Bailey Baughn

Professor Reinard

Professor Carney

IDC-201

April 15, 2020

World Class: How to Build a 21st Century School System

Book Reflection

While improvement in education is much easier said than done, Andreas Schleicher,

gives some really good insight about education around the world and what we can do today to

reform education. But like he stated in chapter six, “it’s not about copying and pasting solutions

from other countries, it is about looking seriously and dispassionately at good practice in our

own countries and elsewhere to become knowledgeable of what works in which contexts and

applying it consciously.”

Chapter one taught me about PISA. I had never heard of PISA before and did not know

that it collects high quality data and combines the information with wider social outcomes. Then

it makes information accessible to educators/policy makers to make decisions in education based

on those test scores. I learned that it measures a fifteen year olds ability to read, use math, and

science to meet real life challenges. At the beginning of chapter one, he talks about “the

algorithms behind social media are sorting us into groups of like minded individuals.” I really

made a connection with this. I live in a world where social media is the new normal. Everyone

“hides” behind a screen and posts instagram stories/ facebook stories and pretty much should be

saying “everyone look at me this is what I’m doing”. I am guilty of this myself. The problem is
we are now living in our own virtual bubbles. Everyone is trying to be like everyone else. Our

social skills are failing because we don’t have to talk to people in person we can just text them or

DM them. We have to remind the world that students need to learn how to think for themselves.

To do their own thing and follow their own path. I really liked the quote, “if all we do is teach

children what we know, they might remember enough to follow in our footsteps; but if we teach

them how to learn, they can go anywhere they want.” I liked this because it’s a reminder that

when you teach, you are not teaching these kids just enough to pass the test or teaching them to

memorize the facts. You have to teach them how to learn, how to apply prior knowledge to new

experiences, how to problem solve. If we don’t do this, how are these students going to succeed

in life? In chapter four, what really stuck out to me is that Sir Richard left school at age 16. He

felt that school did absolutely nothing for him. He wasn’t learning and was not being taught the

skills and knowledge he needed to eventually become an entrepreneur. He ended up becoming

one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs and became a billionaire. He also had learned

good character skills on his own, he made it a priority to put his airline company staff first,

always. Anything that they needed, he made sure he met their needs. He made it clear that he

wanted to create an environment that would best fit his customers. Schleicher wrote, “in those

three days with Sir Richard I realized how often the people who make decisions about education

are usually those who have been well served by the education system, not those who struggled

through it.” I don’t get inspired by someone who has had everything handed to them on a golden

platter. You get inspired by the people that have struggled and been in the same situation as you

are. That when they make it to the top and make decisions you respect those decisions because

you know they are making those decisions based on what they genuinely think is good for the
community. In Portugal, schools received an additional euro for every student that enrolled and

the students themselves could decide how they wanted to spend the money. At first, the money

was not spent wisely, but over time students took this opportunity seriously and took ownership

over resource allocations in their school. Because students got to choose their resources, this lets

them feel in control of their education. They appreciated these resources more. And because

these resources were chosen by the students, it showed that administration cared about the

students and what would best suit their life and learning. Page 166 describes a social experiment

that really caught my attention, the show at Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 2015. They gathered

amateur performers from the poorest neighborhood and organized a performance. This

experience united professionals with amateurs and high standards were set for everyone.

Choreographers allowed the performers to use creative thinking and come up with their own

choreography. At the end of the performance, young performers who may have never received

passing grades or those who may have never heard encouraging words from teachers received a

“wild ovation”. When speaking with the teachers, social workers, school leaders, and

choreographers about the project, every participant used words such as identity, respect, fairness,

social responsibility, integrity, and self awareness. All the things that school systems are now

looking to cultivate in their students. One parent explained how much their daughter grew and

developed from the experience. People worried that the children were spending too much time

practicing arts instead of doing their school work. They were afraid this would hurt the students’

academics. But their academics actually improved throughout the year. This let teachers feel

more open to broadening their own teaching skills by working with non teaching professionals.

Even though the arts aren’t what the students are being tested on, it is making them all around
better human beings, which says more about a person than a test ever will. I overall liked how

this book was organized and used data to prove main points.

There were four main themes that stuck out to me as a reader. Critical thinking/problem

solving, collaboration, the importance of diversity in the classroom, and the use of technology.

Part of global competence includes the ability to examine issues of local, global, and

cultural significance, be able to combine knowledge with critical reasoning, and be able to

develop disciplinary knowledge, be able to analyze the data, and participate in valid arguments.

Of course routine cognitive skills are the easiest to teach and to assess. But the issue is, results

from PISA show that learning strategies dominated by memorization help students less and less.

When students are asked later in life to complete more complex problems that include non

routine analytical tasks, they won’t be able to do it because they do not acquire the problem

solving skills to do so. It’s not about teaching kids just enough to memorize the answer and move

on. Children need to understand how to find it. We have to teach kids the process of connecting

new knowledge with prior knowledge. We have to teach them how to think divergently and

creatively about solutions. How to use critical thinking skills and analyze information. In the real

world, globally or locally, no one gives you the answer, you have to figure it out for yourself.

When it comes to collaboration, global competence includes the ability to understand and

appreciate the perspectives and world views of others. It includes the willingness to consider

multiple viewpoints and to recognize self perspectives. We have to remember that our behaviors

and thoughts are shaped by several influences in our own lives. Collaborative learning is the

education approach to teaching where learning involves groups of students working together.

Students learn best from one another, therefore students need to be taught how to collaborate and
take into consideration ideas from one another that may seem different than your own ideas.

PISA data shows that one of the most important factors that can affect a student’s performance is

the socioeconomic background of other students in the class. When these student’s grow up and

get their own careers, they will be working with other people. They must have the skills to work

together to get the job done. I can’t think of many careers where you are pretty much on your

own and don’t have to come in contact with any other people. At a job you are faced with people

from different backgrounds, you must be able to engage in open, appropriate, and effective

interactions with people from different cultures. People should want to understand others and

what makes them who they are. In order to do so we must also educate ourselves and create

those opportunities to learn and stay informed.

Scleicher spoke out “of course having certain fundamental knowledge and skills will

always remain the cornerstone of success in life but these are no longer enough.”

Schools should be focused on the diversity of their students and how much they should be

integrating diversity/global education into their classrooms. Critics of school choice argue that

when you allow families to choose their school this often leads to “segregation”. Students from

advantaged backgrounds often choose to leave public schools, leading to a greater social and

cultural segregation in the school systems. And the truth is, we need diversity in the schools.

Among the students and the teachers. “Segregation” takes away that diversity aspect from

children, it takes away opportunities to learn, play, and communicate with others from different

social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. Having a diverse population of teachers is also

important in schools, such as teachers who specialize in receiving immigrant children, special

education, ELL. It can help differentiate learning and instruction for all learners, specifically
targeting diverse student populations. Having a culturally diverse population people learn from

one another.

“Growing populations, resource depletion, and climate change compel all of us to think

about sustainability and the needs of future generations. At the same time, the interaction

between technology and globalization has created new challenges and new opportunities.” (pg.

231) Digitalization has connected people, cities, countries, and continents. Technology has made

the world more volatile, complex, and uncertain. People seem to think that technology is

destroying jobs faster than we can create them, but this example from the book really opened my

eyes. The Weavers (a 1892 play) was by the German playwrite Gerhart Hauptmann. The play

was about a group of weavers who staged an uprising during the 1840’s against the Industrial

Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was eliminating jobs that the weavers did. They were

afraid that they would be out of a job. But it didn’t end employment in the clothing industry.

People ended up becoming equipped with new knowledge and skills to adapt to this

advancement during the industrial age. The changes allowed for there to be more clothes and

made better than before. The point is, that even though technology may seem to be “taking

over”, how we use technology for the better is the most important part. How can we integrate

technology into classrooms and prepare students for jobs that use technology. We can use

technology and make education better than ever before, just like the clothing industry during the

Industrial Revolution.

Like stated in the first paragraph, this book wasn’t written for countries to just “copy and

paste” ideas from one another. That doesn’t work for every country. It isn’t about just taking a

good idea from Japan and bringing it here to the United States. You have to analyze the data and
figure out why it worked for them and if it would effectively work here in the United States.

“Our current schools were invented during the industrial age...when it was both effective and

efficient to educate students in batches and to train teachers once for their entire working lives.”

(pg. 17) This no longer works for school systems. School systems and everything within them

need to be redesigned as the curricula and instructional practices are reformed. We need to learn

how to build a 21st century school system.