When I taught high school history, I knew what facts (dates, events, names and so on) I wanted my students to remember, what ideas I wanted them to understand, what theories I wanted them to examine and what skills I wanted them to master. Knowing this, I was able to identify which students seemed be having trouble and what kind of extra help they might need. I was similarly able to identify those students who could handle and would benefit from extra work. Above all, I was able to justify to myself and others just what I wanted students to know and do, and why. In deciding that this date was more important than that, or that this event justified taking time to study it, I was constantly forced to ask myself why I wanted students to learn it in the first place. History has been famously described as “one damned thing after another,” and in school that is sometimes all it is, but if teachers ask themselves why they want to teach a certain topic in the first place, they can avoid this particular danger. Equally important, they can explain their thinking to their students, so that they also see the point of what they are expected to do. The research is clear: when students understand why they are required to do something, even if they do not agree with it, their learning improves.When teachers know clearly what they want to accomplish with
driveway gates students, they can also explain it to colleagues and parents and indeed, to the community at large. Citizens have a right to know what their schools intend to teach and how they will know whether or not they have successfully taught it. More than any other political system, democracy depends on the qualities of its citizens, and these qualities are to a certain extent learned in school. Schools are too important not to be held accountable for achieving certain standards.
This accountability, however, is more than measuring test scores and changing the format of school report cards, as is happening in some provinces. To hold teachers responsible for their students’ success on examinations, while at the same time denying them the freedom to adapt the curriculum and locking them into the existing grade structure of schooling, might be to have the worst of both worlds. This is why some schools are experimenting with alternative ways of evaluating students. It is also why many schools are making a special effort to keep parents informed of what they are doing. It is now an expected part of a teacher’s workload to telephone and even visit parents at regular intervals to tell them of their children’s progress and to ask for their co-operation—and not just when problems arise, but as a matter of routine for all students. In addition, schools are increasingly establishing parent councils that have real powers, including hiring teachers and deciding school policies. This kind of two-way contact between parents and schools is likely to do more for standards and accountability than any amount of tinkering with the system.
Journalism students in Singapore will have a media center from September 2012. Later, in the center of this students learn to package news for smartphones and tablet computers.
