Finnish Success: Teachers-Time-Trust-(No)Tests-Class Size

As I try to capture my time and Fulbright experience, the hardest aspect to explain thoroughly and accurately is the trust of teachers.  Many have written about it, but you just have to experience it.  I  am the fortunate one to experience the trust through Fulbright -- Thanks Senator Fulbright for envisioning these international partnerships and collaboration!

In Chicago and the U.S., we need to revisit, in the long term, our preparation and training of teachers.  I will write more about that soon.  Today, I want to write about more immediate issues that individual school districts have some control over:  Time, Trust, Testing (none), & Class Size.

Time:  There is plenty of research out there about the use of time -- more time in the school day (or year) does not necessarily equate to better achievement.  It is the quality use of time, along with other factors that enable teachers to set up the opportunity for quality teaching & learning for kids.  Look at Finland -- one of the  shortest school days, but still among the top performers world wide.  Why is that?  Shorter school days, especially for younger kids, so that they maximize their attention span.  Plenty of breaks built into the school day so kids are refreshed and attentive.

Trust:  Teachers have more time built into their school days and weeks without kids in front of them so that they can (1) collaborate with colleagues, (2) prepare experiments and inquiry-based lessons, and (3) provide substantive written feedback to kids (Love this last one -- I  spend so much of my personal time providing feedback to help kids with their misconceptions). 

Tests - NO STANDARDIZED TESTS:  OK, so we will not get rid of all of the tests in the U.S. any time soon, but couldn't we eliminate half?!  If districts eliminated some of the tests they would: (1) demonstrate trust for teachers' work (google Assessment for Learning and find all the international research out there how top performing countries have given this trust to teachers with formative assesments and reduced/elminated standardized tests), (2) regain instructional time, (3) provide substantial financial savings (think of all the costs), and (4) relieve kids' stress, and much more...

Class Size:  every middle school class I visited had 18-24 students.  The teacher typically (almost always) presented the lesson or challenging  problems then circulated the classroom and checked in with each student 1, 2, or 3 times.  In this setting, it makes sense to all that these teachers know their students' strengths and needs better than I ever will.  In recent years, I have had 33, 35, and even 37 kids in a class often with special ed and ELL kids included.

I want to shout from the roof tops one of the most obvious examples of trust here and lack of trust in the U.S.  When teachers in Finland speak about what is best for kids' learning -- they are heard and even sought out by principals & policymakers.  Usually when American teachers speak out, education officials, policymakers and even some parents perceive teachers to be advocating for themselves first and not what is best for kids to be successful.  How can teachers' suggestions be more respected by the supervisors and policymakers in Chicago and the U.S.?

Narrowing Project Focus

Heidi, my advisor, took another chunk of time today to discuss the focus of my Fulbright project. The more narrow the focus, the more doable the school visit/data-collection, and thus, the more attainable the goals.

Two of the dilemmas for me as a Chicago Public School (CPS) teacher are the ever increasing number of assessments CPS district leaders have added to the instructional school year and, now, the amount of time that CPS plans to lengthen the school day in 2012-13 (7.5 hours!).

From the Finnish perspective, both of these decisions are the total opposite to the successful policies and frameworks Finland has thoughtfully and incrementally implemented over 20+ years. Finland has been deliberate not to impose frequent standardized tests and, thus, so much more time can be devoted to instruction. The classroom teacher has the responsibility (and support) to conduct diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. The schools each design and implement their own comprehensive end-of-semester evaluation. The third type of assessment is a random sample assessment conducted annually by the National Board of Education. About one fifth of the students per grade level take the national exam to gauge learning in reading, mathematics, and science. (Instructional time & schedules for another day.)

So... this disparity with assessment... I am going to dive deeper into the Effective and Efficient use of Assessment to Inform Mathematics Instruction with my school visits. How are they doing so well internationally with so few assessments? (Hmm, for science fair project colleagues and students out there... my hypothesis is: More time for instruction. Now I need to fine tune "my procedure" for the experiment.) Among the elements I plan to include are various school types, classroom observations, principal interviews, teacher interviews (before & after a lesson), and student interviews (after lessons).

Any thoughts or suggestions?