Academics in schools: Are we pushing too much or not enough?

Perhaps we need to focus less on ‘infinite growth‘ and more on ‘thriving‘.

In the summer, the Economist ran a special report on ‘Schooling’s Stagnation’. Two articles stood out to me with the following titles: 1. Schools in rich countries are making poor progress and 2. Efforts to teach character bring promise and perils (you will need an economist membership to read the full articles). The arguments presented prompted me to really reflect on my own thoughts and delve a little bit deeper into what they were suggesting. My thoughts for the first article are outlined below (I will share my thoughts on ‘character education’ in another post soon).

Schools in rich countries are making poor progress

The main point Mark Johnson pushes is that schools ‘need to get back to basics’. Before I go any further, I’d like to point out that although this journalist is an education correspondent for the economist, he appears to have no education based credentials or experience to his name. Therefore, like many others who hold strong opinions of where education is going wrong, his understanding may be limited to his own experience of school.

But moving on from that… his argument mainly refers to statistics taken from standardised tests results across the rich world. These results show improved results year on year until roughly the 2010s where they plateau, or in a few cases, take a slight downturn. 

Which education systems should we aspire to?

The first aspect of the article that stood out to me was the praise lauded at the countries that have managed to keep the upward trend. Singapore (and other countries across Asia) is touted as having an education system to aspire to. However, having worked in Asia for the past ten years, I felt the need to comment on this. It is clear to me that the culture around education and achievement is something that cannot be taken out for consideration when comparing results.

I don’t intend to spend time unpicking the intricacies of each educational culture, or suggest that either is better or worse. But awareness and acknowledgement of the difference is important. If we take my current host country of Taiwan as an example, the average number of hours students spent in educational settings vastly outnumber those of the West. Local school hours are typically from 7:30am – 5:00pm. The majority of students then have extra tuition or other organised activities on top of that, often not arriving home until 9:00 or 10:00 pm at night (yes, even at primary level). Grades and numerical data are also valued much more highly so education is usually targeted at raising scores or grades, even if that means rote learning with limited deeper understanding. Although this a normal aspect of the culture in many countries, including Singapore, I suspect it is not one that Western society has any particular ambitions to move towards.

This attitude seems to be more about ‘performative success’ and reminds me of my first two years of teaching in the UK. I taught Year 6 which meant I had the responsibility of supporting students through their SATs. The pressure the school felt for students to do well in their Literacy and Maths assessments had a few repercussions for students (and teachers). 

1. Almost all other subjects stopped at Christmas. 
2. Teachers ran after hours and school holiday tuition for pupils who fell behind age expectations
3. Children sat practice test after practice test as opposed to engaging in real, relevant learning.
4. Any class time that wasn’t seen to be actively improving students testing ability was a big no no. 

While this was only in the short term, I do believe it negatively impacted students, especially those who already found maths or literacy more challenging. If this type of education were to be experienced on a longer term basis, I imagine the impact would be much more detrimental. Teaching purely for test results has also experienced severe backlash from all sides in many countries and I believe (thankfully) that my first school now has a more holistic approach to the final year of primary school.

What may be behind the ‘stagnation’?

Looking more at Mark Johnson’s article, he puts forward a few suggestions for why we may be seeing the trends that we are:

Reason 1: Pupils are changing in ways that have made it harder for schools to keep yielding improvements. By this thinking, a plateau in outcomes is a reasonable achievement, because schools are having to run faster just to stand still.

My response: Of course we want to aim for improvement. Success feels good and can do good. It can open up opportunities, it can build self-esteem. I am not arguing that we want to settle with mediocre education that does not fully serve our students.

However, the expectation of a continuous upwards trajectory in something as narrowly focused as literacy and mathematics test results strikes me as extremely narrow minded. Yes, we want students to have access to all the opportunities that having the basics of education allows. But isn’t there a bit more to education than ever higher academic results? The expectation stated at the end of this point that schools continue trying to ‘run faster just to stand still’ made me particularly angry. What does that mean for all the other aspects of having a good life and raising good humans? What does that mean for teacher wellbeing?

Reason 2: Rising migration may also play a role. Brand new arrivals are commonly poorer than their peers and more likely to speak a foreign language at home.

My response: This could well be true and may be a factor in the countries that are experiencing a ‘downturn’ in performance. It may also be a factor in why countries who have relatively less migration, especially those from poorer backgrounds, are outperforming those who have more. It is certainly worth thinking about how we are supporting those students. Not only academically but also holistically. If you’re interested, a university assignment focused on how school counsellors can support can be found here.

Reason 3: The share of children in relative poverty increased in 20 of the 33 OECD member countries. Children learn less if they are sick or hungry, or if chaotic homes prevent them from turning up to every lesson. 

My response: Yes yes yes. The foundational layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs need to be in place before the top layer- self actualisation – can truly come into play. An assignment which dives deeper into the affects of poverty on educational outcomes can be found here.

Reason 4: Growing rates of anxiety and other mental health issues. In 2022, 18% of teenagers rated their life satisfaction at four or less out of ten. 

My response: Again, yes. And another reason why well being should be prioritised in schools. Not just in an attempt to raise results but because, surely well being is something we all want as a society? Want another assignment to peruse? My dissertation, although focused on self-esteem, touched on the topic of anxiety and other mental health challenges.

Reason 5: Screens are affecting studies – more than 60% of rich-world pupils say that their phone or tablet sometimes distracts them during school lessons.

My response: This could definitely be true. I know, as an adult, I am often distracted by digital devices, despite having a supposedly more developed prefrontal cortex and self-awareness. I think a very clear and well enforced digital device agreement is essential and I know schools who have successful partial bans on devices in schools (e.g. only to be used in certain areas). For the most part, it comes down to clear and consistent behaviour management alongside the development of self-awareness and self-management.

So I generally found a lot to agree with here and all things considered, think we are not doing too badly if results are not climbing as rapidly as they once were.

However, the final point of blame goes to policy makers. I think this is where the original idea of the article that stated education needs to ‘get back to the basics comes in’.

Reason 6: Policy makers neglecting the fundamentals of education, or pursuing the wrong headed reforms. 

My response: I am not a policy maker so I can’t speak for exactly which reforms are being pursued in which contexts. But as someone who has worked in schools for over a decade, I generally feel proud of the changes that are being made, especially when these are focused a wider paradigm than academic achievement. Overall, I felt that this article was narrow minded, uninformed about the real, day-to-day practices that go on in schools and only had a surface understanding of the challenges that are faced.

Moving from growing to thriving

The idea of judging the state of our education systems through a parameter as narrow as ever increasing academic results brought to mind Kate Raworth’s theory of Doughnut Economics and the ‘myth of infinite growth’. If you’re unfamiliar with this, I recommend watching this video for a quick insight. Just like our planet has finite resources, perhaps humans also have finite intellectual potential. Continued efforts to push all of our resources into ever increasing academic achievement is perhaps not where our priorities should lie. Instead, as Raworth recommends for our economy, growth is not what we should aim for, but rather thriving. I have an inkling that a focus on thriving might go further in supporting the mental health and poverty difficulties mentioned above, as well as many of the other challenges we face. 

I will finish my musings with this quote from the environmental scientist David Orr (but often attributed to the Dalai Lama)

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. 
But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. 
It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. 
And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

David Orr

If you have any further thoughts on any of the above, I would love to read your comments below.