[竹] Education Reforms in D.C.

Photo by Joanna Nix on Unsplash

採訪／李雪莉、彭昱融

十月初，哈佛大學一項學生學習成效調查結果，在哈佛教授間投下了一顆震撼彈。

哈佛大學伯克教學中心針對二十門課的教授、四百位學生，分別調查老師與學生是否掌握課堂「核心概念」？跌破教授眼鏡的是，只有不到三成的學生，抓到教授在那門課想傳達的核心概念。

來自全美六百所頂尖高中的六千名哈佛新生，遇上不乏諾貝爾獎得主的黃金陣容教授群，頂尖的學生、優秀的教授，學習成效落差卻如此巨大，「教」與「學」之間究竟出了什麼問題？

「結果讓我們非常震驚，」哈佛大學歐洲歷史與文學教授、伯克教學中心主任威京森（James Wilkinson） 接受專訪時以開放的態度分享說，「多數哈佛教授教的，並沒有自己想得那樣好。」

《天下》專訪伯克教學中心主任威京森。當腦科學研究漸漸揭開了學習的本質，威京森分享，多年對學習的研究，不只對大學教授有幫助，對那些渴望提升孩子學習效能的家長們也受用無窮，專訪內容如下：

世界瞬息萬變，大學教育以「內容」來定義註定要失敗。今天重要的科目到明天可能已經被揚棄。究竟二十一世紀的教育要帶給學生什麼？哈佛大學的博雅教育有五個目標，希望學生畢業後能夠：

一、獨自探索世界

二、建立對知識的好奇

三、具備探詢與解決問題的能力

四、能把找到的解決方法與他人溝通

五、培養創造力，用嶄新方式看問題

因此，大學博雅教育的關鍵在於，將教育的焦點從「內容」（學什麼）轉移至「過程」（怎麼教與如何學），思考哪些過程能夠使大學畢業生具備上述能力。

過去三十年對學習與教學過程的研究，讓我們更了解學生的學習過程，產生許多新教學方式與工具。但研究的過程也發現，學生的學習成效並未像我們所期待或聲稱的那樣好。

其中一項有趣的發現是，過去以為大一新生帶著空空的腦袋進大學，等著學新東西，但這項假設已被推翻。

學生經常是帶著「錯誤認知」來學習。他們帶著各式各樣源自經驗的成見進大學，其中不乏錯誤的想法。譬如問學生，從一架飛機上拋下一個玻璃罐，罐子將直線墜落？或是往前拋射？多數的學生直覺認為應該會直直墜落，因為沒有想到罐子具有飛機上的速度。

遇到這情況，教授必須要透過實驗，改正學生錯誤的概念與邏輯。

哈佛成功錄取了許多考試成績非常高的學生，但考高分並不意味著更深刻的理解。

我們發現哈佛大學學生問問題的技巧並不好，要他們問出深刻的問題非常困難，但這卻是最根本也最重要的能力之一。

他們在進入大學前被教導了太多「答案」，好奇心早被扼殺，甚至來不及發問就被告知答案，正因為是被動學習，學習效果非常有限。

解方1： 參與式學習

透過討論、實作等方法，不只加深學生的印象，更讓學生了解到自己究竟學到了多少。譬如自己開車到某處，因為參與其中，握著方向盤主導一切，比起搭計程車，你對環境會更為熟悉。

解方2：讓情緒為學習加分

正向情緒也在學習過程扮演重要角色。情緒與大腦記憶相輔相成，學習內容若沒有情緒的連結，新學習的知識將無法有效加入腦中。

老師和家長不只要導正錯誤觀念，更重要是克服過去的錯誤教育，將他們逆轉成一個有四歲孩子好奇心的十八歲青年。

解方3： 老師也要磨練教學技巧

老師的角色應轉變為學生的合作者，而教育的內容更應該強調「如何教」。

對美國的高等教育而言，我們可以這樣說：教授假裝在教書，而學生假裝好像有學到東西。

為了改善這種狀況，哈佛的做法是從阻力較小、接受度較高的新教授做起。教學中心在他們開始教課前，規劃一週的研習課程，讓他們了解教哈佛學生的基本情形、觀摩優良教學示範。

有個簡單的做法能掌握學生的學習狀態：教授要給學生回饋，時常告訴學生回答問題、報告的好壞，寫作技巧的進步情形等。

課堂提問時，只要要求學生舉手作答，並解釋給同學聽，或請學生到講台上解釋、為自己的答案辯護，就可以做到參與式學習，這在幾百人的大堂課同樣有效。

出自＜天下雜誌教育特刊＞

接著，是李恆的信，信裡敘述了他近期所聽一場演講的心得；演講中有很多是身為學生的我們可以思考，汲汲營營地爭取世界百大的台大更應該傾聽的。

Hey,

So it’s been more than 3 months since wrapping up the summer in Manchvegas — hope the new school year is treating everyone well.

Life at Duke is…hard to characterize. Some days I feel superb about myself and believe that I can save the world — some other days I feel the exact opposite and that I need the whole world to save me from my misery. I’m still trying to figure a lot of things out, in terms of majors, classes, summer activities, social life, academics, blah…you know the deal. Anyway, I’m always open to inspiration, so feel free share a quote, article, video, etc. with me chances are that it’ll keep me alive and kicking.

So that’s the first part of my note — the main reason why I’m writing this note though, is to share what I learned listening to Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public School System, speak today at Duke. Depending on who you talk to, Rhee will be characterized as either one of the most inspirational or most controversial figures in the public education system today. Her bio can be found on Wikipedia, but in a nutshell, she was appointed to be the Chancellor of D.C. public schools last summer — and she was only 36. She had taught for three years as a Teach-For-America recruit before founding the New Teacher Project — a non-profit aimed at recruiting and training high quality teachers for disadvantaged districts — but besides that she had never led a school, let alone a school district.

There was a reason why Adrian Fenty, the mayor of D.C., appointed her, and that reason soon became clear. The truth is that D.C. public schools on the whole are in horrible shape; there is a huge achievement gap between black and white students, the graduation rate is abysmal, and (at least according to Rhee’s standards) incompetent leadership and ineffective teaching runs through the system. The fact that the D.C. school district receives more money per capita student than any other school district in the nation makes this problem incredibly disturbing.

To say Rhee is committed to change is an incredible understatement. In her first year, she “closed 23 schools, fired 36 principals and cut 15 percent — about 121 jobs — from the central office staff”Many of the details of what she has done as chancellor (along with the criticism) can be found on YouTube; I personally have found them very inspiring. They are not all very indicative of her personality though; in the videos she comes off as very dictator-like (which she actually indirectly admits to being in one of the interviews), whereas in person she has a good sense of humor and is a very engaging speaker.

I won’t bore you with listing everything she’s done in the past 18 months, but besides trying to terminate ineffective and irresponsible teachers (which she literally has next to no tolerance for; more on this later), she is also trying to recognize good teachers by providing financial incentives. To be specific, she has acquired the financial support of external philanthropic foundations, and she is seeking to use that money to negotiate a new contract with teachers through the teachers’ union. The new contract essentially consists of two plans, dubbed “red” and “green.” Under the red plan, the teachers would gain a significant pay increase (28% raise + $10,000) in exchange for losing seniority (which would make them now equally vulnerable to dismissals as more-junior teachers in the case of a school closedown or overhaul). Under the green plan, the teachers would gain an even more significant pay increase (40% + $10,000) — the caveat, however, is to give up tenure, which Rhee says is “the holy grail of teachers’ unions” but “has no educational value for kids”

To sum up: her massive overhaul of personnel combined with the new contract she’s pushing for is essentially why she is the center of controversy among many teachers and parents. Her critics claim that she is trying to do “too much, too fast” and has no regard for teachers, while her supporters claim that “she cannot make changes fast enough” in a city where talk of quality education has been overshadowed by the interests of bureaucrats and other adults.

So I found out last week that Rhee was going to come give a talk at Duke, and honestly I was really excited because that name rang a bell and made me feel slightly cultured haha. So I spent quite some time the past week looking up what she’s done to get ready for the talk, and I actually got to listen to her talk twice, once this morning amongst a small group of students that my education professor from last year invited (I actually sat right next to her and got to ask her a question) and once this evening in a public setting.

I will say this: Rhee is extremely well-spoken, and even though public education (especially D.C.) is an extremely complex issue, she has a way of making her audience see the big picture through powerful statements and/or anecdotes, and subsequently make a very complex issue seem very straightforward. For instance on the issue of terminating ineffective teachers — her critics have pointed out that she is ignoring the role of professional development, as she has terminated many people’s positions without pursuing the traditional route of giving the teacher time and support to become better. If I recall correctly, Rhee did not directly respond to the question (or maybe I just got lost in the midst of words), but what she did say is essentially this: “if a teacher is ineffective and cannot help the students learn at all, are you going to keep him/her in the classroom, and tell the kids ‘yeah he/she isn’t doing a good job, but we’re going to give him/her a year or two and then she’ll become better?’” Rhee did mention that there is a need to strike a balance between professional development and ensuring that all students have high quality instructors, but I guess with this anecdote, she makes it very clear that more often than not she is willing to err in the favor of students than in the interests of teachers. This is very consistent with her overall tone of the night, as she emphasized over and over again that education should be about the children, and not the interests of adults. An anecdote she repeatedly uses is one that recounts her meeting with a school principal, who claimed that “none of the teachers” in that particular school were ineffective — yet this is a school that was consistently failing in almost all major measurable areas (I forget the numbers.)

So Rhee then proceeded to ask the principal, “let me ask you this: would you put your granddaughter in any of the classes in your school?”

The principal replied, “well, if that is the standard, then none of my teachers are effective.”

Rhee said, “That IS the standard.”

Another anecdote I really liked was her account of how she responded the critics who claimed that she is overly idealistic and ignores all the obstacles that exist in real life, such as the families or neighborhood students comes from, thus being unfair in holding teachers entirely accountable for students’ failure.

Rhee’s message essentially entailed this (I’m paraphrasing and interpreting quite a bit): “If you are not willing to believe that despite all these obstacles and challenges, you still have the ability (and should take personal responsibility) to make every student — black, white, rich, poor — learn and succeed, then the D.C. district is probably not for you. You should go teach at other school districts, where you will have an easier pool of students to choose from and to help succeed. You will still be a good teacher — but for the D.C. school districts, good is perhaps not enough.”

My personal views on her massive reform? My disclaimer is that I do not know the American public school system well, but from what I have learned, she has my support. I do sort of sideline with her critics on one issue though. Michelle Rhee places heavy emphasis on data-driven results and standardized testing as a way to measure whether schools are helping students learn, and her critics have pointed out this initiative will backfire and result in teachers “teaching to the test” and not teaching students skills that are equally important but harder to measure with standardized tests.

In the PBS episodes Rhee dismisses these claims as inevitable counterclaims coming from teachers’ unions who see their own interests in jeopardy. At the talk today though, she did address it directly. She actually acknowledges “teaching to the test” as a potential ramification of implementing data-driven evaluations, but she also makes a good point (in my opinion) that compared to what’s happening now in D.C. — in which students are not learning at all and there is not a system to measure teacher ineffectiveness — she would much rather deal with potential “teaching to the test” problems as a result of her new plan than with the current mess. In addition, the students are clearly not learning under the current system — why not change? I will say that she had me pretty convinced when she put it that way — I guess in a sense it’s like choosing the lesser of two evils, as every plan has its downside.

Overall I was very inspired. In retrospect I think I take high-quality instruction for granted way too often. I spent my last two years of high school at a private boarding school 5 minutes outside of Washington D.C., and in retrospect, my worst classes and worst teachers there (that I would complain about 24/7) actually might have been unattainable for some of the schools just 5 minutes away. Rhee’s talk made me remember the discussion we had during BT training week about the disparity in quality education — I specifically remember Warren using the term “shortchanged” to describe some of his experiences — and it made me realize how there is a whole world out there that I haven’t seen, how I have been lucky enough my whole life to have had excellent teachers, and maybe how, in a sense, I have thus lived in a bubble and not realized that I took way too much stuff for granted.

I don’t know that much about Teach-For-America, but I really like one of its taglines — “Teach for the nation’s greatest injustice.” That education inequality is an injustice — that I wholeheartedly believe in.

A lot of what we’ve done over the summer takes on a whole new level of meaning when you tell yourself to take nothing for granted and imagine how different your life would be if one of the worst teachers you have ever had (hopefully not too many) becomes the norm for all of the teachers you have ever had and will ever have.

That is what a great number of children in this nation and in the world are experiencing every single day.

And for some less fortunate ones, tack on a caveat to that: IF they’re lucky.

I will say this: I am trying to navigate my way through a couple options regarding this upcoming summer. One is to return to Manchvegas, one is to apply for this generous fund Duke has and do service work abroad, and another is to try to find an internship in the business or finance industry and see if I like it or not. I still haven’t made up my mind yet — but after today I have taken a huge step towards Manchvegas.

Herng

11/17/08