New Zealand was not alone, with overall average scores for maths, reading and science dropping in the 81 countries and economies participating in the tests.
My kids are all young. For under 7, I want (and found) a school where about half of the school day is structured or unstructured play (preferably not on screens). There is very little evidence that younger kids (on average) benefit from learning reading, maths, writing at younger ages, and very little correlation between early readers and reading ability say 10 years later. This is one reason many other countries start school later, at 6 or 7 as a default.
For 7 and up I don’t know too much. We can say it’s different than when we were young, but sometimes that’s good. Does the different ability represent a world where it doesn’t matter how bad your spelling is, so long as you have good MS Word skills that will get you the job? It doesn’t matter how bad your basic facts are because knowing Excel will get you the job (and solve your basic facts for you)?
It’s fun to theorise but really what this article needs is a link to a study that explains why ability is falling all around the world through some controlled study.
I agree - to a point. Unstructured play/learning is great - for certain kinds of kids. My personal theory is that those kinds of kids will do ‘well’ in life, no matter what. They love to learn, and they learn by observing, doing, playing, tinkering, testing, breaking etc. I have one kid like that.
I also have another one who, given the chance, would gladly spend the whole day watching other people playing Minecraft on YouTube. But, break through his protests, and hold his hand to get him started on something, and he’ll smash it out of the park. He’ll whine the whole way, but man he blows me away with what he’s capable of. Structured “traditional” learning works well for him, as it gives him the boundaries and targets he needs. But give him anything unstructured and he will goof off, every time.
One of the issues is that for kids that read early, they don’t actually end up better than other kids. For kids that read late, being in a class watching other kids learn easily and them not being able to because their brain development hasn’t reached that point yet, that can be detrimental to future learning. Kids lose confidence, and don’t think of themselves as someone who can learn. One of the biggest indicators of academic success is whether a kid sees themself as a learner.
However, one thing that kids pushed into early academic work often lack is social skills. This is what the unstructured play teaches, and is just as important as book skills.
Confidence is key, and a sense of entitlement (to what they are entitled to, not the negative kind). Part of that is the social culture at the school. I saw an interesting study by some linguists once who found that chanting “shame” at each other for achieving is not universal.
One of the issues is that for kids that read early, they don’t actually end up better than other kids.
Ah, that’s good to know. I got taught to read as a preschooler and did end up better at that kind of thing than other kids, so when friends and whanau didn’t teach before age 5, it always low-key gave me anxiety. Now the kids are older I’m chill but it’s good to know they weren’t being disadvantaged.
So in another reply I’ve caveat-ed what I said. Firstly, I read/heard it in a book/podcast, I didn’t see the study myself.
Second is that the did not relate early reading ability to late reading ability, they related it to ‘life success’ - which was judged based on whether they had a degree at age 35, which as someone who feels pretty successful, and didn’t have a degree at age 35 (and still don’t), isn’t necessarily a good way to judge, but it’s at least a clear yes/no which makes things easier.
A kid could be an early reader that grows up to be a fantastic reader, but doesn’t do well in society.
I saw an interesting study by some linguists once who found that chanting “shame” at each other for achieving is not universal.
I’m not sure if I just can’t remember but I don’t recall people chanting “shame” at people for achieving. It sounds like a high school thing, but definitely after the underachievers left school at 15 or 16 people were celebrated for achievement, mostly in sports but I don’t remember anyone being mocked for academic achievement. Our dux and runner up dux (can’t remember word) were both at least moderately popular.
To be honest I was intending to look up the study. That puts it in another light though; I thought it was about correlations with literacy and possibly ability to synthesise information. All bets are off again damn it.
I agree, that success/degree metric is not fit for purpose. Not only does having a degree not measure life success, it doesn’t even measure being able to read and write very well (this isn’t me being anti-intellectual, I have three of them myself).
I don’t remember anyone being mocked for academic achievement
Oh yeah, sorry, for the shame thing I was definitely talking about primary school not high school!! (I thought you guys all had kids in that age). The study is on regional differences in New Zealand childrens’ slang; the shame thing was an unexpected finding - it’s shame, shame-o, shame-a-lame, but the high decile schools didn’t have this word or custom.
I agree, that success/degree metric is not fit for purpose. Not only does having a degree not measure life success, it doesn’t even measure being able to read and write very well (this isn’t me being anti-intellectual, I have three of them myself).
I don’t think it’s trying to measure reading/writing ability. If the difference between ok and good/great skills doesn’t impact people’s life outcomes (however we measure that), do we care about improving this skill? (I found this a hard sentence to write because it feels like a silly thing to say, but as a philosophical statement I think it’s worth thinking about)
Oh yeah, sorry, for the shame thing I was definitely talking about primary school not high school!! (I thought you guys all had kids in that age). The study is on regional differences in New Zealand childrens’ slang; the shame thing was an unexpected finding - it’s shame, shame-o, shame-a-lame, but the high decile schools didn’t have this word or custom.
Interesting! It sounded like a high school thing to me. I haven’t heard of it before, but I went to mid-decile primary schools. And even so, if the study was recent then it could be newer slang that didn’t exist when I was a kid.
No, it’s not a new thing. I get the impression I’m your age or slightly older, and I went to a primary school where if the teacher said your work was good, or you got an award, the whole class would chorus “shaaaame”.
I guess this is one of those if you know, you know things - I remember a colleague whispering “ow, shaaame” to me as a joke once when there was an announcement that I got awarded a grant!
The fact you haven’t heard of it illustrates my point that NZ schools are not all alike in the culture around learning.
If the difference between ok and good/great skills doesn’t impact people’s life outcomes (however we measure that), do we care about improving this skill?
This is where correlation becomes less useful. It really depends on what other skills and resources the person can draw on - not everyone is cut out to be a plumber or a lawyer. My instinct is that we need to give students the opportunity to have a range of well-mastered skills in their toolbox, and then to develop their aptitudes.
Perhaps what we need first is a goal. Is our goal for kids to be able to get jobs? To get jobs they like? To make lots of money? Or is our goal for people to be happy? Feel in control? Have many opportunities? Live an ethical life?
Without a goal it’s hard to know whether school is failing kids.
I know many would say a school is there to teach reading and writing and maths. I don’t think schools are (or should be) there for that purpose, but rather to improve society by educating everyone. That may need to happen through teaching reading, writing, and maths, but if we don’t know our goal we don’t know if that’s the way to achieve it.
Some caveats to my claim. The thing (book? podcast? can’t remember, so take with a grain of salt) was saying kids that read early (ages 3-4) aren’t more likely to have a degree at age 35 when controlling for other factors.
The study you’ve linked is looking at reading ability at age 6, which may change things. I also couldn’t find anything in the paper stating they had controlled for other factors. If a child with a parent at home reads earlier, and one that doesn’t reads later, the difference in life success is unlikely to be related to the reading, but more likely to be related to them growing up in a household wealthy enough to have a stay at home parent. This wouldn’t be effective data for changing a school system to focus on reading earlier.
To put this in context with what I was saying, if reading is pushed hard from age 4 and some kids do well and for some who aren’t quite ready this causes a detrimental impact that causes them to be poor learners for life - well this would show in your study as reading ability at 6 years old being strongly predictive of reading ability at 42. Basically, I don’t believe the study you’ve linked helps us narrow down anything because they don’t seem to have controlled for anything.
I did try to find a study to back up my claims, or even disprove my claims, but I couldn’t find a study that looked further than 10 years or so, and even then they weren’t controlling for other factors.
Maybe our school system is failing because of a lack of data on how to do things better?
To be fair, the study does not actually show a causation but an “association”.
Anecdotally, but from personal experience, the best young readers tend to be the ones that enjoy reading the most. Fostering that love of reading is, in my opinion, something that needs to happen at home.
This is it right here. A lot of reaction to the changes in learning has not been evidence based. To be fair, many of the changes themselves were not evidence based either. It’s easy to sit and say something needs to change, but much harder to show that the changes being made are going to make any difference at all.
I’m not even sure that the research can keep up with the changing world, to be honest. I think the best we can do is teach kids how to learn, because the things they need to know for life probably aren’t even invented yet.
Well, there are two different things here. Some knowledge is well established and doesn’t change, or changes very slowly. Reading, writing and mathematics, for example. And later on the core sciences. None of this is affected by changes in technology.
How they interact with the world is changing rapidly, and I’m not entirely convinced our schooling system has this correct. I’m not sure what should change, but I feel like the school is simultaneously lagging behind and forging ahead of societal changes wrought by technology.
While reading, writing, maths doesn’t change, their need in an ever changing world does change.
As an example, people lament the inability of younger generations to read cursive. But in a world where almost everything was printed by (or viewed on) a computer, the ability to read cursive just isn’t that important.
I think currently basic facts are still important. But if the world doesn’t reenforce this (by requiring them to actually use them), then the knowledge won’t stay long term.
Perhaps the lagging skills of younger generations represent a world that no longer asks for them. But the younger generations are sure to have better skills in other ways, ways that this new world demands of them.
Exactly! I don’t know if it’s right or not, but things are complex and what previous generations (us? 😱) value can be different to younger generations, and we shouldn’t assume our way is right.
It doesn’t matter how bad your basic facts are because knowing Excel will get you the job (and solve your basic facts for you)?
The outsourcing of basic knowledge onto tech? I think we see the real-world effects of this already. A classic example is that building in London that has a concave mirrored surface on a side that faces the sun. Most people my age know the implications of concave mirror+sun.
The fact it went right through design, planning, and construction without anyone pointing out this simple fact, so they had to learn the hard way, speaks volumes.
I learnt that concave mirror + sun is a bad idea, but if I was signing off that building I never would have considered it unless it was on the checklist 😆
I mean I’m not even STEM background but at some point I would have said okay so this 38-storey concave mirror is ponting where?
Omg looking up how many storeys it is I discovered it isn’t even the only one of these things this architect perpetrated! He had another one in Vegas nicknamed the Death Ray. Both of them had to have remedial work done to protect people.
My kids are all young. For under 7, I want (and found) a school where about half of the school day is structured or unstructured play (preferably not on screens). There is very little evidence that younger kids (on average) benefit from learning reading, maths, writing at younger ages, and very little correlation between early readers and reading ability say 10 years later. This is one reason many other countries start school later, at 6 or 7 as a default.
For 7 and up I don’t know too much. We can say it’s different than when we were young, but sometimes that’s good. Does the different ability represent a world where it doesn’t matter how bad your spelling is, so long as you have good MS Word skills that will get you the job? It doesn’t matter how bad your basic facts are because knowing Excel will get you the job (and solve your basic facts for you)?
It’s fun to theorise but really what this article needs is a link to a study that explains why ability is falling all around the world through some controlled study.
I agree - to a point. Unstructured play/learning is great - for certain kinds of kids. My personal theory is that those kinds of kids will do ‘well’ in life, no matter what. They love to learn, and they learn by observing, doing, playing, tinkering, testing, breaking etc. I have one kid like that.
I also have another one who, given the chance, would gladly spend the whole day watching other people playing Minecraft on YouTube. But, break through his protests, and hold his hand to get him started on something, and he’ll smash it out of the park. He’ll whine the whole way, but man he blows me away with what he’s capable of. Structured “traditional” learning works well for him, as it gives him the boundaries and targets he needs. But give him anything unstructured and he will goof off, every time.
One of the issues is that for kids that read early, they don’t actually end up better than other kids. For kids that read late, being in a class watching other kids learn easily and them not being able to because their brain development hasn’t reached that point yet, that can be detrimental to future learning. Kids lose confidence, and don’t think of themselves as someone who can learn. One of the biggest indicators of academic success is whether a kid sees themself as a learner.
However, one thing that kids pushed into early academic work often lack is social skills. This is what the unstructured play teaches, and is just as important as book skills.
Confidence is key, and a sense of entitlement (to what they are entitled to, not the negative kind). Part of that is the social culture at the school. I saw an interesting study by some linguists once who found that chanting “shame” at each other for achieving is not universal.
Ah, that’s good to know. I got taught to read as a preschooler and did end up better at that kind of thing than other kids, so when friends and whanau didn’t teach before age 5, it always low-key gave me anxiety. Now the kids are older I’m chill but it’s good to know they weren’t being disadvantaged.
So in another reply I’ve caveat-ed what I said. Firstly, I read/heard it in a book/podcast, I didn’t see the study myself.
Second is that the did not relate early reading ability to late reading ability, they related it to ‘life success’ - which was judged based on whether they had a degree at age 35, which as someone who feels pretty successful, and didn’t have a degree at age 35 (and still don’t), isn’t necessarily a good way to judge, but it’s at least a clear yes/no which makes things easier.
A kid could be an early reader that grows up to be a fantastic reader, but doesn’t do well in society.
I’m not sure if I just can’t remember but I don’t recall people chanting “shame” at people for achieving. It sounds like a high school thing, but definitely after the underachievers left school at 15 or 16 people were celebrated for achievement, mostly in sports but I don’t remember anyone being mocked for academic achievement. Our dux and runner up dux (can’t remember word) were both at least moderately popular.
To be honest I was intending to look up the study. That puts it in another light though; I thought it was about correlations with literacy and possibly ability to synthesise information. All bets are off again damn it.
I agree, that success/degree metric is not fit for purpose. Not only does having a degree not measure life success, it doesn’t even measure being able to read and write very well (this isn’t me being anti-intellectual, I have three of them myself).
Oh yeah, sorry, for the shame thing I was definitely talking about primary school not high school!! (I thought you guys all had kids in that age). The study is on regional differences in New Zealand childrens’ slang; the shame thing was an unexpected finding - it’s shame, shame-o, shame-a-lame, but the high decile schools didn’t have this word or custom.
I don’t think it’s trying to measure reading/writing ability. If the difference between ok and good/great skills doesn’t impact people’s life outcomes (however we measure that), do we care about improving this skill? (I found this a hard sentence to write because it feels like a silly thing to say, but as a philosophical statement I think it’s worth thinking about)
Interesting! It sounded like a high school thing to me. I haven’t heard of it before, but I went to mid-decile primary schools. And even so, if the study was recent then it could be newer slang that didn’t exist when I was a kid.
No, it’s not a new thing. I get the impression I’m your age or slightly older, and I went to a primary school where if the teacher said your work was good, or you got an award, the whole class would chorus “shaaaame”.
I guess this is one of those if you know, you know things - I remember a colleague whispering “ow, shaaame” to me as a joke once when there was an announcement that I got awarded a grant!
The fact you haven’t heard of it illustrates my point that NZ schools are not all alike in the culture around learning.
This is where correlation becomes less useful. It really depends on what other skills and resources the person can draw on - not everyone is cut out to be a plumber or a lawyer. My instinct is that we need to give students the opportunity to have a range of well-mastered skills in their toolbox, and then to develop their aptitudes.
Perhaps what we need first is a goal. Is our goal for kids to be able to get jobs? To get jobs they like? To make lots of money? Or is our goal for people to be happy? Feel in control? Have many opportunities? Live an ethical life?
Without a goal it’s hard to know whether school is failing kids.
I know many would say a school is there to teach reading and writing and maths. I don’t think schools are (or should be) there for that purpose, but rather to improve society by educating everyone. That may need to happen through teaching reading, writing, and maths, but if we don’t know our goal we don’t know if that’s the way to achieve it.
This doesn’t appear to actually be the case.
Thanks this is an interesting paper.
Some caveats to my claim. The thing (book? podcast? can’t remember, so take with a grain of salt) was saying kids that read early (ages 3-4) aren’t more likely to have a degree at age 35 when controlling for other factors.
The study you’ve linked is looking at reading ability at age 6, which may change things. I also couldn’t find anything in the paper stating they had controlled for other factors. If a child with a parent at home reads earlier, and one that doesn’t reads later, the difference in life success is unlikely to be related to the reading, but more likely to be related to them growing up in a household wealthy enough to have a stay at home parent. This wouldn’t be effective data for changing a school system to focus on reading earlier.
To put this in context with what I was saying, if reading is pushed hard from age 4 and some kids do well and for some who aren’t quite ready this causes a detrimental impact that causes them to be poor learners for life - well this would show in your study as reading ability at 6 years old being strongly predictive of reading ability at 42. Basically, I don’t believe the study you’ve linked helps us narrow down anything because they don’t seem to have controlled for anything.
I did try to find a study to back up my claims, or even disprove my claims, but I couldn’t find a study that looked further than 10 years or so, and even then they weren’t controlling for other factors.
Maybe our school system is failing because of a lack of data on how to do things better?
To be fair, the study does not actually show a causation but an “association”.
Anecdotally, but from personal experience, the best young readers tend to be the ones that enjoy reading the most. Fostering that love of reading is, in my opinion, something that needs to happen at home.
I agree we need better data.
This is it right here. A lot of reaction to the changes in learning has not been evidence based. To be fair, many of the changes themselves were not evidence based either. It’s easy to sit and say something needs to change, but much harder to show that the changes being made are going to make any difference at all.
I’m not even sure that the research can keep up with the changing world, to be honest. I think the best we can do is teach kids how to learn, because the things they need to know for life probably aren’t even invented yet.
Well, there are two different things here. Some knowledge is well established and doesn’t change, or changes very slowly. Reading, writing and mathematics, for example. And later on the core sciences. None of this is affected by changes in technology.
How they interact with the world is changing rapidly, and I’m not entirely convinced our schooling system has this correct. I’m not sure what should change, but I feel like the school is simultaneously lagging behind and forging ahead of societal changes wrought by technology.
While reading, writing, maths doesn’t change, their need in an ever changing world does change.
As an example, people lament the inability of younger generations to read cursive. But in a world where almost everything was printed by (or viewed on) a computer, the ability to read cursive just isn’t that important.
I think currently basic facts are still important. But if the world doesn’t reenforce this (by requiring them to actually use them), then the knowledge won’t stay long term.
Perhaps the lagging skills of younger generations represent a world that no longer asks for them. But the younger generations are sure to have better skills in other ways, ways that this new world demands of them.
So perhaps the problem is the things we are valuing in our assessments not matching real life? Which may have been your point originally. 😂
Exactly! I don’t know if it’s right or not, but things are complex and what previous generations (us? 😱) value can be different to younger generations, and we shouldn’t assume our way is right.
Here here!
The outsourcing of basic knowledge onto tech? I think we see the real-world effects of this already. A classic example is that building in London that has a concave mirrored surface on a side that faces the sun. Most people my age know the implications of concave mirror+sun.
The fact it went right through design, planning, and construction without anyone pointing out this simple fact, so they had to learn the hard way, speaks volumes.
I learnt that concave mirror + sun is a bad idea, but if I was signing off that building I never would have considered it unless it was on the checklist 😆
I mean I’m not even STEM background but at some point I would have said okay so this 38-storey concave mirror is ponting where?
Omg looking up how many storeys it is I discovered it isn’t even the only one of these things this architect perpetrated! He had another one in Vegas nicknamed the Death Ray. Both of them had to have remedial work done to protect people.
Did he look like a supervillain? Might be intentional 😆
Yeah it’s looking that way.