While the Minister of Education in New Brunswick tinkers with the school system and abolishes Early French Immersion, [more info here] the Finns are quietly ensuring a high quality education system for all. Via Sara Bennett, is this post on lessons to be learned from the Finnish school system. The highlights, in my opinion:

School doesn’t start until age 7, but a government funded preschool program concentrates on self-reflection and social behaviour:

It is interesting to note that one of the most notable attributes of Finnish children is their level of personal responsibility. The early focus on self-reflection is seen as a key component for developing that level of responsibility towards learning.

The Finns realize that 50% of students are above average while 50% are below average in academic proficiency, so there is a vocational and university track in high school, and neither is stigmatized. Separation does not happen until the 9th year, and there is little grading in earlier years. Attendance at universities and polytechnics is free.

I’ve listened to the French immersion debate and have been involved from several perspectives, but I’m coming to realize that EFI is not the issue. Is our government spending time and money on the symptoms of our sick industrial school system in order to divert us from the root causes of dysfunction? If enough parents and educators spend their precious discretionary time on the French immersion red herring, perhaps no one will notice that millions of dollars are being wasted elsewhere.

This afternoon the router wasn’t working and both boys (Grade 8 and 10) had a short-lived panic episode, as they needed to get on the Net to do some schoolwork; assigned today and due tomorrow. Of course, they cannot do homework without Net access.

It appears that the school here has done a pretty good job of off-loading much of its work to third parties:

• There are few up to date books in the library
• There are few computers at school; time has to be booked; they are blocked from many sites; and they are slow.
• Spare classes are not allowed (can’t control the kids), so there’s no time to do research at school anyway.
• Homework is assigned to be done at home, where at least our kids have high speed Internet access and a quiet place to do work, not like at school.

On top of all this off-loading of access to knowledge, not once has either of our teenagers received any instruction at school on how to do research, or how to check a source. I have set up a list of Student Resources for them, but no teacher has ever done that. No teacher has created a Wikipedia entry or shown how to do it, and Wikipedia is the main reference (next to Google search) that students seem to use.

The school administration goes on about quality education but they are being completely bypassed in knowledge gathering, basic research, and connecting to these young learners. Where are the teachers in our community using the Internet to connect with their students? I fear that far too many are hiding behind the walls of the institution and the comfort blanket of the union.

At this rate, it will soon be obvious to all that there is little value in actually attending school. Around here, in New Brunswick, Canada, the schools are making themselves rather redundant.

Daniel Lemire, researcher and someone who knows more math than I can imagine, debunks the common knowledge view that you need to go to a quality  university to get a quality education:

More generally, if you want to know how to get really smart, go watch what really smart people do. How does the famous professor learn? Does he spend days in lecture halls listening to some colleague? Nah! I bet you will find him interacting with some of the smartest people in the world every day, and spending a lot of time working in his office, crouched over his desk. My point is that you do not get smart by sitting in lecture halls. You get smarter by working at it. Smartness is not contagious, at least not by physical contact.

I am in the process of writing a proposal for consulting services to help develop an online learning strategy for a university. Daniel’s point  confirms our premise in the proposal that it’s getting easier to connect with knowledge and knowledgeable people, without jumping through what are becoming arbitrary academic hoops.

The Web is making everyone (at least the one billion who are currently connected) only a few clicks away from each other. Add in free Voice over IP, video conferencing, lectures online and YouTube presentations and voilà  – a new platform for learning. It’s time for universities to think about a new role as learning enablers and no longer gatekeepers because the horse (knowledge) has escaped the barn.

Diana Hamilton, and Matthew Litvak, both who have taught statistics at the university level, have several criticisms of the recent Croll and Lee Review of French Second Language Programs and Services New Brunswick’s schools. They have set up a blog, as well as a detailed analysis of the flaws:

To summarize, EFI [early French immersion] produces better French speakers, costs less on a per-student basis, and has essentially the same attrition rate as LFI [late French immersion]. The logical choice is to retain EFI. Core French certainly needs to be fixed, but we have found no justification in this document for eliminating EFI in the process. We strongly suggest that the central recommendation of this report not be adopted; it will lead to a reduction in French competence of hundreds of graduates per year, and result in a general lowering of standards. Numerous education experts have stated that EFI is the best program, and based on our analysis, we fully agree.

We feel that many of the legitimate shortcomings in New Brunswick FSL [French as a Second Language] programs that the Commissioners have identified can be addressed more effectively as follows:

• by providing adequate resources to support a wider range of French-language course options and flexibility in Grades 10-12 in order to reduce early drop-out;
• by providing adequate support for exceptional children in EFI and LFI classes so that FSL training becomes available to these children;
• by actively promoting the benefits of learning French and encouraging all students equally.

The standard university value proposition is that it’s not just a degree but an opportunity for learning and developing critical thinking. At Ryerson University:

The special mission of Ryerson University is the advancement of applied knowledge and research to address societal need, and the provision of programs of study that provide a balance between theory and application and that prepare students for careers in professional and quasi-professional fields.

However, as noted yesterday, Ryerson has charged a student with academic misconduct for creating a Facebook virtual study hall. Even if the students were passing around “answers” [which it appears they were not], the problem is not with the students.

Any institution that claims to support “the advancement of applied research and knowledge“, should not be in the business of asking for “the right answer”. Learning, especially in higher education, should not be about getting the right answer and this case shows the weakness of the university value proposition for our society. Too many universities have taken the easy route and they are as much diploma mills as anything you might find on the back of a pack of matches. The gaping hole in the university teaching model is quite obvious. If the “answer” can be found and passed around, your evaluation system is completely flawed.

Photo of Bas Relief by Elizabeth Lyn Wood at Ryerson (1962) by colros

Is this the future of education?

For real writers and creators: Love to write, to speak, and/or to make films? Wish there was a class where you could work on your own ideas, your own projects, and learn advanced podcasting, film-making, writing/blogging, social networking? This class is for you. You design your project(s). You develop them however you want them to go. And you get feedback from your teacher on the quality of your writing and other multimedia (radio/podcasting, movie-making, blogging, social networking strategies). If you choose, you can learn to market your project for world attention. It will be yours to continue in coming years, when class is over.

Clay Burell is going to have fun next year and so are a bunch of his students. Some day [soon?] this might not even be an item of interest as it will be the norm. I can also see this model as a better model for online learning for many disciplines than what most courses offer. With less “teaching” and more guidance and feedback, it may even scale up better.

This just in:

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Mark Federman reports that Ryerson Polytechnic has charged a student with academic misconduct for creating a Chemistry study group on Facebook [AKA, that evil place where them youngsters hang out]:

In their minds, Ryerson administrators must maintain their control over students and the mode of learning, true to their 17th century pedagogical heritage. Metaphorically, this is Ryerson U’s president, Sheldon Levy, wearing a long, schoolmarm-ish dress, thwacking Avenir over the head with a yardstick in the one-room schoolhouse that is still, lamentably, Ry High.