Education Lessons from Abroad

Education lessons from abroad: a tale of two countries

opposite approaches yield positive results in singapore, finland

By Celia Baker , Deseret News

Published: Sunday, Jan. 13 2013 11:42 p.m. MST

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

SALT LAKE CITY — Tan Leng Goh grew up in Singapore and remembers a strict, competitive school system focused on math and science classes built around rote drills and tests. Elena Yorgason grew up in Finland, where music, art and creative play were emphasized, and testing and competition were rare. Both women live in Salt Lake City now, and look at education in the United States through the lens of their past experiences.
Despite stark differences in educational philosophies, the two women's homelands rank near the top in international tests that compare student achievement around the globe. Those same tests reveal mediocre performance by U.S. students. That dichotomy is prompting the U.S. government to look for education ideas from abroad, and Finland and Singapore star on the list of countries being studied.

Begging, borrowing

Eila Yorgason plays for her mom, Elena Yorgason, who was taught violin as a young child in Finland. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Singapore and Finland are powerhouses of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam, which compares higher thinking skills and real-world knowledge for math, science and reading. Singapore also leads scoring on the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a subject matter test dominated by east Asian countries.
On the most recent PISA exam (2009), the United States ranked 14th in reading, 21st in science and 30th in mathematics. Results of the 2011 TIMSS, released in December 2012, showed the U.S. improving from previous results, but still just above average among 63 nations — "unacceptable," according to a statement by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Lackluster scores for U.S. students on international achievement tests is considered a dark omen for a nation that wants to remain competitive in the global marketplace, and has prompted education officials to study successful foreign models. Singapore and Finland are favorites because both countries made dramatic reforms to their education systems in recent years that brought spectacular results across their entire student populations. Duncan spoke of this at a 2011 education symposium.

Elena Yorgason's homeland is the only Western nation with consistently high rankings. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

"I wanted to know what the U.S. could learn from the practices of those high-performing and rapidly improving countries," Duncan said. "These top performing nations not only were doing a better job of accelerating achievement and attainment nationwide than America, they also were doing a better job of closing achievement gaps among minority and disadvantaged students."
Clearly, some reforms that work in smaller, more homogeneous or more prosperous nations can't be easily adapted at a national level in the U.S., Duncan said, "but, to the extent that the U.S. can copy or adapt, and beg, borrow and steal successful practices from other nations, we should do so."

Singapore's success

The success of Tan Leng Goh's homeland, Singapore, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

In the 1960s, Singapore was a developing nation unable to sustain its economy, smothered by high population growth and unemployment. Schools were merged into a single system with strong, top-down management from the nation's government. Singapore concentrated on producing a skilled labor force by grouping students into "streams" according to their academic ability, as determined by a single test administered at age 12.
Goh, 36, remembers well. Now a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah, she recalls studying hard as a child for the test that would determine her future. Her mother tutored her at home on math to help her succeed in classes and score well on the "Primary School Leaving Exam."
Goh knew the importance of the PSLE, but wasn't nervous because her parents were "pretty laid-back." Nowadays, though, a lot of stress surrounds the exam, and many families hire private tutors for PSLE preparation, Goh said.

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Her PSLE score landed Goh in Singapore's "express" stream — an accelerated track just below the stream for extremely gifted students and above the "normal" and "technical" student streams. Thereafter, she was educated with students who had scored in the same range she did, at school deemed appropriate to her natural ability, though more testing followed to determine placement within the express stream.
Like others in her stream, Goh was shunted toward math and science study. She earned an electrical engineering degree before choosing to switch to the field of exercise and sports science in adulthood. She is proud of her country's education system and has no regrets.
"Singapore is a very small country, highly urbanized and with no natural resources," Goh said. "We rely on human resources — our brain power. The government puts a lot of emphasis on math and science — a lot more than on music, art and sports."

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

In Salt Lake City, Goh is pursuing a doctoral degree in exercise and sports science, a degree not available in Singapore. She plans to return there after she completes her studies to teach what she has learned in the U.S.

Finland's anomaly

Finland, Yorgason's homeland, is the only Western nation with consistent high rankings on the PISA test and is intriguing because its education model shuns the intense competition and high-stakes testing inherent in Asian systems, focusing instead on creativity and equal education opportunities for all students.
Finland re-booted a failing education system about 30 years ago, said Amanda Ripley, an education reform researcher. In the 1950s, only 10 percent of Finnish students graduated from high school, Ripley said. The country had a long history of domination by Russia and Sweden at the time, and a troubled economy based on mining and timber.

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

"Finland's government decided that to survive as a nation, they had to move away from resource extraction and invest in people," said Leslie Winner, who visited Finland and Singapore as part of a U.S. education delegation. Winner is executive director of Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a North Carolina philanthropic group.
Finland turned its education system around, creating one that focuses on giving high-quality education opportunities to all students, without regard to socioeconomics or natural ability. That effort includes effective early intervention for students who need extra help and emphasis on teacher quality, an element that also distinguishes Singapore's system.
Yorgason, 36, is a registered dietitian with a master's degree. She said that in Finland, students aren't required to start school until age 7, and there is no push toward early reading. But education starts early — at home for those who choose, and in state-sponsored preschools for the majority.

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

By tradition, young children are taught to be independent and given a stimulating environment. And almost everyone learns to play a musical instrument and sing, Yorgason said. For her, that meant singing in choirs and becoming an accomplished violinist, a pursuit she treasures.
"That's been the backbone of my work ethic — that I started so early to do music," said Yorgason, who perpetuates Finland's customs by helping her daughter practice her violin lessons.

Teachers elevated

Traveling with the U.S. delegation that studied Singapore and Finland convinced Winner that the outstanding commonality between the two systems is a focus on teachers.
"There is a conscious effort to raise up the teaching profession," she said. "We need this attitude, too."

Eila Yorgason picks out a song Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 as she practices with her mother Elena Yorgason. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Teacher candidates in Singapore are recruited from the academic upper one-third of high school graduation classes and given full tuition and a salary while studying to become teachers. And the beginning pay for teachers is higher than that for medical doctors starting out in their field.
Finland selects its teacher candidate from the top 20 percent of college students based on entrance exam scores and pays for teacher education. Master's degrees are required for teaching, and teachers' starting salaries are consistent with starting salaries for doctors and lawyers. Yorgason said the respect accorded to teachers mirrors that for doctors and lawyers, too.
Other similarities between the education models of Singapore and Finland include cohesive national standards and a reliance on research-based practices backed up by data, Winner said.

Eila Yorgason picks out a song Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 as she practices with her mother Elena Yorgason. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Importing success

For the United States, there are obvious difficulties in trying to adopt education strategies from small countries with less poverty and ethnic diversity and more political cohesiveness and centralization.
"The tradition of local control and local financing is much stronger here than in most top-performing countries and provinces," Duncan said during a symposium speech. "The U.S. federal government does not set national standards. We have not and will not prescribe a national curriculum —and in fact we are barred by law from doing so."
Many strategies of top-performing countries can be imported, though. Every top-performing country is using data to mold instruction and improve performance, Duncan said, and that is something the United States can emulate.

Eila Yorgason picks out a song Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 as she practices with her mother Elena Yorgason. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Reforms that would be ungainly at the national level could be implemented by individual states, Ripley said, but ethnic diversity in the U.S. is often used as an excuse for discounting that chance of successfully adapting strategies that work in more homogeneous countries. And, she's not buying the excuse.
Not even "tiny New Hampshire, which is 96 percent white," has been able to improve education achievement the way Finland has, Ripley said. "You have to wonder if an individual state could do it, even if we can't make the whole country turn on a dime."
Ripley sees adoption of common core state standards by all but four U.S. states as a hopeful sign. The standards will improve achievement over time, especially in math, through focusing on greater depth of understanding for basic skills, instead of the current emphasis on shallower knowledge of a wider range of skills. Focus on depth, not breadth, is a feature of successful education systems from abroad, including Singapore's and Finland's, Ripley said.

Elena Yorgason sits with her daughter Eila Friday, Jan. 4, 2013 to practice her violin. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News, Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Strategies

Ripley's study of successful education systems from abroad has left her convinced of three strategies that could and should be imported to the U.S.:
First, raise the bar for entrance into college programs for teachers, "making the training very serious from the beginning."
Next, put more emphasis on rigorous work in U.S. schools, emphasizing quality over quantity in school assignments.
And last, improve educational equity — targeting more money and better resources toward the lowest performing and most disadvantaged kids.
"But, it's easier to say than to do," she said.

EMAIL: cbaker@desnews.com

Copyright 2013, Deseret News Publishing Company

Social Media

Felt this article had some great ideas. 

 

Seven social media objectives for 2013

publication date: Jan 8, 2013

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author/source: Patricia Tynan

 

 

January is an ideal time to reflect on the past year and identify what went well as well as what you can do to improve in the next year. When it comes to social media plans, here are seven things you must do in 2013 to maximize your social media efforts:

1. Use social media to listen
By listening to the chatter, you can discover trends that will impact your organization. Stop thinking of Twitter as another mouthpiece for your organization, and instead think of it as your discovery engine. Track #hashtags to listen to the conversation about a particular topic, follow and listen to what similar organizations are talking about, and most importantly, follow and listen to your supporters.

2. Communicate with your donors
In December 2012 Sage surveyed our nonprofit customers about their strategies for cultivating donor loyalty. When we asked, “How many times did your average donor receive communication from your organization via social media?” 40 percent of the respondents answered “None.”
We also asked if organizations recognize or acknowledge their donors in social media. Fewer than 25 percent said “Yes”. This was surprising. If your organization is going to spend time and effort creating and maintaining social profiles, then use them to communicate! Use social media to acknowledge donors, thank them and keep them up to date on the status and impact of your organization.
A recent Red Cross survey found that 68 percent of social media users take time to learn more about a charity if they see a friend posting about it. Fifty-one percent say they have more respect for a friend who posts about a charitable donation, and 39 percent said they would donate themselves.

3. Publish quality content
High-quality content is not only the key to your website’s search optimization; it is the fuel that powers social media. Your goal is to create relevant, unique, entertaining and informative content that your followers and friends will notice and share, directing more inbound links and social shares to your organization’s website in 2013.

4. Create visual content
This expands on the “publish quality content” objective. All of the major social networks love images, so use them to tell your story. Whether you use Flickr for photos or YouTube for videos, people respond well to pictures. When you incorporate visual elements into your website and social content, you increase the chance that your message will be read and shared. Facebook says that posts with photo albums produce 180 percent more engagement than others. According to the marketing gurus at Hubspot, “90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than words.” Increase the reach of your organization’s mission by communicating with pictures, videos, infographics and other visual content.

5. Count what matters
Do you feel like your social media efforts are faltering because of the number of Facebook likes or Twitter followers you have? My advice for 2013 – get over it! A large number of Facebook likes or Twitter followers isn’t necessarily a sign of success.
What does matter is that you are growing a community of people who genuinely care about your cause, are listening to what you say and most importantly, are able and willing to act on the messages you send via your social networks. Counts are easy to understand and track, but this year make a resolution to track engagement.

6. Consolidate your social media efforts
There are a number of tools to help you participate, manage and monitor all of your social media profiles from one place on the Web. In the affordable category, HootSuite and Sprout Social top my list. These tools will save you time and enable you to achieve the first five objectives.
In using a new tool to manage your social profiles you may be tempted to share the same content across all of your social profiles and pages at the same time. Don’t do it! Why?
Every social network has its own language. For your messages to be received and understood, you need to adjust your content to speak the language of each network. What’s more, each social network has a slightly different audience. Identify your audience, then tweak and time your social messages accordingly. That leads me to my final recommendation ...

7. Integrate your social media efforts
I realize this is a huge challenge for most organizations and worthy of its own article. Your social media efforts shouldn’t stand on their own or be an afterthought; they should be integrated with your organization’s communication and development plan. Is social media a component? If not, it’s time to adjust your plan. This may seem easier said than done but there are several things you can do now to improve your social media integration.
First, add social media follow icons to your website if you haven’t already. Second, include social media follow or share icons in all your email communications. Once these two things are complete, identify your major events or fundraising campaigns. Events are inherently social, so they are ideal for social media integration. Brainstorm all the ways you can incorporate social media before, during and after your event. For example:

• Use Twitter and Facebook to send “save the date” messages or to recognize event sponsors as they commit.
• Your online fundraising tool may enable attendees to share the event with their social networks as they register.
• Alternatively, you can collect registrations via Facebook Events instead of hosting a registration page. You can then use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Google + to share the event in real time.
• After the event, use your social networks to thank supporters and continue the buzz by posting photos on Facebook or videos on YouTube.

Integration is essential for a successful social media program. Everything – from your blog to Facebook posts to Pinterest pins – must work together to support your organizational or campaign goals.
I’m sure social media is just one of the many priorities your organization has for 2013, so I kept this list short. It’s better to start with a few achievable objectives rather than fail because you have taken on too much at once.
Patricia Tynan is Social Media and Community Manager for Sage Nonprofit Solutions. She is responsible for Sage Nonprofit Solutions social media strategy and cultivating the company’s online presence through internal and external communities. Patricia is a volunteer and serves on the board of directors for Front Steps, a nonprofit working to end homelessness in Austin, Texas, and on the board of the Central Texas World Future Society.
Patricia holds an M.T. in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston and a BA in Government from The University of Texas in Austin.

A Good Name--A Priceless Possession

I listened this morning to the BYU Devotional speech that Sharon Samuelson gave September 14, 2004: A Good Name--A Priceless Possession.  Although this speech has an LDS context, I feel that we can learn much about the importance of only doing those things that not only bring honor to our personal names, but also to Esperanza. 
http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=1374

Expectations

Marvin Marshall had this in his newletter I received today. 



Rainier Scholars is a project for low-income students in
Seattle, Washington that recruits 5th graders and has them
attend full-time summer school plus weekend classes. The
goal is to see them through college graduation.

Drego Little, one of the teachers, visualizes his young
students as future doctors, city councilmen, and other
responsible, successful grownups. He says, "I treat them as
if they were going to be consequential people--and work back
from there. If you treat them as if they actually have a
future, they tend to have one." He wants to give his
students expectations early in their lives.

David McCullough in his masterful book, "JOHN ADAMS,"
reports that the second president of the United States used
the same technique when he was teaching school. "I can
discover all the geniuses, all the surprising actions and
revolutions of the great world in miniature. I have several
renowned generals but three feet high, and several
deep-projecting politicians in petticoats. I have others
catching and dissecting flies, accumulating remarkable
pebbles, cockleshells, etc. with as ardent curiosity as any
virtuoso as in the Royal Academy...." (page 38)

Perhaps Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stated it best, "If you
treat someone as he is, he will stay as he is. But if you
treat him as if he were what he could and ought to be, he
will become what he could and ought to be."

If you ask someone the key to success in real estate, you
will hear the following response: location, location,
location. With education, a critical approach of the
superior teacher is expectation, expectation, expectation.

Notice, however, that  expectations starts with a person's
own expectations.

Leadership

 

Ken Blanchard is one of my leadership mentors--via books. 

Remarks from a Leadership Thought Leader

By Tommy Moore in on January 09, 2013

Remarks from a Leadership Thought Leader

By Tommy Moore, COO, Lead Like Jesus

While in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently, Phyllis Hendry (president/CEO of Lead Like Jesus) and I had the incredible blessing of hearing Ken Blanchard, Lead Like Jesus co-founder, speak twice on the same day. We also attended a small private lunch for Ken, where he spoke again.
Listening to Ken speak three times in one day gave us a real window into one of the great thought leaders of our day. While he said many meaningful things, what impacted me most were his thoughts about organizational leadership.
Basically, Ken said that it’s not complicated: Beliefs inform behavior, which drives results. Pretty straightforward!
He broke it down a little more by saying that beliefs are comprised of three elements:

• Vision—a compelling picture of our future
• Mission—our why; why do what we do, and what difference it will make
• Values—what guides us and what gives evidence to that which is our highest importance

Behaviors flow from our beliefs. Specifically, our values inform our decision-making process, which in turn is demonstrated by our behavior (what we do). Ken shared the five core values of Disney, taken from their 1955 handbook:

1. No cynicism allowed
2. Fanatical attention to consistency and detail
3. Continuous progress via creativity, dreams, and imagination
4. Fanatical control and preservation of Disney’s “magic” image
5. “To bring happiness to millions” and to celebrate, nurture, and promulgate “wholesome American values”

Walt Disney’s mission: “We are in the happiness business. We will know we are successful when people leave with the same smile they arrived with.” If you have ever been to a Disney theme park, you have experienced the congruence of these statements.

Ken pointed out to the audience how important it is to remember the phrase “We will know we are successful when…” It’s a great guide for behavior.

For me, coming from an entrepreneurial and strategic planning background, it all culminates with results. There is a famous Japanese proverb that I’m recording here as I first learned it:

“Vision without action is daydreaming. Action without vision is chaos.

Vision with action can change the world.”

Ken said that his company, the Ken Blanchard Companies, did some research on the value and importance of operational and strategic planning. To those who are involved in implementation, a solid operational plan represents 85 percent of the importance of having a plan. This isn’t meant to minimize the importance of strategic planning, but it raises the importance of an operational plan to go with it.

As we enter the New Year, I challenge you to consider clarifying with your stakeholders your beliefs, behaviors, and results for maximum impact in 2013.

Checklists

I finished reading a fascinating book--The Checklist Manifesto--by Atul Gawande.  The concepts in this book support Harry Wong's word about the importance of procedures.  The following are some excerpts from the book. 

#1  They [checklists] remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit.  They not only offer the possibility of verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance. 

#2  First, how could they be sure that they had the right knowledge in hand?  Second, how could they be sure they were applying this knowledge correctly?

#3  ...under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, but they are required for success.  There must always be room for judgment, but judgment added--and even enhanced--by procedure.

#4  Good checklists, ..., are precise.  They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations.  They do not try to spell out everything...Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps--the ones that even highly skilled professionals using them could miss.  Good checklists are, above all, practical. 

#5  We don't like checklists.  They can be painstaking.  They're not much fun...It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment.  It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us--those we aspire to be--handle situations of high stakes and complexity.  The truly great are daring.  They improvise.  They do not have protocols and checklists.
Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.

#6  The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol is rigidity.  They imagine mindless automatons, heads down in a checklist...But what you find, when a checklist is well made, is exactly the opposite.  The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way, the routines your brain shouldn't have to occupy itself with...

#7  All learned occupations have a definition of professionalism, a code of conduct... they all have at least three common elements.  First, is an expectation of selfessness...Second is an expectation of skill: that we will aim for excellence in our knowledge and expertise.  Third is an expectation of trustworthiness: that we will be responsible in our personal behavior toward our charges. 
Aviators, however, add a fourth expectation, discipline:  discipline in following prudent procedure and in functioning with others...
Discipline is hard...We are not built for discipline.  We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail.  Discipline is something we have to work at.

Differentiate

Barbara Glanz shared this on Facebook:  “Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”" Robert Louis Stevenson

Julia Hobbs, a dear friend, who was an educator and my roommate for a number of years said about her students, "I take them from were they are to where they aren't." 

We differentiate at Esperanza because everyone is at a different place.