My life has revolved around public education in the United States for the last 35+ years. After struggling with the decision, my husband completed his education in elementary education, and taught upper elementary students for over 25 years. I have watched, through his experience, the public education system wrestle with what the best teaching practices should be. Sometimes there were yearly changes in what was required. Names of programs changed. But the problems would remain the same. I watched teachers become frustrated with bureaucratic encroachment into the classroom. I saw dynamic teachers, who used to have exciting and engaging classrooms, reduced to bland information spewers, restrained by national and state standards, their creativity and excitement in teaching disappearing. If teacher excitement and creativity was waning, what was happening to that of their students?
The government was seeking to develop accomplished students, but how could they know if the students were becoming as "educated" as they desired? Surely the answer was to increase testing, which would embody a measurable standard against which students could be judged! And if students could be judged by how they score on a test, then wouldn't those scores also reflect how effective the teachers were in the classroom? Education departments developed a system of rewards and punishments that were meant to be incentives to raise test scores, thus creating "smarter" students.
The problem with the "testing for success" model, inspired by testing success in East Asia, is that it is based on a cultural model that works in that part of the world, but is foreign to American cultural sense. The Asian model relies on a "collectivistic" frame of reference, where group values (such as achieving high test scores to bring honor to the group) take a central role. An American-type cultural model is more "individualistic," seeing education as more independent, a way to learn what you need to learn to help you to reach your goals. With an individualistic frame of reference, children would be encouraged to learn at their own pace, ask questions, and express opinions about what they are learning. These things are not part of an Asian educational setting. ("Essential Tools...")
By comparison, the Asian educational model "is very effective in 'eliminating individual differences, suppressing intrinsic motivation, and imposing conformity,'" all collectivistic values. Rather than choice in what to study, Chinese schools "[transmit] a narrow band of predetermined contend and [cultivate] prescribed skills" (Yong Zhao, quoted in Diane Ravitch).
In her article, historian Diane Ravitch quotes Zhao's point that Chinese students "fall short" on "creativity, originality, divergence from authority." In this, the students are following the collectivist playbook. She comments that, "We should break our addiction to standardized testing before we sacrifice the cultural values that have made our nation a home to innovation, creativity, originality, and invention."
I have seen the effects of the "experiment" in education that a constant stream of testing has wrought: a decline in teacher morale; less opportunities for creativity in the classroom; bored and stressed students.
In an interview, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson described the need to allow children to experience the individualistic educational values of questioning and experimenting. His ideas are worth consideration.
What works in a collectivistic culture may not work in one that is individualistic. Creativity, imagination, and the freedom to question and explore are all important aspects of education that I enjoyed as a student. I hope that we can return them to our schools.
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"Essential Tools -- Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Implications for Transition Personnel, Part III -- Continuum of 'Individualistic' and 'Collectivistic' Values," http://www.ncset.org/publications/essentialtools/diversity/partIII.asp
Diane Ravitch, "The Myth of Chinese Super Schools," https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/myth-chinese-super-schools/
Yong Zhao, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World
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