標題: Q. Your latest publication 92 [打印本頁] 作者: hmctekvz 時間: 2016-12-26 19:21 標題: Q. Your latest publication 92
Tony Wagner is co movie director of the Change in Leadership Collection at the Harvard Graduate Education of Education. He also serves within the faculty of the Executive Management Program for Educators, a joint initiative of the Harvard Masteral School of Education, Business Education and Kennedy School of Government.
The new book is "The World Achievement Gap: Why Possibly Our Best Schools Don't Educate The New Survival Skills Our little ones Need And What We Can Carry out About It."He was interviewed by means of Deputy Editorial Page Editor Betty Lantor Fandel.
Q. Your latest e book, "The Global Achievement Gap,In claims that even the best universities are not necessarily giving individuals the skills they need to succeed in a nicely competitive knowledge economy. A person say it's not that educational facilities are failing; it's that they will be obsolete. Why haven't Our country's elected leaders done one thing about this? And why isn't the American public outraged?
Your. The American public will not be outraged because they don't know what is going on in classrooms. To the degree kids come home from school worrying it's boring, parents claim, "That's they way it was after i was a kid." They cannot necessarily have high objectives.
In terms of policymakers, we have been went down the wrong road Woolrich Canada for 25 years. We have been focused on talk about standards. The problem comes with the meaning of standards. What we have done is actually create content standards. Your thinking is if students master more content, they will be superior prepared for college and professions. That is the fallacy.
Mastering more content doesn't equate to more competency. For example, there's a lot of recall skills in science, pick every science class. The research is extremely clear that breadth of scientific exposure in high school does not prepare students for faculty. Only when you go into articles in some depth do you continue to understand conceptually what science is. A student should design plus conduct a study, analyze the outcomes and present them.
Q. Considering the fact that assessments drive what's shown, how should testing become changed in this country?
The. First of all, we have to be distinct about the competencies that issue most for college, careers as well as citizenship. Students can know loads of content, and not be competent. As we understand there is a core set of competencies such as the ability to understand complex material, write properly, the ability to ask questions then you have to design tests to measure those knowledge. Those tests already are available. One is PISA [the Program of International Student Assessment, administered because of the Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], which includes a problem solving test. Another inside the Collegiate Learning Assessment.
Small wrinkle is they are more expensive when compared with computer scored tests. And we all have to rethink accountability. We cannot test every single student with your more expensive forms of assessment not do we need to. We will must take a method widely used in European union that audit student capabilities by testing a demographically representative sample of students. Then, your district should be held responsible with regard to assessing every student in opposition to standards established with the audits.
E. The seven survival capabilities you say all students ought to learn boil down to teaching scholars how to think. Schools have already been talking about teaching critical contemplating skills for more than a decade. The reason hasn't this idea taken have?
A. I think most educators, parents and employers don't get the importance of critical thinking. Nowadays, every young person who wants to get and keep a good job inside new knowledge economy is required to be able to think critically. There has been a lot of conservative pushback since the early on 1990s, [contending] that critical contemplating is too fuzzy. Therefore, it isn't really tested. If it's not tested, it certainly can't be taught.
Q. You have observed that in countries like Finland, a teaching profession has been reinvented. How has this been executed?
A. I interviewed Andreas Schleicher in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development about that. He stated they have transformed teaching through an assembly line worker's job to a knowledge worker's job, and from a task that you do alone to a occupation that you do in a team. They have got made the job more basically rewarding and challenging.
T. If this country could place a great teacher in every college class, would large gaps around educational equity among institutions virtually disappear?
A. Perfectly, I don't think it's only an excellent teacher. That would make a difference. Self image is also greatly important. By a young age, generally eighth and ninth qualities, kids have divided on their own into two categories: winners and losers. The kids who determine themselves as losers are usually disproportionately poor and of minority population. It's partly pervasive racism in our society, and they have come to imagine because of school culture and also poverty that they are inferior. Thus unless you address that terrible self image, it's going to be very much, much harder to close the good results gap.
And there's the issue involving parental involvement. A good tutor helps kids believe in on their own. A good teacher also engages parents, and helps them recognize how they can help their kids learning.
Q. Should educator education programs at colleges and universities be a little more selective about which applicants they admit?
A. Once again, that's what Finland did. It's incredibly important, but it's a little bit of a chicken and egg thing. To create more selectivity, you have to raise the reputation of the profession. And to do that, you should change the working conditions. We are frequently losing the most proficient young people from the profession.
R. Does that include raising starting up teacher salaries?
A. Of course. In many states, it's very, small. But it's also the kind of education and support beginning professors get. They often are given the hardest classes, and [virtually] no aid.
Q. Should we change the approach we take to evaluate teachers?
A. Unquestionably. We need to have real opinions. Today, most teachers are thought above average. Very few are refused tenure. Even in private universities, it is rare when professors get fired. We need to think about different standard for period, if we have tenure in the least. The professional development supplied now in most districts is definitely spray and pray. It isn't strategic. It's not systematic. It's not collaborative. We need videotaping of instructions.
Q. Is the Obama administration heading in the right direction about education policy?
A. It can be too soon to say. I've listened to good sounding words with the president and the secretary of education. But I wonder if they really understand or know that what gets tested is actually all that gets taught. We must transform our accountability systems if we want to see real improvements inside the classroom.
