Rick Lowe
Professor James Tooley released his book The Beautiful Tree on how the poor in Africa, China and India don't wait on the government to provide education, and I recently got a copy.
The Beautiful Tree won The 2010 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, which recognizes outstanding publications from think tanks that enhance the public understanding of a free society.
The liner notes of the book, published by The Cato Institute tells us:
"Everyone from Bono to UNESCO is looking for a silver bullet to bring schooling within reach of the poorest children on Earth. James Tooley may have found one.
"While researching private schools in India for the World Bank, and worrying that he was doing little to help the poor, Professor Tooley wandered into the slums of Hyderabad’s Old City. Shocked to find it overflowing with small, parent-funded schools, he set out to discover if they could help achieve universal education. So began the adventure lyrically told in The Beautiful Tree—the story of Tooley’s travels from the largest shanty town in Africa to the mountains of Gansu, China, and of the children, parents, teachers and entrepreneurs who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and learning to save themselves.
"Named after Mahatma Gandhi’s phrase for the schools of pre-colonial India, The Beautiful Tree is not another book lamenting what has gone wrong in the Third World. It is a book about what is going right, and it offers a simple lesson: both the entrepreneurial spirit and the love of parents for their children can be found in every corner of the globe."
Read more at The Cato Institute at this link…
This seems to put the lie to the myth that poor people can't pay for education?
I can't wait to get into this one.
Well said Rick.. In a dependent society, the public become dependent on the government to educate its children.. After all it is free and is available under law to all children of school age.. Society often forgets that nothing is free from the government as the people through public taxation pay for all government services and programs.. What we get for free is almost always worthless.. Perhaps we have much to learn from the experiences in Africa, China and India.. I for one will read The Beautiful Tree with much interest.. Many thanks Rick..
Great commentary on the problem if primary and secondary education in the world.
BUT…what’s the next step for the Bahamas? My article “Dismal Exams” that appeared in the Guardian and as “Exam Results” in the Tribune calls a “spade a spade” just as Professor Tooley does. It goes a bit further in that it a.) It states why the “Status Quo” remains the “Status Quo”; and what steps could be taken if their were an aroused public outcry.
Nor does it answer the question “Why haven’t a multitude “India Like” private schools multiplied and prospered here?
Regards…Ralph J Massey
Thanks Ralph,
Improving the results of the DOE is a vast problem as you point out.
At the Nassau Institute we suggested Charter Schools and Vouchers as far back as 1999 ( http://www.nassauinstitute.org/articles/article137.php ). See more here… http://www.nassauinstitute.org/articles/article208.php and here… http://www.nassauinstitute.org/articles/article160.php .
Of course the work the hotel industry and you did was also very valuable, but it’s all been completely ignored. Not a single attempt has been made to try a Charter School or issue vouchers (the government school subsidy is different than vouchers as you know – vouchers allow people in public schools to use the voucher for private school entry. The family would pay the difference in the amount of the voucher and private school fees.)
In spite of government and DOE rhetoric there are parents (even illiterate ones) that care about their children’s education.
We (the government and Education establishment) would rather waste time blaming each other and circular arguments, mean while our future citizens – the children of today – will pay an even heftier price because of illiteracy.
It’s so sad.
A couple more points.
My take is we need to simplify the curriculum to core subjects until those that are behind can catch up.
The students that perform at reasonable levels (I guess we need to define reasonable) can stay in the present system.
I once suggested keeping kids in school until their parents can pick them up to do their homework and help the failing students catch up? A few teachers thought I had lost my mind, but they’re protecting the status quo.
What other ideas/thoughts are there?
It’s the kids we’re worried about, not our generation.
A Curriculum Review is well in order …. especially if we look at what the MoE is teaching our kids at the BGCSE level:
Art & Design
Auto Mechanics
Biology
Bookkeeping/Accounts
Carpentry & Joinery
Chemistry
Clothing Construction ??
Combined Science ??
Commerce ??
Economics
Electrical Installation
English Language
Food & Nutrition
French
Geography
Graphical Communication
History
Keyboarding ?????
Literature
Mathematics
Music
Office Procedures ????
Physics
Religious Studies
Spanish
I have studied at a number of higher education institutions in the US and UK and for the past 8 years, have lectured (amongst other things) and managed in the HE sector in London. For the life of me, I do not know what some of these subjects are ….
S3S perhaps this might be a deliberate attempt to introduce vocational education into the secondary educational curriculum?? We can only guess that these courses(??) are designed to encourage students who have lost interest in academic subjects to stay in school and perhaps learn skills which might be useful in their adult life.. Better to keep the kids in school than on to the streets..
Well shouldn’t they spend time trying to get them read write and do simple arithmetic. Skills they will need to learn how to measure wood for a vocational skill etc.
Yes indeed Tradewinds, any sensible education system (especially public or state) requires recognition of the dissimilarities that naturally exist between students. They do not possess the same aptitude, so there must be some distinction in the types of subjects they follow.
The list above could very easily be split into ‘Academic’ and ‘Non-academic’ or ‘Vocational’ Subjects, which should guide our GCSE choices:
ACADEMIC:
Biology
Chemistry
Economics
English Language
French
Geography
History
Literature
Mathematics
Music
Physics
Religious Studies
Spanish
NON-ACADEMIC:
Art & Design
Auto Mechanics
Bookkeeping/Accounts
Clothing Construction ??
Carpentry & Joinery
Combined Science ??
Commerce ??
Electrical Installation ??
Food & Nutrition
Graphical Communication ??
Keyboarding ??
Office Procedures ??
And perhaps whilst we’re at it, someone could explain what the subjects (??) are or are supposed to be/do? Again, they bear no resemblance to what other K-12 educational systems are doing ….
Could not agree with you more, but what do you do with children that “hate” school, have no desire to learn academic courses and often skip school entirely.. This is the attitude problem I keep referring to where children entering primary school have little self-esteem or positive character traits or values.. The lack of self-respect has created negative attitudes that prevail in the behavior patterns of many students entering school for the very first time.. Unfortunately, this lack of self-respect stays with many students throughout their entire lives as they often turn to drugs, crime and other social ills.. Unless the education system addresses this problem at the primary school level, this problem will continue to prevail and little progress will be seem in our education advancement..
I’m no expert in this but I would think those kids should be removed from the regular school system and placed where specialised teachers can help them. Normal teachers cannot cope with them obviosuly.
I suspect these same kids would be OK in a progressive educational system. Yes, a small fraction must be ‘excluded’ but it is never more than a very small proportion.
Instead, employing a much more subjective approach that makes every learner feel valued is a good place to start. I alluded to the dissimilarities between learners above and do so again, now. For example, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, which defines seven intelligences and realises that all learners are special because they possess 1 or more types of intelligences that must be recognised and nurtured.
This is why certain of us can be Architects and Air Traffic Controlles (Spatial intelligence) or Engineers and Accountants (Logical-Mathematical Intelligence) or Athletes and Dancers (Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence) or Lawyers and Politicians (Linguistic Intelligence), etc.
We are destined to alienate our students if we limit ourselves to the ‘traditional view (of intelligence) which usually recognizes only two intelligences, verbal and computational’.
http://www.springhurst.org/articles/MItheory.htm