The systems used today are bad and teachers at front can detect those problems and stop using the systems as designed. We have to make work what already exist first then propose improvements, NEVER radical changes. Education and health programs do not absorve well radical changes. But it should not be a slow process. See the example in Irland and Korea, communities which changed dramatically in a short period of time with real investments in education.

Thank you, dear Vilemar. Your approach has the great value from the fact that your Country Brasil has tremendous educational basic needs, from what I learnt. There is still a lot to be done, in terms of mass basic education. 

I posted my question, unfortunately, from the narrow-minded view of a European...

Thank you for reminding me. (!!!). 

Yes, I fully agree. We must first consolidate mass basic education accessible for all, throughout the World.

The second step would be to review, and to renew, to adapt for future generations. 

We need an education system where students are motivated to pursue lifelong learning, and become self-directed learners, yet collaborative scientists, to contribute to the progress of science, technology and all disciplines, in a complex society and world.

Our country has a Vision (V 2020), drawn up in 1991, that it should be a developed, united and progressive nation by 2020, and one of the challenges is that it must be a contributor to the development of science, not just a user.  Many seem to have forgotten about this Vision 2020, but I remember.  (I am working on another paper related to this.  Thanks.)

Presentation Motivation and achievement of Malaysian students in studying...

Yes, dear Miranda. Competitiveness can be harmful, because it may lead to fake good results... On the opposite pole, we should find , as you so well put, motivation, self-motivation, and inter help, through multidisciplinary.

It is hard to find the proper imbalance, in our over-competitive, overspecialised society.

Dear Maria,

It is not much different in Europe. So true that Irland is an European country. One of the problems is that new approaches switch from focus on cognition and others in contents and evaluation of education rarely change. Teachers are, and I have been repeating here many times, exactly what they were in Plato's time. This is not true for other professions. See what was a doctor in early history of medicine. Who were the dentists? How was the work of chemist?

Sir Ken Robinson makes a case for creating an education system that nurtures — rather than stifles — creativity. We need to reform the education ystem so that students become more creative and more adept at problem solving. Not an easy job though.

Please watch this very interesting video from Sir. Ken Robinson

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/03/351552772/how-do-schools-kill-creativity

I believe we can not grow much from nothing. We have to put to work what we have first. We have to learn how to use a book before it taken them out of the system. Then, new approaches should be like an add on and not a change. We have to let students learn from other students and there is not a problem to let technology enter the classroom. Teachers were reluctant to accept novels, calculators, and now websites. There is much we can learn from elementary grade teachers. They are not trapped to a evaluation systems and they focus on the students creating more interactive classes.

Dear Miranda,

You got it!

"We need an education system where students are motivated to pursue lifelong learning, and become self-directed learners"

In my limited personal view, perhaps we can embark on the following to improve our educational system:

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence

"Sir Ken Robinson has suggested that to engage and succeed, education has to develop on three fronts. First, that it should foster diversity by offering a broad curriculum and encourage individualisation of the learning process; secondly, it should foster curiosity through creative teaching, which depends on high quality teacher training and development; and finally, it should focus on awakening creativity through alternative didactic processes that put less emphasis on standardised testing, thereby giving the responsibility for defining the course of education to individual schools and teachers. He believes that much of the present education system in the United States fosters conformity, compliance and standardisation rather than creative approaches to learning. Robinson emphasises that we can only succeed if we recognise that education is an organic system, not a mechanical one. Successful school administration is a matter of fostering a helpful climate rather than "command and control".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Robinson_(educationalist)

Please also refer to following links:

http://www.kaymontano.com/community/2012/04/28/ken-robinson-changing-education-paradigms/

https://www.brainpickings.org/2010/10/21/sir-ken-robinson-rsa/

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

Yes, we have change educational system from school to university to match with changing environment, not in parts.

Education should always be fun not burden, As modern education is creating more employees not entrepreneurs I thought so the system should be completely changed 

Dear Roland,

Please consider using smartphones and other gadgets. Even pornography has learned that those devices are good for them. Why should not teachers?

Yes, we need to upgrade certain subjects like geography - climate. Now that it is changing it should be no 1 subject at school, yet in N. America it is not even taught on a regular basis. My son took it by correspondence.

When I tried to borrow some globes from a secondary school recently, they blasted me " we don't teach stuff like that here"! They didn't even have / knew what an atlas was?

I have prepared "weather for grade 3" to show how easy it is to understand. Do you meet many people who know how to explain the power of the wind, tornado, etc? Yet, it is so simple.

Dear Maria,

I think we have had the chance to exchange indirectly on this topic through another RG question.  I believe that education is and should be central in our society. Our education systems are characterized by discrimination, elitism, favoritism; and I strongly believe that the education systems are responsible for this new world that we are facing.  A world of imaging and inequalities.

I could prefer to have a school for all children, a right for food and house for all families, (this should be part of our education), an identity card for all humans, not only the rich ones, a health care system for all humans. Then we can start to talk about Education and Creativity and Philosophy and Sciences.

Today the main focus of our Universities is the discrimination and the gap between poor and rich is becoming higher and higher. Today we have the private schools and private Universities, what is the reason?  We have the rich that have the opportunity to get into high performance schools and we have the mass that they do not have to eat. Then what is the reason to talk about Education?

For which Education are we talking about? The education of middle class, the workers, the cadres, the businessmen??

Dear Maria, talking about Education we need to start to talk first about equal opportunities at the international level.  Are we educated when our next door children has nothing to eat and his only wish is a piece of hope?

The Education as well the Sciences should focus to help human to be free, Free from the Fear of the life and the death. Best, Vassilis

Thank you, dear Vassilis!

You point out some of the most critical issues of the modern World, and the urgent need for what I called mass education (at every level).

I thank you for your broad views. You touch the wounds of our modern societies. We should not loose hope for a better World. That is exactly one of the reasons that led me to post my question as I did.

There must be hope. Better Education can lead the path to better societies.The question is HOW ?

As soon as children grow with the knoledge of their realm of action, rules and their limits we will have a differnt world and different citizens. We just do not know what we learn in are is for. This is not utopic. Even in corrupted groups all the rich nations have better educacional levels than the poor ones.

Dear Maria,

To improve education it is necessary to evaluate present educational systems, outputs and to work out the real demands. This may be the result of thorough and in-depth series of work.

Dear Vassilisis,

Dear All,

You mentioned a lot of phenomena also characteristic for Hungarian education. However, your following phrase “Today the main focus of our Universities is the discrimination and the gap between poor and rich is becoming higher and higher.” cannot be right for our conditions. Even its revers side is true, that is there is a general aim to involve even untalented and unsuitable people into higher education (dyslexia, dyscalculia etc.). The standard of education and the qualification of “processed” degree holders become weaker and weaker. Regarding some RG threads, one can recognise that some PhDs are not familiarised with elementary mathematics and chemistry. In addition, unfortunately incest became a general tradition in many countries where about 30-60% of marriages were made between first cousins. Consequences of such a practice can be but genetic problems and difficulties in societies.

I would like to see a small school of higher education with a single program about knowing ourself.  No staff, no students just a group devoted to this purpose. No degree, no program, no time frame, only one goal. 

Dear Andras,

I agree with your comments but in a human world Education has NO BORDERS. Hungarian education is Hyngarian but children are all over the world.  No borders dear Andras, it should be No borders in Education programs. The problem is not to get a PhD, but to be educated. It takes time and many generations to get educated. Education is a real epigenetic phenomenon. We have to educate our genes in order to be human!

According to the gaps, yes the Univeristies play this role. The gap between USA and Europe or Africa is enormous in term of Scientific achivements and education. The gap between rich and poor Hungarian is enormous and I hope that you can confirm.

This is a reality and this reality is reproduced.  So, the role of the Univerities are becoming strategic, and this strategic approach is used by the wealthy to control the mass. Hold/Get a PhD does not mean that the person is Educated.

I do not agree with this kind of political/social system that discriminate or impose to accept discrimination so to progress. We should be dedicated to human and to freedom and not to the system. We have to keep our eyes open.

Best, Vassilis

Yes, dear Vassilis. No borders is great. Globalization is promising and good.

But don't forget the great differences even among Europeans. Up to 35 years ago, Portugal (the Westernest and poorest country in Europe and in the EC), still had an average of 40% illiteracy. It took us great (titanic) effort to reach near average european levels, both in Education as in Health. But as you open our borders wide open, the more flagrant our social differences get, in comparison with the richer countries. The more we "suffer" from those differences... 

We still need protection and help, and globalisation still hurts.

It is necessary to create a system in which each person has reached such an education, what it is capable of achieving. But it would need the money invested in guns move into education - in our future. But it is SciFi today. Humanity behaves like a unreasonable child.

Dear Maria,

I appreciate a lot your comments and your feelings. Globalization is a fact. The identity of each one and the identity of each country is also a fact. Borders are already opened. The problematic is the dominance of the English language and the introduction of a premade "life style". This is a dominant signal, this is an image that we likely use as silent reference, that we feel and we do not see.

This is how the Capitalism wants to control the system. It is like a piece of sugar and sugar is very tasty.

Education is the way to defend our countries' identities, our civilization and the human rights. We have the same rights as the every other person in this planet. This is education. So, we have the right to be educated as every other person in this planet. Education is the way for our socialization which is our defence.

English language is a very nice and useful language but if the education system supports local languages then the dominance of this system has no effect on our lives. Yes, we can keep our identities, there are many “sugars” around the world, and be part of the global system and more important be part and decide for the changes in this new coming world.  We need education for all that.  A manager cannot save a country but a teacher can educate a child.

Money is not the problem. Money is a virtual system to control humanity and hopes.

Best, Vassilis

Dear Vassilisis,

Thanks for your quick answer.

Yes, education has no borders mainly in a world where seemingly borders should be removed. By the way, borders must have been rebuilt at many places. Yes, time is essential. There are many parallel processes and there is incongruence among them.

You used the words poor and rich. I think for poor the underclass would be better. In most European countries not the lack of necessary resources matters but the lack of culture or the presence of an underclass subculture hampering the integration of these people. In Hungary, many gipsies belong to this subculture making impossible to join them the general society. This subculture approaches criminality and as well as reproduces itself.

The biggest problem for the quality of education at the University level is the pressure to transform this education into a specialied technical education fine tuned to the job market.  Since this pressure is not a new phenomena, the university programs are already decomposed into a fine grained specialized domains with the professors having received specialized education themself.  Now the old notion of academic excellence have been replaced by a new notion of academic excellence which is a quantitative publication scores.  Publish or perish being the new moto and and to become an academic only those that focus on publish will come through.  The door to publication is controled by assent of your peers.  To get this ascent one has to produce what your peers will easily agree not what is controversial, as the really new, as the really valuable.  The moto is concentrate now on what the mainstream want and get hired.  When hired the moto is do what is expect of you until you get your tenure.  Faculties are those that survive this conformity pruning process.  And once hired and with a permanent job, the publish or no funding begin.  Against the conformity, the mediocrity process is dominating today's academic world.  All that has to be changed.

Dear Vassilisis,

I am glad, you have won the battle with the money. Such victories mean the dawn of humanity.

Dear Vassilisis,

Dear All,

You drafted fine the essence of mother tongue education. This has been invented long time ago. Now, people should not be killed. It is sufficient to destroy their original culture. However, there are suiciding cultures: have a look at some European countries destroying their own culture in the name of political correctness.

Dear Maria,

Congrats, you always present us with very teasing questions. This one is fundamental for mankind's future. The hope for a better (and appeased)  world resides in conceiving a brand new and revolutionary educational system.

As other colleagues wrote, the current systems is very lacking and does not touch the main issue, namely that from their early ages children should be motivated to expand their brains learning capabilities by thinking critically and by arousing their natural curiosity and creativity.

Often I ask myself why is it, even today, reputable universities insist on heavy loads of classroom teaching?

I strongly recommend reading this page:

http://cactusporpoise.weebly.com/ancient-athens.html

The ancient Greeks knew, thousands of years ago, how to educate their youth to make them out-of-the box thinkers creating by that process extraordinary minds of the prominent philosophers, mathematicians, writers, etc. who even today influence Western cultures with their wisdom.

Maybe the answer is going back in time and recapture the essence of the ancient Greeks way of educating their descendants.

What do you think?

Regards

Tom

Dear @Maria, we have to change and improve all levels of education. Right now, the knowledge of enrolled students who just have finished high school is at very low level. I am speaking about Mathematics and Science. Also, at the HE level, we should change curricula and we should act with respect to our neighbourhood, society, companies,... regarding their demands. Technology is very emerging and it most be followed by HE Institutions. Flexibility is the key issue in terms of fast changing and self-adapting. Can you imagine a doctor of medicine without knowledge of intelligence, big data, analytics... 

Yes, we do speak about multidisciplinarity/ interdisciplinarity, the issue you have raised a while ago.

STEM, which means Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are areas where the fastest changes must be done!

Just look at the system in Finland. They are doing very well!

@Ljubomir

Humanities, dear Ljubomir, humanities is (IMO) the answer for a better world. Now technology evolves by itself (self-fed), and of course needs great brains to evolve even more... but...

But while we daily have better and better technological gadgets, millions of refugees from the Middle East Chaos are starving (and freezing in the European winter) and tens of thousands are dying on crossing the Mediterranean. Boko Haram terrorists are killing thousands and enslaving 13 year old girls for their sexual pleasure. Many more examples of human brutalities are available at request :-)

The world is badly in need of a New Age of Enlightenment, which will not come (only) through technological miracles. Humankind's mindset must change! This is where the wanted new model of Education should focus on.

The best

Tom

In Finland, children learn in group assisted with at least two teachers walking around in the class room. Working in group to solve a problem requires less technical support per child, also favoring social/human interactions within the group?

Should adopt flexible education system, distance learning, online sources ...

4 Goals for 21st Century Learning

1. Self - Knowledge

2. Meaningful Community Interaction

3. Adaptive Critical Thinking

4. New (Digital) Media Literacies

Principles that guide this change in learning include:

Student and teacher share responsibility for the quality of the student’s learning process (only indirectly and secondarily, the quality of the teacher’s teaching).

Core motivation, for both student and teacher, is satisfaction derived from improving the quality of each student’s learning.

In the words of Marilyn Ferguson “The larger paradigm looks to the nature of learning rather than methods of instruction. Learning after all is not schools, teachers, literacy, math, grades or achievement. It is the process by which we have moved every step of the way since we first breathed, a transformation that occurs in the brain. Whenever new information is integrated, whenever a new skill is mastered, learning is kindled in the mind of the individual. Anything else is mere schooling”.

regards

Rathish

Wonderrful, dear Rathish. 

simply perfect. If you notice the several contributes to the present Question, all lead to the same four goals.

We seam to agree.

I thank you all.

"At first to love,then to teach"Ya.Komensky.Humanistic tendency must be a foundation of every educational system.To Asmolov,"It's high time to move from systems to fates".Education is national and universal,politician's,state's,biparental,teachers',public concern about future generation.Our children are not healthy,they are socially divided.They are growing up in the cruel ecological,information,political,economic,psychological instability.Every human life(not only "chosen"one) must be highly appreciated,supported, and defended..While there are wars,corruption,provocations,imperial ambitions of the mighty,the problems of youth can't be solved.Every adult should understand,that "there are no my child,your child,his child,her child, all children are ours"R.Bykov.

Dear Tom and Marcel,

Pythagoras and the other great Ancient Greek teachers delivered “lectures” in walking with their disciples in Mediterranean gardens. I personally would be happy to teach like they did. Unfortunately, some subjects need a lot of visual information that cannot be properly explained in a talking manner. There is another trouble, Pythagoras might have had more time for expressing his ideas and he was not commanded by bureaucrats.

I also envy Aristotle !

He taught in the School of Athens, the best Academy in the World, he was practitioner to Philip of Capadocia, and preceptor of the greatest emperor in the World.

A goal to look up to. His wise words are still endlessly quoted, nowadays.

I don't envy the fact that they practiced sports with no shoes, nor proper clothes on !!!

Dear András,

Although visual information have to be convey visually and not orally, none of that prevent dialog to follow visual presentation.  The major difference between philosophical training in the ancient way and modern way is that they did not teach as a presentation of a subject but engage into a dialog.  Socrates was judged the greatest by all ancient philosophers and he taught nothing but only asked what other thought and asked them question in such a way that they had to come themself to the conclusion that they did not know, then opening the way for new learning being clear of the false illusion of knowing.  Only dialog today can really educated in the Socratic way where education is not the piling up of knowledge bringing about a false sense of knowing but education by breaking down what we falsely think to be absolutly true.  Socrates was a truly critical thinker.  Not like the most moderns claiming to be critically thinking but just pile and pile and critic the only last layer over the modern uncritical babel tower of knowledge.

Dear András,

I fully agree with your second objections, namely the bureaucrats that command universities and how they obstruct educational progress.

As for the first one, Pythagoras and many of his genial companions used the visuals of the environments to teach. There is no substitute for teaching in the realms of Nature. In fact, this method of teaching, which the ancient Greeks practiced to utmost perfection, arouses imagination and fortifies the capability of abstracting, the foundations of creativity.

This is why the Greeks bequeathed fantastic geometricians and mathematicians, but also artists (sculptors, painters, musicians, playwrights) of incomparable talent and imagination.

The formulas and equations, as well as the artistic conceptions were all born inside their brains... QED :-)

Last but not least, once again agree, I would also love to teach at beachsides and at the top of mountains covered with pine trees.

Dear @Tom, yes, you are very right about humanity. I do agree. I have had humanity disciplines in mind when I was remembering dear @Maria about multidisciplinarity and/or interdisciplinarity. You may visit her thread about.

Let me bring some interesting considerations about the issue from Span and US!

Reboot Spanish educational system to improve business outcomes!

The "Dumbing Down Of The US Educational System-The Need For Lean Ed!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dumbing-down-us-educational-system-the-need-lean-ed-daniel-stoelb?trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A577811291454672492575%2CVSRPtargetId%3A5956884239214534656%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reboot-spanish-educational-system-improve-business-outcomes-baken?trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A577811291454672492575%2CVSRPtargetId%3A6016656383989080064%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name

Yes, dear Tom touched an important point, as he spoke of the beautiful landscapes of Greece. We all feel closer to the gods, and to philosophical thoughts, under the peaceful scenario of pine trees and blue seas... 

Dear Ljubomir. you also bring light to the question of globalisation, when you confront the Spanish case and the American (US) system. 

Yes, there is a lot to be done, and a lot to be considered, but it is not an impossible task, if we start by analysing the absolute modern differences and inequalities.... A lot to be learnt from previous errors, avoiding wrong steps and turn backs.

We must analyse, and me must adapt, considering the inequalities and regional specificities. 

Then, only then, maybe we can start planting Mediterranean pine trees  in American schoolyards !!! (Or apple trees, near every school of Physics...)

Interesting. 

Thank you, dear Behrouz !!!

My "!!!"  is a sign of enjoyment.

Yes, I thank dear Marcel, and dear Behrouz... 

From that link to the Finnish experience, I find that this selected paragraph simply answered my present question:

Quote: "Finnish schools are generally small (fewer than 300 pupils) with relatively small class sizes (in the 20s), and are uniformly well equipped. The notion of caring for students educationally and personally is a central principle in the schools. All students receive a FREE meal daily, as well as free health care, transportation, learning materials, and counseling in their schools, so that the foundations for learning are in place. Beyond that, access to quality curriculum and teachers has become a central aspect of Finnish educational policy"

...  The main problem is that you need Money / Financement for that level of things...  

But good basic and secondary Education are the first fundamental step towards better Universities.

Dear Louis,

I am not a kind of teacher who is in love with his own lecture and voice.  I would like to teach in dialog with the students. Unfortunately, in spite of my permanent requests students do not like to challenge even a question. Most of them prefer the way of the passive audience.   

Thank you, dear András !

It takes time, sometimes a few months time to manage to make the students participate in dialogue... They bring much insecurity from their secondary school....

I usually install a system of bonus points that I offer for any participation of the students in my classes. One point for any remark, two points for their good remarks, three if they bring a remark that raises further discussion of the subject with others. By the end of the Semester, when I become the "spectator" /simple moderator, I have won more than my wages... And they have learnt more than their subject.Quite often, by the end of the semester, I have to call their attention for the time to stop their discussions and proceed to other classes. It is difficult, it is challenging, but it ... feels so good... (when it works ! !!!)

András,

You have all my respect for doing such a beautifull but difficult job.  You are like in the position of an painter who try to sell his best painting but all the customer are asking him what he consider his worst paintings and the one he does not want to paint anymore.  Students does not come to you from the craddle, they had been trained into what they are before they enter you classes and expect you to deliver in the same format they are used to.  It is like a teenage kids that only like a limited of junk food going to a good restaurant and just want to eat what he know already.  But the situation is even worst than only an overall philosophy of the education system which is responding to the overall mentality of society which in turn reflect the overall mentality of the global trends on this planet.  But all of us has to just add our drop in the bucket and persist in offering our best even though there is no demand for it.  But conceiving and actually starting one school that would be closer to the ideal of a good school would be quite a drop in the bucket.  In the mid-19th century a few amazing Gymnasiums existended in Budapest and their students have generated quite a splash in civilisation.

Dear Louis,

You are perfectly right. Former teaching manner and the so called “Prussian-German” drill determine the high school teaching in Hungary. Unfortunately, not the thinking and discussing method of some former Gymnasiums in Budapest are governing the present high school education. Thus, my attempts are mostly in vain.   

You'll get by. We trust that you can make the difference, dear András. Others will follow. Things take time, but they gradually change. 

What Would The Perfect Educational System Look Like?

"Education encompasses a whole network of educators. In order to educate the whole child, one must think of the process as more than mere academics. Social, emotional, familial, and environmental issues are part of educating the child..."

This is about teamwork. "There is a correlation between the perfect educational system, and the teamwork geese employ while they soar through the blue skies..."

Good to read. Nice experience.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-perfect-educational-system-look-like-nosal-m-ed-cece?trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A577811291454758922014%2CVSRPtargetId%3A6073097547004534784%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name

Dear Ljubomir !!!

Thanks a lot !!! You bring new fire to the question.

Yes, we should forget our pails and ready filled buckets, to build disproportionate Education that will soon collapse.

We need new L I G H T . (to see better lasting architectural plans!)

Thank you !

Let us hope that now downvoting will happen any more. We must improve our scientific communication by means of arguments, facts, truth!

Downvoting is NOT needed. Downvoting is NOT scientific !

“I believe the children are our future

Teach them well and let them lead the way

Show them all the beauty they posses inside”

SONGWRITERS LINDA CREED, MICHAEL MASSER

 I was thinking about this lyric and spotted a potential problem; where as I can see for a new couple, there is a child in their future, those that are parents and teachers, a child is clearly in the present. Which got me thinking, the children aren’t our future, they are here and they are now. A freshly filled nappy should be enough scientific evidence for you.

 Why would anyone want to think of children in the future? To which some of the possible conclusions are;

1.     We don’t have to do anything about the future because the Now belongs to us and the future belongs to them. We don’t have to prepare them to be emotionally and socially intelligent, just dump them in a school and give life or a teacher that responsibility. Not quite understanding that the blank slate theory has been disproved. Perhaps the weakness in Maria’s question is; why should a school be dumped upon to sort out and prepare our children for the future? Where is the education of parents that can undo a year of good teaching, in just one sentence? I don’t think it reasonable to dump the whole of humanities problems onto the shoulders of a child, but in general, that’s what we do. We make a mess of the planet and expect our children to clean it up. In fact, I think it reasonable that our future generation will look back on us with contempt at how childish we’ve been as guardian’s of the planet. Perhaps we are children bringing up children?

2.     Maybe the motivation comes from relevance! Who want’s to be seen as, the past? That’s for our elders that we dump in Gods waiting room care homes. After all, what relevance do our elders have, they come from very different times? So of course us middle agers are the masters of the present (ironic because If Yesterday is history... and Tomorrow is a mystery... and today is a gift because it is the Present, then the child in us Adults can’t help but want to open the gift, that really belongs to our children). Certainly the singer of the above song died of a drug over dose.

 I suppose for Maria, this may not have an answer, what adult wants to have full accountability and responsibility for all their actions? What adult wants to let a child “lead the way”? Would I want to give such a “fundamental role” to a parent and is it fair to give it to a school? I agree; “It is hard to find the proper balance, in our over-competitive, over-specialized society.” I find it bizarre anyone would down mark Behrouz’s comment about Sir Ken. RG is for debate, one disagrees then come up with a good counter argument rather than childishly reach for the down vote button. Same can be said for the up vote, up votes are just conformational bias, show evidence as to why you agree.

 Vilimar is wrong, the educational systems used today are not bad, the educational systems are a product of their times, don’t blame the teachers nor the systems, they are all the product of human thinking, sort out human thinking and the systems, schools and teaching will sort themselves. Vilimar appears to confuse time, radical changes are done in a short time, by definition. Problem with making improvements, as Vilimar suggest is, those improvements will be based upon the existing educational set up, an add on, not a change. I propose I’ve shown above, the current system is fundamentally flawed, only because human thinking is fundamentally flawed, not our fault, I hasten to add, but we are responsible and accountable if we wish. No point improving the efficiency of a flawed system, (an add on, not a change) although politically and austerically, that’s what we’ve been given. Certainly Nadana and Roland want the system completely changed.

 Students learning from students could be similar to the blind leading the blind, now teach a student how to teach, how to think, we might get somewhere. We all understand teaching a man how to fish is better than giving him a fish. That’s a truly interactive class. Education systems don’t teach students to be motivated to pursue lifelong learning, and become self-directed learners" human beings do. When a child tells you what their favourite subject is they are really telling you who their favourite teacher is. But I suspect it will be provided only on Smartphones and/or other gadgets and other such self directed modalities. Perhaps removing the adult from the child is the only way forward, at least it breaks the cycle of passing down poor thinking? Problem is, now machines are teaching our children, hopefully not pornography. How is it possible a school doesn’t have an atlas and a globe of planet Earth???

 Just like Han Ping Fung’s depressing list, where is the emotional, sociological, philosophical, psychological, spiritual, creativity teaching? You know, the stuff that makes us human! The main problem is NOT that you need money Maria, the main problem is how and where you want to spend your recourses, on Children or Kalashnikovs?

 It is true, “fools rush in”, but our children need help now. “Change should be slow” Jacano’s belief also means we have to accept collateral damage, whilst we debate the minutia of micro changes, millions of children fall through the cracks of radicalisation. This tinkering strategy, although important for efficiency, is for efficiency and should not and cannot be used for real change.

 I think Barbara Sawicka and Albert Camus have it spot on. Vassillis puts the cart before the horse, just read Orwell’s 1984, “an identity card for all human beings” will be used by the Camus conclusion to mean we all have numbers tattooed on our arms, our DNA computer registered. Vassillis is right but an identity card once there is an equitable society, otherwise the power that hold up the old system will use it to stop equitability and give us the illusion that micro change is real. Recently, 60 people now own more wealth than the poorest half of the worlds population. You think those few are going to allow equitability, meritocracy, justice and even an educated population?

 Actually change is inevitable but that’s a whole other subject. “Capitalism will eat democracy, unless we speak up.” Yanis Varoufakis or “What do we need so many sub-class humans for? The answer seems to be, to play computer games, take drugs and buy stuff!” Yuval Noah. Although I agree with Maria’s hope, I fear and expect it will only happen through devastation. The question IS how, if it’s not going to be through devastation it will only be through us teachers, assuming we stop down voting each other. Pointless us fight amongst ourselves, unless I am right and it is hopeless?

 Sadly, Louis maybe right “to get this ascent one has to produce what your peers will easily agree to not what is controversial”, no bold and courageous decisions. “Evil happens when good teachers do nothing.” It’s all very easier to blame people’s mind-sets and even easier NOT to say what that mind set should change to. But, “being clear of the false illusion of knowing” is an interesting start. “At first to love, and then to teach” Beautifully quoted Irina but our children ARE healthy, the problem is keeping them that way. “Every child is an artist; the problem is keeping them that way.” Picasso “Show them all the beauty they posses inside.” Witney Houston “Death Valley is not dead, it's full of the seeds of possibilities.” Sir Ken R. but if a teacher needs time to encourage a student to participate in dialog, their potential has been buried deep. As one parent “joked”, we spend the first part of their life encouraging them to speak and the rest, telling them to shut up. Children aren’t born insecure; they are made insecure.

Truth is, “nothing great was ever achieved without a struggle.” But we humans are in part, neophobic, we’ve learnt over time, a lot of bad stuff happens with the new. There is a Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”. One teacher once told me, “If adults were so clever, the world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.” I owe everything to SOME brilliant teachers. As the bumper sticker states; “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” There is nothing more rewarding, than inspiring a child towards wisdom; far more important than learning stuff. Louis is right IMO; education should not be about giving us an illusion of intelligence because we know lots of stuff. Perhaps future children, will not be employed on how much they know but on who can find out the information fastest? I may not agree with some of the contributors here, but I fight for your right to say it, rather than down vote you. I assume we are teachers here, and so i will always respect, salute and adore your efforts because you have chosen to be educators, to me I define as putting others, especially children above and beyond your self, putting them in the present and yourself in the past.

You talk about teaching children how to solve humanity, what are you prepared to change?

Yes, dear Ralph.

I do believe that children are our future. They must grow well, to become better adults than we were. (they will soon invent self-cleaning nappy !!!)  If we teach them well, they might get the chance to change the wrong deeds of their previous human ancestors.

I don't know how they will remove greed and envy, and self-destructive urges, but I trust they will find a better way .Hence, the fundamental importance of granting their free-thinking abilities, since early ages.

I trust the future of Humanity. We are only at the beginning of the difficult crisis that will lead to salvation. I have confidence. I'm not «neophobic», as you well put.

Thank you for your important contribute.

Dear @Ralph, I have enjoyed your arguments and your analysis of previous answers. Thanks for fine response.

www.ted.com/talks/randy_pausch_really_achieving_your_childhood_dreams

this guy puts it far better than me

Dear Ralph,

I appreciate a lot your comments.  According to your concern on my proposition for “an identity card for all humans” you said that “will be used by the Camus conclusion to mean we all have numbers tattooed on our arms, our DNA computer registered”. 

I do not agree and I explain why:

The notion of identity and social responsibility – Ethical Identity of the Individual: Be a Human, are linked.  Exist as a number does not have any Ethical Justification, We exist only as ethical units and that gives to the person the right to exist or not exist as a social member. An ethical responsibilty. Yes, education can bring us there and yes, we can change the current absurd capitalism status-quo on earth. We can bring hope to the present and future generations.

As you made reference to Albert Camus, yes The Stranger (French: L’Étranger) by A. Camus introduced also the ethical responsibility. If, our world and Camus's philosophy of the absurd appears as a reality today that does not give any reason to stop defend our social rights. If, the effort to change the world appears today as the Myth of Sisyphus  - that is the absurd version of our world, I think that in our life we should try to bring hope and happiness and this should be the focus of our education and our social existence. The human history has shown that in all times Ethics brings a solid and concrete reference to an absurd world.  

I trust the future of Humanity as Maria said. Regards, Vassilis

I do not trust the future of humanity, based upon the works of Prof. John Grey and his impressive historical research proves without doubt chronicle’s man’s inhumanity to man, that’s a given. “The only evil, is the belief you couldn’t do evil.” Stanley Kubrick. Why is it, that ultimate power, ultimately corrupts? What is it about us where it’s our nature to destroy ourselves? That’s what in part, is what education is about, the chimp paradox, being able to cage the primitive in us. There’s maybe a few reading this that have reached Nirvana and perfection. I for one have to work hard on my imperfections by playing to my strengths. I’m not in any denial that I’m only human and can be mesmerized by all my Ego that I can rise above my flaws and reach Sainthood. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Belief in human hope is just that, by definition belief requires no proof what-so-ever, a leap of faith. I can’t believe in the future, it’s unwritten and therefore doesn’t exist, yet. I teach because I believe in our potential, the potential to do the most amazingly wondrously creative breath taking things and therefore I have to accept because of that potential, the potential for the exact opposite. Which way we will go? Don’t look at history, it’s a depressing answer.

But mainly Vassilli’s I see to me a major flaw in your logic; it requires a collective consciousness, a belief in the common good, a notion of social responsibility and that is something we are ALL invested in, all believe and all work towards. Humans are linked but not by ethics. We can choose to be ethically responsible or not, which IS the notion of identity. I think most “teachers” have this DNA, ethical empathy, it appears you and Maria have loads. There are many that don’t and they tend to gravitate towards power over others. Given enough power they can even give us an illusion of civilization. Evil happens even when good men do something. It is true humans are linked, no man is an Island, yet most CEO’s fail the psychopath test. Just as there are serial killers, there are people that will gladly die to try and save another. One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist. Etc.

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms." Fed chief Alan Greenspan

I think when our backs are to the wall, you are right, we, for a temporary while will have a global common good, maybe this will happen with climate change and pollution. Education for me is to teach the tools to make an informed choice over our actions. I see it as arrogant of me to indoctrinate our children that all their decisions should and have to be based upon social responsibility, as we are all in it together, we should enact like we all believe we are all in it together. I have to give a student the space, to make their own moral decisions as to whether there is such a thing and its worth fighting for, to work towards hope and happiness. Even if our intensions are for the common good, there’s a reason the road to hell is paved with good intensions.

 You seemed to struggle with a unified theory Vassili’s, are we an individual or is that an illusion and we are intertwined as an organic whole in a continuum of common human morals?

*Dear Ralph,

Things are not so complicate.  In physics, biology, economy the systems are unified. As soon as a “system” exists then its creation imposes interconnecting properties.  The Humanity is unique and every human being is unique so, we are different.  We are different and we have common characteristics.What unifies the humanity is Ethics. 

What could be humanity without ethics? « I have a dream » Martin Luther King, this is an ethical declaration. Ethics runs revolutions, human hopes, our civilization is built on our ethical properties.  To educate a nation takes generations. Education can bring humanity closer to happiness and freedom. This is not so difficult. 

Ralf,

The evil in us is not the primitive nor the animal.  Animals are not evil and our primitive ancestors were not powerfull enough to be fully evil.  Note that concentration of power is the double product of patriarchat and hiearchical large scale societies. More ancient small scale egalitarian and matriarchal societies had not this concentration of power into a few hands.  In a tribe, one bully can be taken care by three persons.  In modern society, one bully at the top of a nuclear army of millions is much harder to stop. In the language of Inuit, they had a word for sociopath, that word litteraly means ''push out of a clif''.  Nowadays some of the most powerfull person are sociopaths and it is very difficult to stop them.

Yes Louis, evil is an unhelpful term, it gives it a mythical label to an action from a human, probably because we struggle to cope with accepting it's part of the human condition. Just as we struggle to cope with the fact that not all humans are ethical, want ethics nor can be taught or learn it.

I also believe things are simple, education is simple, it's humans that are complex and if it were simple, we'd be successful by now.

your dissolution and widening distribution of power seems to be the only sensible answer, this stuff is way too important for 60 wealthy people to have. "Never give power to those that actively seek it."

I think there should be more emphasis on the art of storytelling, in  particular the aspect of personal change that great stories include.  Another important aspect of storytelling that should be emphasized is holding an audiences attention and all the things that are required for that in live presentations and performances.  I think with the advent of movies we have become more passive as a society in this regard, losing the ability to interest an audience and losing the desire to even do so, affecting leadership in our institutions.  

Some 40 years ago, Washington State University anthropologist Barry Hewlett noticed that when the Aka pygmies stopped to rest between hunts, parents would give their infants small axes, digging sticks and knives.

 To parents living in the developed world, this could be seen as irresponsible. But in all the intervening years, Hewlett has never seen an infant cut him- or herself. He has, however, seen the exercise as part of the Aka way of teaching, an activity that most researchers -- from anthropologists to psychologists to biologists -- consider rare or non-existent in such small-scale cultures.

He has completed a small but novel study of the Aka, concluding that, "teaching is part of the human genome."

"It's part of our human nature," said Hewlett, a professor of anthropology at WSU Vancouver. "Obviously, teaching as it exists in formal education is way different than the way it exists in small-scale groups that I work with. The thing is, there does seem to be something going on there."

 The Aka are among the last of the world's hunter-gatherers, but their way of life accounts for 99 percent of human history. That they teach, and how they teach, offers new insight into who we are as humans and how we might best learn.

The Aka place a high value on individual autonomy, in addition to sharing and egalitarianism, so they're unlikely to intervene with one another's behavior.

"One does not coerce or tell others what to do, including children," Hewlett and co-author Casey Roulette write in Royal Society Open Science, an open-access journal by the world's oldest scientific publisher, The Royal Society of London.

After he saw the Aka teaching infants how to use various tools, he was told by social-cultural anthropologists that the activity was "just play." To their credit, said Hewlett, social-cultural anthropologists have recognized that teaching can be done outside a formal setting.

"The downside to that is they hadn't looked at teaching more broadly as part of human nature," he said.

But cognitive psychologists and evolutionary biologists suggested teaching is universal. Hewlett was particularly intrigued by the thinking of cognitive psychologists like Gyorgy Gergely of Central European University.

Gergely described an innate form of teaching called "natural pedagogy" in which a teacher directly demonstrates skills by, say, pointing, gazing or talking to a child. The learners in turn use the cues to imitate and learn about novel objects.

"It's important to remember that, cognitively, teaching occurs both in the teacher as well as in the child," said Hewlett. "The child needs to know that these particular cues mean something and the teacher knows how to use these particular cues to draw attention to knowledge that may not be clear to the learner. It's a co-evolution in the sense that it's happening both with the child and the so-called teacher."

The researchers documented 169 discrete teaching events, like a caregiver demonstrating how to use a knife. Almost half lasted less than three seconds, with teachers giving positive and negative feedback, demonstrating activities, pointing, giving verbal instruction and "opportunity scaffolding"- providing an object like a digging stick and the chance to use it.

Hewlett said he was surprised to see how frequently the Aka teach their infants. More than 40 percent of the time, infants imitated skills to which they were exposed. On average, for less than four minutes average of teaching, they practiced skills for more than nine minutes.

The teaching interventions were brief and subtle, and Hewlett came to appreciate the value of letting the child learn as much as possible on his or her own.

"We know learning can be very rapid when it is self-motivated," he said. "When you take away the autonomy of the child, that impacts the self-motivation of the child."

The technique gives the child more choices and serves as an alternative to helicopter parents who hover over an infant and say, "go do this, go do that, you need to do this, you need to do that."

"This way steps backward in the other direction," he said, as in, "I need to provide advice here or there but I don't have all the right answers for my child."

Which countries must do more to help children who fall behind at school?

         Gijsbert StoetReader in Psychology, University of Glasgow

Many of the world’s leading economies can do more to help struggling teenagers to get a better level of education that will equip them for later life. A new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), looking at why low-performing students fall behind at school, has found that much remains to be done to reduce the number of children that perform poorly in maths, reading and science skills.

One of the most striking aspects of the report is just how many children are low performers, even in highly-developed nations such as the UK, Australia, or the US. I find it shocking that one in six children in the UK has a low level of reading comprehension skills – 17% of those tested in both the UK and US, and 14% in Australia.

The new report is based on data taken from the OECD-funded Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest and most influential educational survey. It aims to raise educational standards by providing detailed information about successful and less successful educational systems.

Every three years, 15-year-old children around the world take the two-hour PISA test. It focuses on some of the most fundamental academic skills: reading comprehension, mathematics, and science literacy. The new report is based on the 2012 PISA round, in which nearly half a million children participated.

The average score in OECD countries for each skill is around 500 PISA points. For example, in the UK, children’s scores in reading comprehension ranged from 121 to 788 points, with a national average of 499 points. Low performance is defined as a score below (approximately) 400 PISA points. According to the OECD, a low performer does not have the skills required to participate fully in a modern society.

The numbers of low performers in mathematics are worse than in reading – 22% in the UK, 20% in Australia and 26% in the US. Of course, it is possible that a child is a low performer in only one of the skills, but the numbers of children performing poorly in all of the three skills is still worryingly high: 11% in the UK, 9% in Australia, 12% in the US and 13% in France.

Which countries do best

There are considerable differences between countries. Those that generally score highly in PISA are, unsurprisingly, also the countries with the fewest low performers. Generally, East Asian countries and economic regions are successful in PISA (with the Chinese cities Shanghai and Hong Kong leading the league table) and have relatively few low performers. But there are European countries that have a similar level of success. For example, Estonia has one of the highest PISA scores in Europe, and only 3% of children are low performers in all three skills, leading the European league table.

There are no simple explanations for why some countries do better than others – many factors play a role. These include the educational levels and income of parents, their engagement, and whether or not children live in an urban or rural area. We should not only look at the leaders of the league table, but also at countries which are culturally and geographically similar.

Take Ireland, for example, which has 10% low performers in reading and 17% in mathematics and has seen a considerable reduction in low performers between 2006 and 2012. In Ireland, only 7% of low-performing children skipped school at least once in the two weeks before the PISA test, compared to 27% in the UK and 45% in Australia. Ireland’s data also shows a lower level of segregation by educational achievement. Such comparisons suggest that dealing more effectively with truancy and a more equal distribution of low performers across schools might help to drive down the numbers of low performers in other countries.

Gender gaps persist

This new OECD report also reports gender differences among low-performers. From other research, we already know that boys fall behind in education around the world, and in the UK in A-Level and GCSEexams. In particular, boys fall behind in reading, and girls, to a lesser extent, in mathematics.

 Gender gaps at age 15. OECD, PISA 2012 Database

 These gender gaps are also reflected in the new report. As the graph above shows, more boys than girls are low performers in reading and science, whereas more girls are low performers in mathematics. Policies aimed at reducing gender inequalities have so far not been effective in resolving these gaps. A new approach is needed.

One of the problems that the report does not address is that countries with a larger mathematics gap often have a smaller reading gap and vice versa. This is enormously challenging, because some of the countries, such as Iceland or Finland, that are able to eliminate the mathematics gap affecting girls, have a particularly large reading gap affecting boys.

How to raise achievement

The final chapter of the report lays out a series of policies to tackle low performance levels. It gives examples of successful approaches, which include language training for non-native speakers and improving the quality of pre-primary education, which has happened in Germany. It also suggests that schools could foster high academic expectations, and use networks of schools to disseminate best practise.

It concludes that the percentage of low performers in any country can be reduced within a couple of years, if government is willing to reform the education system. While the number of low-performing children in the OECD is disappointingly high, with the appropriate educational reforms, based on evidence, a lot can be done to improve the situation.

Dear Ralph !!!

Immensely interesting. Thank you !

Thank you very much for the thorough analysis and review of proposals. Your outstanding contribute to the present question is not only interesting, it is above all a useful tool box for anyone interested in new propositions to adapt and change the present educational policies.

Thank you, dearly !

Warm regards from Portugal,

Maria

cold regards from London, I want to move to Portugal

_________________________________

Textbooks should describe scientists' failures, not just their accomplishments, study finds

 High school students may improve their science grades by learning about the personal struggles and failed experiments of great scientists such as Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

In the study, 402 9th- and 10th-grade students from four New York City high schools in low-income areas of the Bronx and Harlem were divided into three groups. The control group read an 800-word typical science textbook description about the great accomplishments of Einstein, Curie and Michael Faraday, an English scientist who made important discoveries about electromagnetism.

Another group read about those scientists' personal struggles, including Einstein's flight from Nazi Germany to avoid persecution as a Jew. The third group of students read about the scientists' intellectual struggles, such as Curie's persistence despite a string of failed experiments. The struggle stories included actions the scientists took to overcome these hurdles.

At the end of a six-week grading period, students who learned about the scientists' intellectual or personal struggles had significantly improved their science grades, with low-achievers benefiting the most. The students in the control group who only learned about the scientists' achievements not only didn't see a grade increase, they had lower grades than the previous grading period before the study began. The research, which was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, was published online in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

"When kids think Einstein is a genius who is different from everyone else, then they believe they will never measure up," said lead researcher Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, PhD. "Many students don't realize that all successes require a long journey with many failures along the way."

Students who read about the scientists' intellectual or personal struggles were more likely to say the famous scientists were people, like themselves, who had to overcome failure and obstacles to succeed. Students in the control group more often believed the great scientists had innate talent and a special aptitude for science.

The study suggests that science textbooks should highlight the struggles of great scientists and provide more vivid narrative descriptions of the techniques that scientists used to overcome challenges, said Lin-Siegler, an associate professor of cognitive studies at Columbia University's Teachers College.

"Many kids don't see science as part of their everyday lives. We teach them important content, but we never bring it to life," she said. "Our science curriculum is impersonal, and kids have a hard time relating to it because they just see a long list of facts that they have to memorize."

The study included a diverse sample of students: 37 percent Latino, 31 percent black, 11 percent biracial, 8 percent Asian, 7 percent white and 5 percent other. Almost one in five students was born outside the United States, and a third spoke English only half the time or less at home. Almost three-quarters of the students came from low-income families.

 Journal Reference:

Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Janet N. Ahn, Jondou Chen, Fu-Fen Anny Fang, Myra Luna-Lucero. Even Einstein Struggled: Effects of Learning About Great Scientists’ Struggles on High School Students’ Motivation to Learn Science.. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2016; DOI: 10.1037/edu0000092

Interesting, and not at all cold, dear Ralph. 

I have a different perspective to motivation, as I teach Medicine to first year students that struggled their way to entrance in University, with great motivation and highest perspectives. 

My problem, as I teach Anatomy, (which may get boring and difficult to adapt), is to keep their high motivation and expectations throughout their Courses. I find that teaching History of Medicine, and presenting them some of the highest standard examples, will help. 

I quote from your important quote:

"science textbooks should highlight the struggles of great scientists and provide more vivid narrative descriptions of the techniques that scientists used to overcome challenges" - Lin-Siegler

Thank you , again and again for your fundamental contribute.

 On the subject of Motivation, I found interesting approach and references from one of our good ResearchGaters, Miranda Yeoh and Ierardi Enzo,  who recently published on the subject.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285591232_Motivation_and_Achievement_of_Malaysian_Students_in_Studying_Matriculation_Biology

Article Motivation and Achievement of Malaysian Students in Studying...

Motivation, Study Habits -- Not IQ -- Determine Growth in Math Achievement

Dec. 20, 2012 — It's not how smart students are but how motivated they are and how they study that determines their growth in math achievement. That's the main finding of a new study that appears in the journal Child Development.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Munich and the University of Bielefeld.

"While intelligence as assessed by IQ tests is important in the early stages of developing mathematical competence, motivation and study skills play a more important role in students' subsequent growth," according to Kou Murayama, postdoctoral researcher of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (who was at the University of Munich when he led the study).

Murayama and colleagues looked at six annual waves of data from a German longitudinal study assessing math ability in 3,520 students in grades 5 to 10. They investigated how students' motivation, study skills, and intelligence jointly predicted long-term growth in their math achievement over five years.

Intelligence was strongly linked to students' math achievement, but only in the initial development of competence in the subject. Motivation and study skills turned out to be more important factors in terms of students' growth (their learning curve or ability to learn) in math. Students who felt competent; were intrinsically motivated; used skills like summarizing, explaining, and making connections to other materials; and avoided rote learning showed more growth in math achievement than those who didn't. In contrast, students' intelligence had no relation to growth in math achievement.

"Our study suggests that students' competencies to learn in math involve factors that can be nurtured by education," explained Murayama. "Educational programs focusing on students' motivation and study skills could be an important way to advance their competency in math as well as in other subjects."

Journal Reference:

1.     Kou Murayama, Reinhard Pekrun, Stephanie Lichtenfeld and Rudolf vom Hofe. Predicting Long-Term Growth in Students' Mathematics Achievement: The Unique Contributions of Motivation and Cognitive Strategies. Child Development, 20 DEC 2012 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12036

Generally, I see 5 types of medical student (and probably from other disciplines as well);

Conscientious type: +ve methodical, detailed, reliable. –ve lacking personality and creativity. Motivated by testing of facts and amount of bits they know. Demotivated by their limit of ability.

Extroversive type: +ve loads of personality, charming and good bedside manner. –ve lacking detail and reliability of facts. Motivated by adulation, and creative analytical thought. Demotivated by being put in the peripheral.

Agreeableness type: +ve helpful compliant. –ve weak taking the lead and being on own. Motivated by assisting and MDTeam. Demotivated by sole responsibility.

Neuroticism type: +ve driven but by fear of failure. -ve plagued by self doubt verses arrogance. Motivated by conformational bias. Demotivated by shame.

Openness type: +ve good listener and empathic. –ve gullible. Motivated by experience. Demotivated by boring teachers.

Obviously the above is just for fun, humans are complex.

Why a bit of grit won’t get children higher grades

February 12, 2016

Author              Kaili RimfeldPhD Student, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London

 Children differ widely in how well they do in exams, and researchers are still trying to understand which factors can predict or explain these differences, and if genes play a part. Now our new study has found that contrary to previous research, there is little to suggest that “grit” – or a child’s perseverance and passion for long-term goals – has an impact on their exam results.

Previous research has shown that a child’s personality can predict a significant, although modest, proportion of the differences between children’s grades at school. For example, a link between conscientiousness and school achievement can explain around 4% of the differences in children’s grades.

Research has also shown that grit is associated with academic achievement and life outcomes – even when intelligence and other personality factors are controlled for.

Yet, most of the research to date has used restricted samples, for example undergraduate students, teachers and children who were finalists in spelling competitions. Much less is known about the association between grit and academic achievement in the general population. It is also largely unknown why people have such different levels of grit.

To answer this question and explore the relationship between grit and academic achievement, our research used a sample of 4,500, 16-year-olds (from 2,300 pairs of twins) who are part of the UK Twins Early Development Study. By studying the origins of grit and its association with GCSE exam results, we found that grit actually has little impact on exam results.

Measure your true grit

We used the “Grit-S” questionnaire to measure each teenager’s level of perseverance and how consistently they held an interest in a task. To measure their perseverance, the participants rated the extent to which they agreed with statements such as “setbacks don’t discourage me”. To measure how consistently they maintained an interest in something, we asked them whether they agreed that: “I have a difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete.”

We also gave them a questionnaire to assess their level of each of the “big five” personality traits: extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness.

By using twins in our study we were able to look at why people differ in the amount of grit they have – and if genes played a part. We compared identical twins, who share 100% of their genes, to non-identical twins, who share on average 50% of the genes that vary between people.

This meant we could estimate whether differences we observed were down to differences in the twins' DNA sequence (known as heritability), their shared environment (such as school and family influences) or their non-shared environment – such as different friendship groups. If identical twins are more alike on a particular trait, such as grit, than non-identical twins, we can infer that this trait is influenced by their genes.

 ‘Grit’ adds little to prediction of academic achievement

 Our results showed that whether or not a person has more or less grit is substantially influenced by their DNA – and explains around a third of the differences between people’s level of grit. We showed that grit is highly similar to other personality traits, showing substantial genetic influence and no influence of shared environmental factors.

Weak link with exam results

Leaving genes aside, when we looked at the relationship between personality and academic achievement, we found that the big Five personality traits – mainly conscientiousness – explained 6% of the differences between exam results of the 16-year-olds in our study. But after controlling for these personality traits, grit on its own did little to influence academic achievement, explaining only an additional 0.5% in people’s GCSE results.

 These results should warrant concern given education policy directives in the US and in the UK, which emphasise the importance of grit and character education. It’s clear from our study that more research must be done before concluding that a certain type of teaching or classroom intervention are beneficial for academic achievement or other life outcomes.

We’re not suggesting that it’s impossible to teach children to be grittier, or denying that it’s beneficial to build habits of working hard or continuing in the face of adversity. But our findings suggest that grit is not a good way of predicting whether a child will get good grades. So while increasing grit or perseverance could have long-term benefits for children, it is unlikely to improve their academic achievement.

Ralph,

I am very sceptical about all  these performance tests.  THere are good indicators about what they test.  But what they test is not necessarily good indicator of what has to be test.  All these tests are made with certain mentality, prejudices and all the scores are objective evaluation of of biased viewpoints.  Trying to base policy on what should be done, what to improve using these test will only consider what these tests consider and the most important aspects that we should consider are not necessarily under the radar screen of these tests and the mentality they are the best expression.  

Thank you, Louis, for your very wise comment.

Best regards, Lilliana

Couldn't agree more Louis, humans are too complex to make tests have any accuracy of meaningful, problem is, what is more meaningful that we can readily replace it with?

Yes, we all seem to agree. Which is nice.

And this may lead us somewhere constructive.

We do need a starting point. Those evaluation tests are a great starting issue. The simpler they get, the more complex and assertive, their analysis can reach.

When we deal with humans, and with their complexity, we must prepare to cope with unpredictable surprises. That is what we usually get when we apply the medical reasoning, to diagnosis and prognosis... (Which doesn't imply disregard or neglect of any of the variables that we deal with. And certainly, not giving up on the pragmatic analysis of results.)

The main problem that I notice, as I try to analyse our students behaviour, is that they have constant change, on their urge to adapt... If you offer them the same questionnaire on motivation, before and at the end of their course, you'll be amazed at the absurd difference of their replies, in filling exactly the same form. (This doesn't imply that the first questionnaire would be useless. This only means that humans adapt and that humans comply... both in teaching, as in learning !)

That is the beauty of Humans. And that is the beauty of teaching and learning process.

Great question Maria: What’s the starting point?

Perhaps humans aren’t complex, maybe we over complicate things in which the human mind adapts to the complexity, with complex personalities?

Perhaps that’s the point of teaching, the journey to themselves before they were given the illusions and assumptions of their parents? Maybe even the starting point.

Maybe I’m wrong, it’s not about the self. Public service whether it’s teaching or medicine, there is one over riding fact which ironically always gets over looked; “it’s not about you!” it’s about the patient or student. For the police it’s supposed to be, “Protect and Serve.” I don’t understand how it’s possible to have a self-serving politician, yet the majority seemed to be.

Having coached children in two sports for 33years to a relatively high level, I can box parents into five types.

1.    Hands on false positive: their child can do no wrong, putting them on a pedestal of worship.

2.    Hands on false negative: their child can do no right, whatever they do they are told they should have done better.

3.    Hands off false positive: usually showering the child with meaningless stuff out of guilt for not being around working.

4.    Hands off false negative: parenting by absenteeism no boundaries nor reference point for behavior.

------------------------------------------------------------------ 

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.”

― Philip Larkin

“I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.”

― Philip Larkin

Ralph,

'' what is more meaningful that we can readily replace it with?''

We should not evaluate the state of a society by the economic indicator only?  We should not evaluate how a business is doing by accounting account only? We should not evaluate shool by quantitative testing methods only? We should not evaluate what a population think about politic with opinion polls only?  I can continue on and on we have become totally blind by numbers in all domains.  What is the importance of cancer in Canada.  And then we are told that it cost that many billion for the canadian economies as if this is the way to judge this situation in a way that totally eliminate the most important human dimensions.  

SO I do not have an easy answer to your question except not through blind numbers.  And why people want a numerical answer is that they don't want to think about it.  So the answer will only come not through number but through thinking about it.  All these quantitative assesment methods are design to tell people what to think about a situation: here is the number.

Ralph,

When it is time to think about improving very complex social state of affairs such as an educational system in a specific society and time, then I would say that we have to be conservative and not try to start from scratch based onto an ideology.  All these tests are as good and limited as the questions they are asking.  I am not against asking questions and doing statistic, it can be usefull if we do read them for what they are: very partial glimpses.

The general strategy I would advocate is to avoid revolutionary changes do reforms. One at a time.  To always focus the reform on the most deficient aspects of the system and always from the viewpint of the most under privilege of society.    I belief in doing reforms one step at a time so the system can organically assimilated it.

It will mean totally different things for different situations. When such a reformist philosophy is accepted and a qualitative consensus is achieved about what is the situation then and only then statistic surveying of the situation with relevant questions as seen from that perspective can be done and evalutated.

Although you are right, I see a problem! Do the best teachers go to the worst schools? They should do, if we focus on the under privileged and most in need of social priority. As the wealthy control the skill class, we are left with the altruism of the few? Same in medicine with Doctors without Boarders.

Ralph,

Trying to shuffle teachers around against their wishes does not appeal to me.  First a given teacher may be good where he/she is, specifically because she is good there.  Into another situations, other type of children may render the approach of that good teacher totally wrong.  I do not see the need to shuffle teacher around but I see a need to increase public funding in schools located in under privileged areas because the number of students per teacher should be reduced there given the greatest difficulties these students often experience.  

One of the politicians used to say - "Learn, learn and learn!". Such platitudes is like - "Work, work and work." The main thing should be taught in a professional and creative work.

In this complex process is not necessary tautology and chatter.

Well yes Louis but that goes back to my previous point, children or Kalashnikov?

i do believe we can overwhelm or marginalise the warrior class but it begins with massive restriction of arms trade. Then your point about public funding holds water, keep children uneducated for the frontline cannon fodder duties, sell arms to both sides, distract educated class with protection of boarders and national sovereignty, then nothing changes.

Ralph,

I really do not understand your last post.  I reviewed previous posts but it did not help.

I have no clue of your use of these terms in the current discussion:

Kalashnikov?

warrior class

arms trade

My understanding is, most if not all G8 sell arms and weapons to other countries. History has recorded these nations selling arms to both sides at the same time of any particular conflict. I hear the rational is, "might as well, if we didn't someone else will" and "it provides jobs and balance of trade."

in terms of warrior class, it is common for those that fall through the education net are often courted by the military service and the military services will pay for the university education if they join active service.

governments can decide how they spend our taxes and what international policy is, of which how much they channel into children's education and how much into being a military player. My understanding is, as the worlds resources are carved up amongst the G8 the cost is to be a player on the military stage.

a well educated population can attempt to use democracy to insist the priority should be to educate our young to solve the current problems of humanity or keep within a military machine.

im of course not talking about creating a pacifist country but I am seeing a contradiction between spending money on education and spending money on bombs. It's all about what politicians we want, what country we want for our children.

Ralph,

On the bigger issue of the waist of money on military expenses intead of on education of children

In poor countries the money that is spent on military expenses is certainly having a direct impact on the money that can be spent on education of children.  Richer countries can afford both to waist on military expenses and pay a quality education for children.  One hundred years ago , the world was carved into nations with some dominant ones and most being colonies.  But today all nations are colonies, including the G8, they are colonies of money aristrocracie.  There is a single finantial system and production system and national boundaries are just there to containt poverty.  Because of that, the so-called developed countries of today will gradually become as poor as all nations because production is systematically displaced to the cheaper places to produce.  The good news is that we will all become equally poor in this scenario with under the rule of finacial lords (currently 62 richest person own 50% of world capital) and no money for education, health, etc, Unless we do something about it.

Dearest Maria, we face a challenge. The "new" in education has to do not with a better education for the individual, but a better way of doing mass education. The challenge is that governments everywhere must educate a growing population and must devise reasonable ways to give a fair education to all. An education addressed to the individual is extremely expensive for obvious reasons. So when we ask if education is better because of technology, we are asking actually if technology will make mass education better, being, after all, mass education. I am not against mass education, but the truth is there have been little progress in finding what would be the way to educate an individual, regardless of the cost. Computers are cheaper than professors, cheaper than books, cheaper than devising educational materials for a specific culture or social group. It is cheaper to use generic materials that can be tweaked to become more amenable to specific students. We are not trying to improve education as an ideal, but education for the masses as a reality. Those are the times we live in. In mass education you get enough, not the best. Besides, the companies that sell these computers and materials are the ones who are getting the money. We cannot forget that mass education is big business for a few, while the mass is treated as a mass. Sad, this is vert sad.

Un abrazo grande, Lilliana

Dear Liliana !

Thank you for your precious comment. 

Your contribute is quite opportune, in the sense that we must indeed adapt to modern realities. I fully agree that as you so well put,  "We are not trying to improve education as an ideal, but education for the masses as a reality."

Abraço / Hug for you !

goodcountry.org

this may help

Lilliana Ramos-Collado

 "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" Derek Bok

The cost is certainly a big constraint and working for ways to reduce it is certainly something important.  We have to try imagine an world free university, an Learning Social Network, that anyone could access through a cheap connection to the internet. I would advocate a system where the entrance level education would almost demand no remote tutoring  but I would see a need for giving free tutoring/networking to highest levels to those that have the talent and determination to reach these levels. But this LSN would also be used by local teachers who would act as coach.  And it would to include an international system of certification of learning. Then education from kindergarten to Ph.D. would reach the  poorest neigborhoods.

How do you see the process to measure that talent and determination?

Dear Ralph! Each person is unique at birth. This means that every person is original and talented in certain areas of life. Talent cultivation of land a farmer can be invisible to most. But not difficult to explain in the novel, this talent for observation of the writer. Therefore, it is necessary initially to see the best in people. Let me add, a man who is wasting his talent on the humiliation and the death of other people is worthy only of contempt.

A very important  and valuable question !!. IMHO following aspects need to be considered.:

1.Technology and Knowledge has developed exponentially Earlier the critical massof education was in the 3 R's  and pursuit of knowledge was venerated in society. Unraveling the mysteries of nature was a sufficient motivator  Now education  is seen primarily as a vehicle to meet unsustainable aspirations of a large population.

2. Mindless lopsided development has practically eliminated a pristine world. Only now the import of this is being felt in terms of search for climate control, sustainable Eco-friendly economy, universal love of humanity etc.

3.Today Information is available worldwide through the web , so the emphasis is now on interpreting massive data and utilizing the same...there is need for new philosophies of life which break from the old mold.

4. We need to consider what we do with our time ..when robots (robotic assistants with every child) become ubiquitous . It is indeed mind boggling to imagine all these robots networked globally..and serving evrey need of all humans.

Possible implications

1.Ethics become important .. need to be nurtured..

2.Arts will be an important activity because possibly robots will not have" qualia".. and this might be the last human frontier.

3. The world cannot afford to leave anyone behind ..

The way forward :

1.It is true ,a sudden disruptive change in the system would perhaps be unacceptable as suggested earlier  valuable views but a rapid structured transition is thinkable.

2. It is  a personal view that a real life teacher in the formative years is irreplaceable.However the teacher needs to be tech savvy to guide and inspire young minds .

3.It is now possible to absorb many intricate theories with use of animation and "virtual immersive reality" This calls for a new approach to education.The old structure of IQ, exams grades will have to be dismantled and replaced with newer measures such as "creative quotient "= CQ , EQ= Ethical quotient ,SQ = Social quotient ..etc..

Cheers