Why it's time for a class revolt

Earlier in the year I attended a lecture by the great educator, Stephan Heppell, and a small part of his presentation tackled the touchy subject of P.I.S.A. (Programme of International Student Assessment) testing. He showed us a graph showing Finland and Korea way up one end and the rest of the world lagging far behind. Next we were shown a graph showing the moving from Secondary Education to Higher Education and this time the graph was almost the opposite of the PISA results. Thirdly we looked a a graph of youth suicides and this time we saw that it mimicked the original PISA results graph where the "rest of the world"  sat clumped together whilst countries like Korea and Finland stood apart. 

The following article discusses the Gonski review and what impact it may have on our education system. the article also refers to P.I.S.A. and the very strong suggestion in education circles that P.I.S.A. testing is so focussed on rote learning that it squeezes out any  entrepreneurial or creative thinking from students. The fact that the students from these top performing countries often don't proceed onto higher education is also very worrying and you can't help but think that the most likely reason is burn-out!

I'm not against standardised testing per se, as I think there has to be a benchmark but I also think when collecting data you cannot always use comparative data from just one test. NAPLAN and other testing has provided our school with some very valuable longitudinal data, that is considered in our strategic planning across the school. This research & data analysis has prepared us, as a school, to already be able to provide much of the suggested outcomes mentioned in the article by David Loader:

* Personal learning pathways for each student

* Personal technology

* Measurement for growth, not comparison

* Creation (of articles, products) as a student goal, not high marks

* Emphasis upon student behaviour, not just cognitive development

* Student opportunities to live/study in culturally unfamiliar settings

* Learning overseen by family and community, not government

* Support of continuous and lifelong learning

* Recognition of personal and community achievements

Read the article here from the Age on the 15th October: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/why-its-time-for-a-class-revolt-20121012-27hw1.html

and for the link to Stephen Heppell's views on PISA visit:  http://www.heppell.net/pisa/