Greg Cairnduff, M Ed, BA Dip Ed, MACE, Deputy Managing Editor.

As we come to the end of year 2012 [BE 2555] it is a time of reflection on what has happened in the year that is about to pass into history. Here at SCLThailand we can look back and see that many contributors have helped us throughout the year, willingly giving their time and their expertise to us and we hand that on to our readers in both Thai and English, our hope is that this web site is helping teachers in Thai schools to prepare their students for the flat interconnected world that they will enter on leaving the Thai education system. In just two more years the Asia Pacific Economic community will be in place with English language being the language of communication, Thai students will be competing with students from other South East Asian countries for a role in this economic community.

Apart from the ability to speak English there are many other skills that will provide a competitive edge for those who work in companies and organisations that are members of APEC. The capacity to think independently, to work as a member of a team and to have a high level of IT skill will be essential for participating APEC.

Thai teachers have a responsibility to develop these skills and capacities in those they teach. We are trying help with ideas and practical suggestions. This month’s feature article by our regular contributors Dr Don Jordan and Ms Ellen Cornish is a good example of what we are trying to do. Their article on Concept Mapping in a Child Centred Classroom provides practical examples of how this approach assists the development of thinking skills in students.

We trust our readers will enjoy the article.

On behalf of the Board of Management of SCLT, I wish all of our readers a very peaceful Christmas – New Year Season, and we hope that the New Year will bring success to all teachers as they endeavour to develop more student centred approaches in their class rooms.

Best wishes to all

Greg Cairnduff,

December 2012

Greg is Director of the Australian International School of Bangkok

By Peter J.Foley, Ed.D.

This month’s feature article describes exceptional places where students learn entrepreneurial skills.

These places and schools in Germany are exceptional. Teaching young people how to survive in business is not taught in schools here in Thailand or in most schools in the world. Strange, isn’t it? A great percentage of those who go to our schools will end up in business or working for a business. Yet, schools give us little or no preparation for what will be our likely livelihoods.

One happy exception was my brother Michael’s experience in a New York public school in the sixth grade back in the 1950’s.  The teacher was a progressive educator named Dr. Candreva. He taught the whole class how to be entrepreneurs and how to raise money for a business venture. He had the class set up a school supply and snack store from scratch. Students were offered stock in the store. With money from the stock sale the students bought school supplies, candy and other sale items. As the store progressed selling more and more goods to the other students in the school, the sixth grade students could sell their stock at whatever the going price might be in terms of the store’s profitability. My brother, Mike, is dyslexic. Up to that time he had little interest in school. Suddenly he could not wait to get to school. He quickly understood that the stock in the store would go up linearly and bought almost all the other students’ stock in the store giving them a modest profit even though the store was only in existence a month when Mike started buying the other students’ stock. At the end of the year Mike was reaping many times over his original investments. Mike went on the make a fortune in the stock market before he reached thirty years old.   He credits Dr. Candreva for lighting the spark that ignited his whole, successful business career.

You might think that other teachers who witnessed this successful teaching of entrepreneurial skills would want to follow Dr. Candreva’s lead. But that is not what happened. Teachers were told that such experiments might be interesting, even successful as was the case of Dr. Candreva sixth grade class, but teachers had to first concentrate on the New York State curriculum. Only then could they do “experiments” such as Dr. Candreva’s school store—and of course such “experiments” could only operate during lunch breaks and after school activities time.

Our feature article, “Learning in the Market”,  provides many other splendid examples of student centered activities that provide opportunities to learn entrepreneurship. In the October 18, 2012 edition of the Nation newspaper, the columnist Suthichai Yoon complained that the I.Q scores for Thai children in 38 provinces were on average below 100, they had not changed from this low ebb for more than a decade. This month’s SCLThailand article complains of dull classrooms in Germany.  How much duller are those classrooms in Thailand! The SCLThailand web site has advocated in the last 18 months for radical changes in the conducting of classes in Thailand throughout public sector education. Away from rote learning and toward student centered education marked by problem solving using activity based learning.

What better way to start real education reform in Thailand than by introducing as part of the curriculum teaching skills in a real business context to our youth?  Such interventions will go a long way to making Thailand more competitive in business and trade well into the 21^st century. It will also hone the problem solving skills of Thai youth and in the process their IQ’s and E.Q.’s.

We agree with Suthichai Yoon that the educational future of Thai children being taught in public schools does not look good and that a key to reform is teacher education. Introducing how to teach entrepreneurial skill through activity based learning would be a giant step towards improving educational outcomes for students and the nation.

By Greg Cairnduff M Ed BA Dip ED MACE, Deputy Managing Director.

This web site was established to assist Thai teachers in various aspects of teaching and learning, with heart of our mission being the desire to contribute  to the growth of student centred practices in Thai schools. We make no attempt to blame shame or make excuses for the way most Thai teachers work in their schools.

Thai teachers need not think that the improvement focus is on them alone. There is a vast quantity of meta data providing a body of evidence on the importance of the teacher as the key factor in both whole school and individual student performance in achieving high educational outcomes.

I want to let Thai teachers know that in other countries, my own country, Australia, being one, there is strong debate in educational, political and community circles about the performance of schools and education systems being judged against such testing regimes such as the OECD’s PISA and other tests. Many respected educational researchers and commentators see such judgements as being too simplistic, frequently, international league tables of educational performance fail to see what is wrong in the so called “high performing” countries and what is going well in those countries that struggle to get on the table [1]. The article in the Brisbane Times [footnoted here] by Professor Peter Welsh from Sydney University is well worth reading. Professor Welsh warns against placing too much importance on the international league tables.

I want to emphasise to Thai teachers who read our web site they are not alone in their struggle to do better. There are thousands of dedicated teachers around the world trying to improve the way they teach and in so doing, improve the educational outcomes of their students.

In my own professional journey in education, I have been strongly influenced by the work of the great US educator, Theodore Sizer, particularly his book, Horace’s Compromise[2]. First published in 1984, this best-selling educational classic is Sizer’s call to arms for school reform. While much has changed for the better in the classroom, much remains the same, rushed classes, mindless tests, overworked teachers are still prevalent. Sizer’s insistence that we do more than just compromise for our children’s educational futures resonates with reformers just as strongly today as it did two decades ago.  That is how I feel anyway.

For those who do not know, the Horace in the title of the book is a veteran high school teacher [of English] in his mid 50’s. People ask him whether or not he is thinking of retirement – golf, travel, hobbies etc.  But the impressive reply Horace gives to the enquirers is: “I cannot retire yet. I have to learn to be a better teacher” What an inspirational response! That is what teaching and learning improvement is all about – always trying to do better.

One of my favourite Paul Simon songs, Kodachrome, [1974] [3] has the following opening lyrics: “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder
I can think at all”   Startling ? Simon was quite right, considering the teaching and curriculum of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

But I wonder if Paul Simon had been in high school in 2012, would he have had the “inspiration” to write the same or similar lyrics? I hope the answer would be no, but maybe some students of these times would say “yes” and that poses a problem for education in the 21^st century.

I suspect that in Paul Simon’s education there may not have been time for the students to be encouraged to be curious. The set curriculum was the driver of teachers’ work.

A recent book by Paul Tough, How Children Succeed [4], examines child development and the growing body of knowledge which provides new ways and strategies for parents and teachers to develop the potential of those they teach. Tough says of this developing knowledge, “What matters most in a child’s development ……. is not how much information we can stuff into her brain in the first few years.  What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self confidence.” His is refreshing new way to look at educational development and strongly supports a move away from and emphasis on testing of knowledge to the development of character in the students. In the list of the non cognitive skills mentioned above, it is the inclusion of the development of curiosity that is truly relevant to our main article for this month which is on questioning.

Isn’t it great when students ask questions? Just the other day a small boy said to me – “Mr Greg where does rain come from?” another said to me “Do you know why balsa wood is so light?”  To have students asking such questions can fill a teacher’s heart with joy. Children are naturally curious and curiosity engages learning.

The simple question, “why is it so?” became the powerful stock phrase of the  American physicist, Professor Julius Sumner Miller who in his own science based TV series, aroused deep curiosity in a generation of people in Australia, USA and Canada,. In Australia his long running TV show “Why is it so?”   was broadcast weekly from 1963 to 1986. Not many popular TV programs enjoy such a long run.

This month’s three part article by Melvin Freestone on the use of questions and questioning provides teachers with an approach far different from the pedagogy which “inspired” the opening lines of Kodachrome.

Melvin has deep expertise in education and wide experience as a teacher, school principal, consultant and author in education. Melvin has worked in Australia, India, Nepal and Thailand on curriculum design aimed at moving teachers to using strategies which focus on teaching for understanding. Melvin’s article will help teachers in using, and teaching students to use different questioning techniques.

 Readers will find Melvin’s article strongly relevant to the student centred classroom.

By Greg Cairnduff M Ed BA Dip ED MACE, Deputy Managing Director.

Improving teacher quality is an essential element in ensuring successful and productive learning outcomes for all students. Teacher quality and teacher performance are well documented and thoroughly researched as the key elements in achieving high performing schools.

In those countries that score well in the PISA tests for example, teacher quality and teacher development is seen as the critical factor in the achievement of such high performance.

The question arises about the key factors to ensure that teachers are effective. Research demonstrates that choosing the right people to become teachers is one of these factors [McKinsey 2006][1] and other data [Grattan Institute 2102][2] shows that in highest  performing systems in Asia – Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and South Korea, there is a strong link between teachers and their ongoing learning in relationship to their development as effective teachers.

The question which is looked at by Dr Peter Foley in the main article this month is about assessing teacher performance – although Peter is referring to a system of performance assessment in an Asian country, it is evident that as education systems, schools and the teaching profession grapple with the changes that are needed in the electronic era, the profession and systems are looking at better ways to assess teacher performance.

The terminology for assessing teachers varies, terms like “teacher appraisal”, “performance management”, performance review” are among these terms. In my own context as a school Director responsible for 75 staff, we use the term “professional review” and the process used is a triangulated, collaborative process.

It seems to me that regardless of the process or the terminology, there are certain important starting points. The first of these is that there should always be a set of professional standards for teachers against which effectiveness can be judged, secondly, schools and professional bodies need to have a view of what qualities and competencies are required for teachers to be considered an effective teacher.

I am aware that in Australia the endeavour to enhance teacher performance and teacher development, one survey [OECD] indicated that 63% of Australian teachers reported that feedback on their work was mostly done to fulfill administrative requirements.

I wonder what such a survey would indicate if it was conducted with Thai teachers? Would a survey show that there is and professional feed back at all? Would it indicate that feedback that is given is of a high quality and that it enhances performance?

Whatever system of teacher professional review is used it ought to be a worthwhile process which is well regarded by teachers and is part of a performance and development culture that has a clear focus on improving teaching and learning as this is what improves student learning outcomes.

Such a system has some fundamental requirements for teachers.

• They must know what is expected of them
• They must receive useful and frequent feedback on their teaching
• They must have access to support that helps them improve their practice

This may be all very well for Australia, but is it possible to achieve a culture of performance and development in Thai schools?

I will leave our Thai readers to comment and debate this question, I believe that having such a culture widespread throughout Thai education is essential to systemic and therefore, national educational improvement.

Since our last op ed article, here in Thailand government schools have begun first semester of the new school year.

Just prior to start of the school year, in Bangkok one famous government school was in the news because Year 9 students and their parents were on a hunger   strike outside the school. This was because the students were not being allowed to continue into the senior years [10,11 and 12], as they had failed the entry test to these senior years of the school, and students from other schools who had successfully passed the test, had taken their places. This action made headlines in the Bangkok news. A resolution was eventually found, although I am not sure if all parties were satisfied. At about the same time, I read in an Australian education journal of  dissatisfaction expressed by academics and teachers with the national literacy and numeracy tests [Education Review, May 2012]. The critics claim that the testing regime and the expectations of government is causing teachers to teach to the test and therefore, the tests are determining what is being taught, rather than things being the other way around.

  We also hear regularly about the performance of different nations in aggregated international assessments such as the PISA [Performance Indicators of Student Achievement] or the TIMMS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science] assessments.

These two separate pieces of information from two very different education systems and some recently published data based on PISA and TIMMS results [ Grattan Institute: Catching Up, Learning From the Best Systems in East Asia, February, 2012]  set me to thinking about testing and assessment of students.

The purposes of schooling changed in the late 20^th Century, and in these first decades of the 21^st Century. Much has been written about this, but one theme that always comes through, is that in the Information Age, schools, school systems, and those who work in them – teachers and the policy makers must do all they can to move assessment systems from being used to “sort and select” students to a system which develops students into thinkers and life – long learners.

One transition that must occur in schools [and is occurring in the most progressive schools], is that the nature of learning has move from the students being regarded as passive receivers of information who must remember and respond to this information in tests of rote learning where the right answers must be given. The move must be to a system, which views students in a different way, to a view of students being active learners, problem solvers and thinkers, using their knowledge and being independent learners.

Such a transition changes the general principles of the way student learning is assessed.

The system of assessment should contribute to their learning. It needs to involve certain basic principles such as  the provision of different opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and can do in relation to a particular theme or unit of work. There should have an element of peer and self assessment; there ought to be negotiation of how they will demonstrate their learning; they should know exactly what it is they are being assessed on, and there ought to be more than one opportunity for students to meet the requirements of their assessment.

Assessment with these elements will contribute to learning much more than assessment of ability to recall facts.

Ellen Cornish and Don Jordan have contributed and article on assessment to SCLT. The examples they provide respond to these elements and they also show that assessment is more than training students to remember information.

What do our readers think?

Greg Cairnduff

I am always attracted to schools as I travel around, whether in Thailand or in other countries. Why? I guess it is because I wonder what the experience of education is like for the children in the schools.

Travelling in three rural provinces of Southern Thailand recently, I admired the spectacular scenery of the off shore islands and rich tropical forests with limestone peaks jumping out of them. As I passed through larger towns and I noted the high schools, which always seemed to be near the main road and passing between small villages I saw local primary schools, all quiet and , bare of students at this time of the year, because April is the main part of Thai schools’ summer holiday.

Can a passing glance from a car tell one much about what it is like to be a student in any school? Of course it cannot. As I observed these schools, I soon came to realise that they all looked much the same – the large high schools had similar architecture and the design of the smaller schools were all much the same. There were differences in the way the playgrounds were kept and if paint work is used as the standard of judgment, the quality of the maintenance of the buildings. Such observations of schools would also be true in other countries.

The only way to gain an insight into the learning experience of the students who attend a school, is to actually spend some time in the school, in classrooms with teachers and students. External looks can be deceiving – a school which looks a bit run down or looks the same in design as hundreds of other schools, does not really tell one much about the experience of learning that is occurring in the school.

In this month’s edition of SCLThailand our Managing Editor has submitted an article called “The caring classroom” it is about a school in Pakistan. The photographs in that story as well as the commentary, tell us that although the school and the students are very poor, the learning experience in the school is child centred and appears to be a rich experience.

What I am getting at here is related to the theme we have taken up in previous Op Ed commentary. That is the inescapable fact that student – centred learning is strongly dependent on the pedagogical skills of the teachers.

That is not to say that the physical and educational resources of a school are not important, they are important, but the style and quality of the teaching is by far much more important.

This photograph, sent from Pakistan by our Managing Editor, Dr Peter Foley, shows the active involvement of the teacher and the engagement of the students in a school which is not much more than a tent. Please make sure you read the article on the “Caring School”.

Around the world, there are architectural companies that specialize in school design. These companies design some wonderfully innovative schools. Often their work is for wealthier governments and private school owners and developers.

One such architectural company based in Florida, USA which has designed schools around the world in both the economically advanced world and the less economically advanced world, has published a book about their work [The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools by Nair, P., and  Fielding, R., published by DesignShare.com]. The wonderful thing about this book is the first chapter looks at different modes of learning and this says much about the architects’ thinking.

A good example of their conceptual thinking is that in most schools designed by this company, they include what they call the “camp fire space”.

This is the interesting concept of providing a space in the school which is not unlike a campfire. The architects are not suggesting an actual campfire, but a space where teacher and students can gather and do what usually happens around a campfire. They can [metaphorically] gaze at the stars and dream of the way problems can be resolved or the teacher can use the space to provoke student discussion about big and generative questions. The campfire space becomes a  place where curiosity can be encouraged and dreams can be formed.

I don’t think it would be hard to form such “campfire” sites in schools that have not been recently designed. The hard thing is to inspire teachers to use this method of teaching.

Just going back to my comments about traditional looking schools, student centred education is not about architecture or the level of technology, it is about the attitudes and approaches of the teachers and those who lead and support them.  

What do our readers think?

Greg Cairnduff,

Deputy Managing Editor.