To shanghai - to force someone to do something or go somewhere (Cambridge English Dictionary).
After yet another less than subtle critique of teachers in England, Liz Truss and several academy cronies whisked off to Shanghai to see how maths should be taught "properly". The driving force behind this fact-finding jolly was, of course, the top spot occupied by Shanghai students in the PISA rankings for just about everything. And now 60 Chinese teachers of maths are going to come here to show us how to do it. Good luck with that, because there are a few shibboleths about PISA and Shanghai that need to be addressed.
1. Who takes the PISA tests? In the OECD countries it is 15 year olds. In China, however, most children leave formal education at the end of middle school, i.e. at the age of 14. The ones who continue have to pass very conpetitive tests and pay fees. In other words, the Chinese children who take the tests have already succeeded in the system, and have parents who can afford to pay. PISA results for China do not represent the whole cohort, as the tests are taken only by the brightest -they are the only ones still in school when the tests are run. We would perform much better in the PISA tests as a nation if, like Shanghai, we allowed only the top 10% of the ability range to take them.
2. The one-child policy in China means that parents are much more focused on their only offspring (particluarly if it's a boy) and desperately want them to achieve highly. We've all heard about "tiger mothers". Chinese parents spend about 14% of their income on education. They don't expect the school alone to coach the students for the tests, so much of this money is spent on after-hours programmes and private tuition.
3. Long hours and punishing homework schedules relentlessly supervised by parents mean that children miss out on opportunities to be creative or develop physical and social skills, which ironically is what their teachers feel they lack. So as Gove, Wilshaw and Truss look east for quick fixes, Chinese educators are looking west to see how we take a more holistic view of the child as an individual. Funny, that.
4. Teaching is a high-status profession. Universities recruit from the top 30% of the cohort. Primary teachers are expected to be accomplished polymaths, with high levels of maths, Chinese, science and English as well as being skilled musicians and all-round sportsmen. Training courses are demanding, and success dictated by scoring highly on tests. This, of course, is exactly what you want as role models in a system dominated by high-stakes testing - people who have done well in that very system.
Comparing England with Shanghai, therefore, is like judging a fish on its ability to ride a bicycle. It is by no means a fair comparison, and is founded on the outcomes of a testing regime that is deeply flawed. I have sympathy for the 60 maths teachers who will find a very different culture here from the one they are used to in China. What works in one jurisdiction is not guaranteed to work in another, especially when there are so many cutural variables.
Gove, Wilshaw and Truss are "shangai-ing" the English education system down a path ever more dominated by high-stakes testing at ever-increasing intervals. Put a test in front of schools and they will teach to it - a very reductionist view of education. Gove is being either disingenuous or wilfully ignorant if he doesn't understand this. I wonder if he's ever heard the phrase "lost in translation"?
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