Educators looking at other countries to improve schools

Panel studies ‘where we stand'

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

These were some of the topics broached by a panel of local educators last week as they discussed a recent PBS documentary that took a hard look at the American education system.

"Some of these statistics that appear in ‘Where We Stand' are alarming statistics," Kathleen Glaser, former St. Mary's public schools principal, said of the documentary during a discussion Nov. 20 at the Chesapeake Public Charter School.

For instance, in 1995 the United States was ranked No. 1 in college graduation rate. In 2005 it was ranked 15th.

And, according to the documentary, 40 percent of U.S. high schools don't offer college-prep classes.

"Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century" was made to spur dialogues, such as the one last week, at places around the country in hopes of improving the country's standing in the education world, Glaser said.

Leonardtown High School Chinese teacher Joanne Zhang taught for years in China before coming to St. Mary's public schools 13 years ago.

She worked with exchange teacher Zhijun Peng the last two years and had conversations with her over the differences between the two countries' education systems.

"One of the things she mentioned that struck me very much is ‘I started to miss my Chinese students,'" Zhang said of the exchange teacher.

American teachers have to frequently stop in the middle of a lesson to manage individual student behavior, breaks that would disrupt the flow of teaching. That's not the case in Chinese schools

In the PBS documentary, one Chinese teacher suggests that American students do not have a strong work ethic compared to their counterparts on the other side of the globe. Students causing distractions, text messaging on cell phones and being generally disruptive is not the norm in many other countries.

Zhang said she found it disturbing that parents would say in front of children that they are not good in math, while for an adult to say they are bad at reading would be embarrassing.

"If the student hears you say, ‘I'm not good at math,' they think it's OK," she said.

America is ranked 25th in math and 21st in science out of 30 developed countries based on scores from an internationally administered test.

And while Chinese students do tend to spend more hours per day doing school work than Americans, the teachers spend less instructional time but have more planning time to fine-tune lessons.

In many international tests the United States is ranked near the middle of the pack of developed countries in terms of literacy.

Countries near the top include China, Australia, Finland, Germany and Japan.

Issues like length of time in school, what is taught at what age, and society's general demeanor toward education and college all play an impact, panel members said.

Finland restructured its national school system in the early 1990s to give more control to local districts and at the school level, Satu Muja said, who taught in Finland, has lived in St. Mary's a couple of years and is still trying to grasp America's concept of education.

Because teachers are more trusted to do their job in Finland, there's no need for much of the standardized testing, she said.

Like China, teachers in Finland generally spend fewer hours teaching per day, which gives them more time to plan.

Finnish children don't usually start school until age 7 — and even that is flexible. For the first two years school days are only three hours long, Muja said.

"They're just more ready… They have enough time to play, which is how they learn," she said.

jyeatman@somdnews.com