homework would be pointless. Consequently,  the answer to the question of how much homework is enough is it depends on who the students are.

 

While my decision to assign or not to assign homework is informed by my students’ goals and their life circumstances,  research soon to be published in the journal Economics of Education Review suggests  the decision about assigning homework  should be informed by the subject the student is taking. Researchers determined additional math homework had large and statistically significant effects on math test scores but had little or no impact in science, English and history test scores. The study involved grade 8 students in the United States and used a method that controlled student and teacher traits.

What are we to make of this finding?

Some questions immediately spring to mind.

1. The participants in the study were grade eight students.  Would the findings be the same for students in other grades?
2. The study concluded homework had or did not have a statistically significant effect on test scores?  Is the only purpose of homework to improve test scores?
3. The study was conducted on students in the United States.  Would the data be replicated in other countries with participants of  same age?
4. What is the value of homework in the art, drama, dance or music?

I’m certain there are more questions to be asked. I’m also certain  this study will encourage more research on the  topic of homework.

If you are interested in reading the research paper, you can access it here.

What questions spring to mind as you read these results?

New research concludes homework in some subjects has little or no impact. originally appeared on Teachers At Risk on May 28, 2011.