I was watching on cable TV recently about what will happen after humans have disappeared from the face of the  earth. I thought that it would be fun today that we try to imagine Singapore schools without its well-known high stakes examinations system.

What would it be like to be in such a scenario? What will it be like for all the concerned with school and education, namely, the students, teachers, school administrators, parents and even potential employers? What will a day in school be like? What will remain and what will change as a result fo the removal of of high stakes testing?

Will the actors in the educational stage die? Will they change and embrace the absence of high stakes testing? Will the manner of teaching and learning change? Will the teachers be taught new skills? Will they have to unlearn many things? Will they welcome it?

Will what is deemed important for learning in school also change? Will it be the same for all schools? Who will considered bright in such an environment? How will learning be assessed? Will students be happier? Will parents be happier?

Will there be more dropouts or fewer? How will the school leavers find their places in the economy?How will employers choose employees? How will the workforce change? How will the workplace change?

What do you think? These are just some of the questions that come to my mind. You may have more. Do share your thoughts with us.

Most young children are naturally curious and highly imaginative… after children have attended school for a while, they become more cautious and less innovative….Unfortunately it is necessary to conclude from the investigations of many scholars that our schools are the major culprits. Teachers, peers, and the educational system as a whole all diminish children’s urge to express their creative possibilities.

~Dacey & Lennon, 1998

It seems from the quote above, schools dull the minds of our children. To be sure, the demand for control is necessary in schools. Teachers cannot teach if the class is out of control. But then again I believe it is a problem only if we define control as conformity and obedience, which unfortunately, is all too often what is demanded in the classrooms.

Today, we prefer to call it “classroom management” or “class management”. It is not impossible to manage a class in a way that allows for students to show independence. I think one underutilized tool is to use reasoning. All too often that conformity and obedience is seen by students as just a disciplinary issue. Making an effort to reason with the students and coming to a common understanding with the students helps students to take responsibility for what happens in the class.

Taking responsibility implies a choice of options.  It involves decision-making practice. When students are given time and opportunities to make good decisions about their environment, there is less of a that feeling of having to always conform and be obedient to a higher authority, no matter how irrational the latter may seem to be. Besides getting them to discuss and come to a mutually agreeable decision, especially in a non-threatening environment, almost surely will bring about better compliance to whatever that has been agreed upon.

Teachers must be willing to engage their students in a dialog. A dialog would involve questions and answers. Such engagement will encourage students to speak and ask questions. It will not stifle their natural curiosity to question, probe, even test boundaries.

Another important reason why schools dull the minds of the young is the manner that teaching and learning is done. We know of studies which show that most of the questions asked in the classroom is asked by the teachers themselves. The teachers also answer most of their questions. This too depends on whether the teachers give students enough time to think about asking questions. The demands of high stakes testing or examinations usually mean that the “coverage” of the syllabus is foremost on the teachers minds.This usually mean traditional teacher talk (and question).

Furthermore, in such systems the only things that are worth teaching are what will be asked in the tests or examinations. How intellectually exciting and stimulating can this be? How do we fire up the neurons in the students brains so that they go whizzing at high speed if all they ever learn is what will appear in the examinations. Nothing explodes in their head. No “Aha! moment” except maybe “so that’s how you answer this question”. Exploration, experimenting, going off track are not encouraged. There is simply no time for all that. No time for meaningful questions. They are not measured anyway as required KPIs of schools. If they are not measured, then they are also deemed unimportant. Therefore, a move away from examinations or test oriented teaching will go a long way towards removing the clouds of dullness from the classrooms. Let curiosity be an important reason for learning again.

In my last post on the education systems of Singapore and Finland, I have highlighted the differences between the two with regards to the area of student ranking and streaming, and high stakes examinations or testing. I have also indicated the difference in the two systems’ approach to assessment with Finland paying more emphasis on formative assessment. In this post, I will look at the difference in teacher quality and their approach to teaching in the classrooms.

In Finland, all teachers are required to have a Masters degree while those in Singapore varies. In Singapore usually for those teaching in the secondary schools and above they are required to have a degree and are usually chosen from the top one-third of the university cohort each year. Even then there are exceptions with some new Mother Tongue teachers having only GCE AO levels. In the lower levels, there are still many with just A levels and a growing number with university degrees. At the preschool levels, in child care centers and kindergartens, a minimum GCE O levels is the norm with certification in early childhood.

In Finland as has been mentioned in an earlier post, teaching is a highly regarded profession which is given as much status as even professionals like lawyers. In Singapore, while parents still in general defer to teachers and expects their school-going children to be respectful towards teachers, teaching does not enjoy the same position as other professionals. It is for this reason the Singapore government’s approach to attracting and retaining teachers has been through a quick succession of pay increases. No doubt the Ministry of Education (MOE) has also introduced different tracks for teacher mobility and career satisfaction within the teaching service but without a doubt it is the relatively high pay that has attracted and retained most of the teachers. In contrast in Finland, the Finnish National Board of Education has consistently sought to make good working conditions as the attraction of the teaching profession.

The difference in teacher quality is also seen in the approaches to teaching that is employed in the two countries. In Singapore because of the heavy emphasis on high stakes testing or examinations, the approach used has generally been a very traditional teacher-centered one where the teacher does most of the talking while the students listen. In other words, it is very much the factory assembly line approach to teaching. This is made necessary as the high stakes examinations has always been the tail that wags the dog. The focus on examinations means that a lot is to be covered for students to do well in the examinations. There is an emphasis on width as opposed to depth. Speed becomes a necessity in the “coverage” of the examinations-centered syllabus. This in turn necessitates for the traditional teacher-centered approach generally carried out in schools as student-centered discovery and exploratory approaches will require time. A recent study on science teachers in Singapore supports this contention (see here). This is despite all official policy claims of the MOE like “Teach Less, Learn More” (TLLM), “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” (TSLN) and others. As a result, while Singapore teachers are highly professional with regards to fulfilling the goals of schools, which is to do well in the national examinations, they are a lot less skillful at honing the “new” skills that students need to acquire for the 21st century.

In Finland, an exploratory and student-centered approach are the fundamental approaches to teaching done in schools. The absence of high stakes examinations also means that much curriculum time is freed for deep learning rather than spent in examination preparation.What this means is that the usual stress, anxiety and demoralization that occurs in an examination-centric systems do not happen in Finland’s schools.

This approach does not seem to have negatively affected the quality of learning that is done in Finnish schools as Finnish students to do well in international educational surveys. More importantly perhaps is that the Finnish system reduces the human costs in terms of quality of life in schools for the students and teachers.

(End of series)

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