Those of you who attended the State of the School address will have heard my strong opinions about standardized curricula and standardized testing. I firmly believe that schools need to concentrate on much higher orders of thinking than repetition and regurgitation, and rather than standardized curricula we should be promoting creativity, collaboration and entrepreneurialism.

You may even remember the phrase I used:

“We tend to value what can easily be measured rather than finding ways to measure what we truly value.”

Perhaps Einstein said it more eloquently:

“ Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”

I was delighted to be able to attend a presentation by Dr. Yong Zhao last week who validated my concerns about standardized education going as far as to call the ideology “dangerously irrelevant.”

American government and media seems to be obsessed with standardized test results as a measure of educational quality, even going as far as to develop standardized curricula to ensure that students do well in standardized tests. They point to the international mathematics test results (TIMMS) as an indicator of how poor American-style education is compared to other countries such as China, India and Korea. They present this as justification for a move towards more standardized education and test preparation. As Dr. Zhao points out, such results are dangerously irrelevant.

The irony is that as fast as the USA seems to want to move its public education system towards standardized education and testing to do well on such international benchmarks, those countries that historically do well (China and India) have already realized the importance of moving in completely the opposite direction.

Here is what they seem to have realized:

TIMMS results have no correlation what so ever with the success of a country. Indeed, there is a completely negative correlation between TIMMS results (and other international benchmarks) and GDP per capita. Countries with high GDP per capita are usually more creative and entrepreneurial. Those countries like China and India, who do well in TIMMS results, tend to have strong manufacturing bases.

This is my exact point. Standardized education and testing is perfect for repetitive, industrial, manufacturing societies. To be really successful in the 21^st Century takes creativity, open and lateral thinking and an entrepreneurial sprit. This is almost the exact opposite of a standardized system.

Historically, the most successful superpowers have been able to use all of their diverse talents to the full. When you standardize your education system, you lose the ‘diversity of talents’.

China and India have already realized this and in an effort to increase their GDP per capita are already completely re-organizing their education systems to be more like how they perceive the American system to be.

As fast as China and India are trying to be less standardized and more creative in their educational systems, it seems that America is doing exactly the opposite.

It is indeed a bitter irony.

Fortunately, such government educational initiatives do not apply to independent schools. Rest assured that Riverstone will continue to focus on what really matters. Your children will be taught to be creative, to collaborate, to compete and to be open-minded thinkers.

Hopefully they will continue to do well on standardized tests even though they are a poor measure of what really counts.

Indeed to paraphrase  Dr. Zhao, such curricula and test are “dangerously irrelevant.”

Andrew Derry

For more informationm on Dr Zhao: click here

Alex will be acting as a guest teacher for the next few weeks with the Grade 7 and 8 MYP science classes. 

Students can expect something a little different and should be ready to sharpen their scientific inquiry skills. Alex will be concentrating on the IB scientific method; predicting, hypothesizing, planning, fair-testing and analyzing through some real, hands on investigating.

Andrew Derry

Good English and Bad Grammar

Two countries separated by the same language: that was how I thought about moving to the USA as a born and bred Brit.

I already knew that a boot and a bumper on a car are a trunk and a fender. I knew that an entrée was not in fact a starter as the name might suggest. I knew that many spellings were different such as colour and color or gaol and jail.

I discovered that my spell check on Microsoft Word gives me a horrible red underline for many plurals such as: Curriculum and curricula, premium and premia, datum and data although to be honest that might just be a function of my age!

I even knew that some of the grammar was different; I take things where you might bring them and whilst I change ‘ice’ in nouns to ‘ise’ in verb, you do not. Americans are far more straightforward by sticking to ice – with one odd exception: Why do you change advice to advise but no other ice nouns?

The unfortunate thing that binds us together is the increasing and ever annoying poor use of language. This is universal on both sides of the Atlantic. Is it just me who is constantly annoyed by the inability of so many people to add a simple ‘ly’ to the end of an adverb? Do we really save that much time by saying ‘I did it quick’ or ‘think different’ rather than thinking correctly or, indeed differently.

I know some people would argue that it is merely a modern use of the language, and that in trying to be interesting and engaging to young people, correct grammar is ipso facto boring.

Maybe I am being a bit too traditional, but I firmly believe that as educators we have a duty to teach our students to use language correctly. Part of being well educated requires the good use of language to articulate our ideas well. Indeed, Superior communication skills distinguish the highly educated. As Aristophanes put it “High thoughts must have high language’

My last gripe for today centers (or centres) around the abstract addition of redundant words in sentences.  I cannot help think how powerful Martin Luther King’s speech might have been:

I, er, like, have a dream!

Andrew Derry

What Really Matters 2.

Traditional education revolves around the three Rs.

No, not reading riting and rithmatic as was the case when I was at school, but Repeat, Remember, Regurgitate.

We all remember those Maths classes when the teacher would show us a problem on the board (usually a chalk-smeared blackboard), we would do the next 40 problems from the text book (all similar), another 20 for homework. Then at the end of the section, we would be given a test of another 40 almost identical problems with which we were expected to score more than 90%.

The fact of the matter is that most educational systems were designed this way. Real life was divided in to artificial domains or subject areas. Tests were devised that allowed for the “brightest” (and by that we mean “best at remembering”) to succeed and for the rest to fail.

Teachers possessed the “knowledge”, they passed it on to the students in the order and manner they felt fit, the students remembered the knowledge and then regurgitated it on tests. The best students at this process, progressed, the others did not.  The more cynical among is might suggest that the old fashioned system of forcing students to Repeat, Remember, Regurgitate was considered a good way to discipline the young. It certainly put the teacher in a position of power in the classroom.

Fortunately modern brain and pedagogical research shows us how children think and learn best – and it’s not by the three Rs!

In the best educational systems, the old fashioned, knowledge based approach is replaced by skills based, contextual learning. In such systems the teacher is no longer the fount of all knowledge, but the facilitator helping each individual student to acquire the skills and concepts necessary to understand, to think, to adapt, to analyze and to do.

This is the underlying philosophy of the International Baccalaureate Organisation. Whether the PYP, MYP or DP programme, IB students are empowered to think and to do rather than to just know.

                                     I think therefore IB

 Andrew Derry

Welcome to this new blog page and welcome to our new website. A great deal of time and effort has gone into making this new site more informative and more user-friendly. We would certainly appreciate receiving your feedback on the look and feel of the site.

Being new to the school this year, my family and I gave a great deal of thought to our move. Moving from Europe to the USA was a big decision and we wanted to be sure that we made the right one. In making that decision, we started to ask ourselves: What really matters? 

Of course, what really matters in schools is the right combination of many things; teachers, students, parents, program, and facilities to name but a few. But, for us the things that really mattered when choosing to come to Riverstone, were family, community and relationships. 

Riverstone International School is a very special place and it’s not just the rigorous IB curriculum, it’s not just the college admission success, it’s not the fact that our students score in the 97^th percentile on PSAT scores. What really matters at Riverstone, what really makes this school stand out, is its community and the relationships it develops among staff, parents, students. We are one big family, all working together for the benefit of our students.

Having worked in many international schools around the world, I can tell you that we should never take this for granted. Not all schools are like Riverstone, not even those that are as academically successful. To be honest, when I first came for an interview in November 2007, I knew nothing about Boise. I distinctly remember returning home and trying to explain to my family why Riverstone was the place for us. What really mattered was the sense of community and the relationships that developed as a result of that.

This was brought home to me very recently as part of the Capital Campaign to build the new Elementary School building. Teachers in any school are not the highest paid citizens in society, but our staff decided to get together to find a way to contribute to the campaign. As a group, they decided to have part of their salary set aside each month over an eighteen-month period. As a result, they managed to provide a leadership pledge to the campaign of $15,000. That is extraordinary! As a group, the staff understands how important that sense of community is to this school.

This school is extraordinary for many reasons, but being new to the school, what makes it so special for me is its sense of community!

Andrew Derry