Facts vs Thinking

About a week ago the Ottawa Citizen published an editorial called "In Defence of Facts". In it, the argument goes roughly that you cannot have good thoughts unless you start with facts.

It is not that I dislike facts. I have a very good memory and I know tonnes of facts. It is one of the reasons I was a good student in school and it is a small part of my strengths as a teacher. The problem I have is the idea that students cannot do anything useful until they know all the facts. A couple of months ago I was reading a book called Making Learning Whole by David Perkins. Perkins is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. One of Perkins' first points is that one simple way of trying to approach complexity by teaching the elements (typically the facts) first and fitting them together later. The problem is that this approach leaves the learner wondering what the point of learning all these facts is. They get told "you will need this later", as if that is actually going to motivate a learner. The end result is that most learners in this method compartmentalize their learning and fail to make useful connections later when they actually need all those facts.

This leads to the second problem, which is that teaching facts to our children is not going to get the job done. There are enormous numbers of Chinese and Indian children learning facts in their schools just as well as our students learn their facts . Since these Asian learners are willing to work for less money than our learners, learning facts will not let our children compete in the new global environment. To compete with China and India and the other emerging nations Canada must focus on value above and beyond the knowledge of facts. Thomas Friedman makes this quite clear in his book, The World is Flat. Creativity, problem solving, entrepreneurship, and other skills that raise people above the average in their professions are the kinds of skills that Canadians need to succeed in the flat world that is happening right now.

If we want our children to succeed, we need education that works with big ideas, that helps students learn to make connections, be creative, solve problems, and more. Fixating on facts will only create a Canada where fewer and fewer of our learners are able to compete and win against the massive numbers of students in Asia.

Friedman on the link between education and the American Depression

I just read a piece by Thomas Friedman called "The New Untouchables" where he links the weakness of the American education system to the Depression they are currently experiencing. (For the Americans it is a capital D Depression, it seems.)

Friedman says:
Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

This is why our schools have to keep trying to improve. Even though the media and a lot of the public scream when the schools and boards try and adopt more modern methods of assessment and evaluation, we (teachers and other educators) have to keep trying to make good changes, even if the changes seem too "newfangled" to the casual observer. Going back to the "tried and true" methods of education is not going to work because we live in a different world now.

I did not realize the money situation was this bad

I just read a piece by Roger Martin talking about how funding for education in Canada, and particularly Ontario has been lagging compared to the US.

Martin's comments about how governments typically choose to consume current prosperity rather than investing in future prosperity is very interesting. I had not looked at policy choices in those terms before. It is an informative way to look at policy. Obviously it is a bit too sacrificial to solely invest in future prosperity, but just as obviously it is blind and selfish to solely choose to consume current prosperity.

I knew that Mike Harris had screwed over teachers as much as he possibly could, but I did not realize the degree to which education cuts have put us in a bad position. The new flat world means that we need knowledgeable citizens. If we fall behind in the knowledge economy, our children or grandchildren will be limited to working as call center reps answering technical questions for the really well educated people in India and China.

Friedman on the "New Sputnik"

Another post not directly related to education, but I think this issue is going to change the world soon, so we better start thinking about it.

Thomas Friedman (author of The World is Flat) recently wrote a column about China's move towards green technologies.

I was struck by a couple of Friedman's points. First, he says "China’s leaders, mostly engineers, wasted little time debating global warming. They know the Tibetan glaciers that feed their major rivers are melting." The contrast with our leaders, who are lawyers and economists, jumps out at me.

Then Friedman adds "But they also know that even if climate change were a hoax, the demand for clean, renewable power is going to soar as we add an estimated 2.5 billion people to the planet by 2050, many of whom will want to live high-energy lifestyles. In that world, E.T. — or energy technology — will be as big as I.T., and China intends to be a big E.T. player."

The bottom line is that countries that want to be important in the world in 2050 had better set up their political, education, and economic systems to produce and support energy efficiency and renewable energies. Countries that do not will be the Third World countries of the mid-21st century.

The world is catching up

Well, you can sure tell which days I am not supply teaching. If you need a hint, try looking for days with multiple posts. :)

Anyway..., I was looking at some information from Statistics Canada on educational attainment, the percentage of people who have obtained a university degree. The good news is that "Canada surpassed 23 of the 30 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2007 regarding the proportion of its population aged 25 to 64 that had a university degree." Further good news is that more young Canadians are getting university educations than older Canadians did, 29% of Canadians aged 25 to 34 versus 21% of Canadians aged 55 to 64.

The bad news is that though our attainment rates are rising, they are not rising as fast as those in other countries. The 21% rate for ages 55 to 64 ranks us fourth out of thirty but the 29% for the age 25 to 34 bracket only ranks us twelfth out of 30. Other countries are catching up. This is worrisome.

Even more worrisome to me is that China and India, with about 20% of the world's population combined, are not listed because they are not members of the OECD. How fast are their university graduation rates rising?

All this makes me feel even more strongly that our education system has to keep working towards fully educating every student. Competition for jobs and opportunities is now world-wide because of the "flattening" of the world (read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman if you want to know more). We cannot afford to be in the position of having a population where a larger percentage than other countries cannot compete for jobs and opportunities because of a lack of education.