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63: Building a No Test Future w/ Dr. Yong Zhao
17 Plays5 years ago
In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education. Dr. Zhao and I talk about building a movement that ends standardized testing in the United States and how to build classrooms that invoke a student's innate desire to learn. Perhaps the grueling, “rigorous” standardized testing system is actually harming students, not helping? Most teachers seem to understand this, and a recent analysis by Harvard University seems to confirm it.
Dr. Zhao has written and spoken extensively on how testing and test scores harm students. And he’s done the research and work to back up everything he states. It’s up to teachers - those in the field - to actually make change in this endeavor. There’s a lot we’re up against! It makes all the difference.
GUESTS
Dr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. Zhao was the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education at University of Oregon, and a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Further, he's served as the founding director of the Confucius Institute and US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence.
RESOURCES
- What Works May Hurt by Zhao
- Reach for Greatness by Zhao
- Counting What Counts by Zhao
- The Courage to Be Creative: An Interview with Dr. Yong Zhao
- HRP’s Primer for Human-Centric (Progressive) Education
FURTHER LISTENING
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello!
00:00:04
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Human Restoration Project's fantastic patrons.
00:00:10
Speaker
All of our work, which includes free resources, materials, and this podcast, is available for free due to our Patreon supporters, three of whom are Mary Walls, Jeremiah Henderson, and Sheila N. Thank you for your ongoing support!
00:00:24
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Guest Introduction: Dr. Yang Zhao
00:00:45
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Season 3, Episode 21 of Things Fall Apart, our podcast of the Human Restoration Project.
00:00:52
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My name is Chris and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:00:56
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In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Yang Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas.
Standardized Testing vs. Personalized Learning
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Zhao was the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education at the University of Oregon,
00:01:10
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and a university distinguished professor at Michigan State University.
00:01:14
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Further, he served as the founding director of the Confucius Institute and US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence.
00:01:21
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Not to mention, he's also the author of over 100 articles and 30 books, many focused on turning away from standardized tests and focusing on personalized learning for all children.
00:01:31
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Zhao and I will talk about building a movement that ends standardized testing in the United States and how to build classrooms that invoke a student's innate desire to learn.
00:01:41
Speaker
You recently wrote this article about PISA scores, and I know that a huge part of your career in speaking has been about the issues of standardized testing and the what works may hurt approach of increasing those scores.
00:01:55
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That information is out there.
00:01:57
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We talk about it all the time, and I think a lot of teachers recognize this.
00:02:00
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How do we then convince institutions as well as students and parents to actually change how they assess or change how they look at standardized tests?
00:02:09
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Well, I think that's the struggle.
00:02:12
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You know, when you and I and there are many other enlightened people have seen through the test scores, even in college admissions, you know, why, you know, college admissions use SAT scores, SAT scores, ready as a way to discriminate against the
00:02:28
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disadvantage minority
Current Policy Shifts in Testing
00:02:30
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kids.
00:02:30
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They don't mean money in anything.
00:02:33
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Also, there are kind of business scores or PISA scores, any of this things.
00:02:38
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But what I think we need to do is to just tell more of the story.
00:02:42
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We do see the power of public opinion.
00:02:45
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I think as teachers, even though you're under the right now, the authoritarian regime of test scores in your district, but it doesn't stop you from
00:02:56
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sharing the message, sharing the article, sharing the evidence with parents, with squad administrators.
00:03:02
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It's going to take a while to move the public opinion about it.
00:03:06
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I think when youths have a much healthier suspicion of test scores, I think over the last 23 years, we've lost that.
00:03:13
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But I think the only thing we can do is talk to people, kept talking, kept repeating.
00:03:18
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And I do see the change in the movement.
00:03:20
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I mean, over the last several years, actually, you look at the ESSA,
00:03:25
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which is still have a lot of testing in it, but it's definitely a relaxed after, you know, more relaxed than No Child Left Behind,
Teachers' Role in Challenging Standardized Testing
00:03:34
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I would say.
00:03:34
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So we do see the change of this.
00:03:37
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Just keep working, keep talking.
00:03:39
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Like you do, you know.
00:03:40
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For sure.
00:03:40
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I mean, you see that too with ACT and SAT scores, even though it's a little bit different.
00:03:44
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I mean, there's a lot of institutions that are no longer accepting that.
00:03:47
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We're seeing that a lot recently.
00:03:50
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Yeah, make it optional.
00:03:51
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Like 48% of U.S. four-year colleges don't use it anymore.
00:03:55
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And with that kind of being said, do you have any suggestions then for teachers to communicate this message in a way that it would actually matter?
00:04:03
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Like as in, is there a certain strategy or idea that you would offer teachers to get those ideas out there?
00:04:08
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Yeah.
00:04:10
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I really think Chris is important to, even though I have the book, like in my book, What Works May Hurt, I think there's several messages to what one conveyed.
00:04:19
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There's enough clear evidence to show that
00:04:24
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test scores at any age, at any scale in the SAT, SAT, PISA state, do not predict a children's future success.
00:04:35
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Okay.
00:04:35
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So that's the first thing.
00:04:36
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So you struggle all the time and you try this and does not really guarantee a kid's success.
00:04:43
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And second thing does not reflect your teacher's ability.
00:04:46
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That's not an evidence to show that, you know, like I was reading an article, uh, out, down,
00:04:52
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that group of economists talk about how, you know, trying to, you know, this value added model, people are trying to push that to punish teachers.
00:05:01
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But actually, you know, this study shows, well, the student height are related to teachers.
00:05:06
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You know, it's impossible.
00:05:07
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That's an absurdity of this.
00:05:09
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You can show this evidence.
00:05:11
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But the third point is that not only test scores don't mean much for college success, for future success, but it's also causing damages.
Alternative Assessments and Teacher Judgment
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That's why I was exposing the PISA.
00:05:22
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And for Chinese kids and Asian kids, they may do very well on test scores, but they are really hurt.
00:05:28
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Their confidence is low.
00:05:30
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They do not value the subject.
00:05:32
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They're not interested in school and they're psychological distress.
00:05:35
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So what do you want?
00:05:36
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I think those messages are worth penning.
00:05:40
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They don't mean much.
00:05:41
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It causes damages.
00:05:43
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And therefore, it's not worth pursuing.
00:05:45
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There's a lot of evidence.
00:05:46
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I would create charts, create PowerPoints.
00:05:49
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share the messages to others, you know, and you always have a chance to do it.
00:05:54
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Yeah, I think that that matters a lot too, especially when our students are so anxious and depressed and just in general are going through a lot right now, that high stakes pressure of assessment certainly is contributing to at least some of that.
00:06:09
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I wanted to refer to your work, Counting What Counts, where you and a bunch of others talk about alternative means of measurement.
00:06:17
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I'm assuming that there's probably always going to be some form of assessment with schools, at least at the national level.
00:06:23
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And you talk about like motivation, for example.
00:06:25
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Do you see any organizations or tests right now that are being used or spread that do alternative forms of assessment?
00:06:33
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Well, I'm very cautious of recommending any kind of assessment, honestly, because once they become, once you use one test to hold teachers accountable,
00:06:44
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you're dehumanizing teachers, you're trivializing education as a technique.
00:06:49
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So even in that book, Counting What It Comes, there are many other things you can measure.
00:06:54
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You could measure like creativity, entrepreneurial thinking now, as we can measure growth mindset, growth motivation, you can make all kinds of things.
00:07:03
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But most of those things should really be based on, I would say, actual authentic work, teacher observation,
00:07:13
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I'm very suspicious of anything.
00:07:14
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Actually, I'm not examining the TISA creativity test.
00:07:18
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I think it's going to be a horrible way to actually kill creativity.
00:07:23
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So I would really go back to a time to trust good teachers' professional judgment about kids' progress.
00:07:31
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I hope, actually, some organizations is developing tools to help teachers become better judges of the students' progress, become better reporters of that
00:07:42
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I know many schools, taxpayers give money, give a lot of money, we got to hold schools accountable.
Call to Action: Humanizing Education
00:07:50
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But a lot of times when you hold teachers as soon as you use any quantity of measure to hold teachers accountable, you are going to corrupt the process.
00:08:01
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That's what Campbell's law, Donald Campbell has done this.
00:08:04
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So I'm really, I think that book and the main of my arguments is always trying to say, okay, there are other options
00:08:12
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But those options should not replace, become like the new thing.
00:08:16
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It's like now I'm like in a lot of social emotional learning.
00:08:20
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I love people doing social emotional well-being.
00:08:24
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But the social emotional learning as promoted now is very problematic.
00:08:29
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The SEL, promoted now.
00:08:31
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They're putting into state standards.
00:08:33
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all teachers accountable, that's very problematic.
00:08:36
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It's as bad as the common core.
00:08:39
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Yeah, yeah.
00:08:39
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I mean, a lot of that seems to be tied to the financial implications.
00:08:43
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Like, as an education company, I mean, you could make so much money right now by just selling some, like, motivational curriculum to make people feel, quote-unquote, good about themselves.
00:08:52
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Yeah.
00:08:53
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So, what I mean, I was more like, look at other possibilities, not to say, oh, do motivation.
00:08:58
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You know, there's companies trying to sell,
00:09:01
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mind up.
00:09:01
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I mean, it's silly.
00:09:05
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I want to return a power to teachers and human beings that run a human business.
00:09:10
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You don't need all of those kind of things.
00:09:12
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Yeah.
00:09:12
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I mean, learning is very complex.
00:09:14
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So the idea of taking it down to like one point at any time doesn't make any sense to begin with.
00:09:21
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And one of those things that I always struggle with personally as a teacher, because it
00:09:25
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it can be slightly demotivating or scary, which is it's a group of teachers that tend to not be very well respected in society versus this giant like neoliberal test taking industry with so much power and wealth.
00:09:39
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And sometimes it can be very demotivating, for lack of a better term, to think about if that's ever actually going to change.
00:09:47
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What advice would you have for educators who are participating in this work
00:09:51
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that feel like they're kind of up against the Goliath, they don't really know what to do next?
00:09:56
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Well, I mean, Diane Ravitchie wrote the book, David versus Goliath.
00:10:00
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I mean, you can think about it.
00:10:02
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This is one point I want to do your podcast to reach all the teachers, just to say this, you know.
00:10:10
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There are many things we don't know whether we can change, but that's no reason for us not to try, okay?
00:10:17
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I think we have power
00:10:20
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we do change, we do make a difference.
00:10:22
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Giving up is not an option, especially if we are in this profession, giving up plenty of others.
00:10:28
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There's nothing we can do.
00:10:30
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I think I'm more like, you know, in many ways, even knowing hero ideas is that we have a moral purpose to drive, to change.
00:10:39
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We're the public intellectual.
00:10:42
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And what is going to change?
00:10:45
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And we can't expect...
00:10:48
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Another great guy coming to deliver new policy and new ideas.
00:10:52
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We have to work at it.
00:10:54
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I don't really believe the system itself is going to change.
00:10:58
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You know, like people talk about social mobility.
00:11:00
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We always recommend policy changes.
00:11:02
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Policies don't change themselves.
00:11:05
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Politicians change and politicians have to respond to what we do.
00:11:08
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You know, like the main thing, I don't like the, you know, politically, I don't like what's going on in this country.
00:11:12
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Washington, D.C.
00:11:13
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is such a mess.
00:11:15
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But who I blame?
00:11:15
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I blame our voters.
00:11:16
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I blame our educators who not taught our voters good enough to say, we got to fight, we got to keep doing this then.
00:11:22
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And I don't really have a lot of hope to say things will change because of me.
00:11:27
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But I want to tell you, because we all work towards something, public opinion shifts, public opinion changes, then that changes the politician, then it changes public policy.
00:11:37
Speaker
It relates a lot to what we're trying to promote at Human Restoration Project, which is systemic change over just a different type of strategy.
00:11:46
Speaker
There's a lot of professional development and, I mean, authors, booksellers, et cetera.
00:11:50
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who are trying to just say, if you just teach this way, you'll see like 10% better classes, or you know, like, your day will be slightly better.
00:11:58
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But at its core, educators really need to be mobilizing to change entire systems, like for example, equitable education systems with funding, or gradeless learning, or, you know, things that radicalize how the actual structure of a classroom is seen.
00:12:11
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Well, I think, you know, you need to resist your group of teachers.
00:12:16
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I want teachers to resist
00:12:18
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the mechanization of teaching or trivializing teaching as engineering, a simple technical process.
00:12:24
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It's a human endeavor that embraces all the humanity of teachers in the process.
00:12:30
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It's not a teach this way, lesson this way.
00:12:34
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I don't think we understand.
00:12:35
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A lot of the PDFs and a lot of the books written for teachers, the trivialization as a little tiny trick.
00:12:42
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It's not a trick, you know, it's
00:12:44
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It's a whole hearted with the soul, with the body, with the heart.
00:12:47
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You actually, you build a relationship with another human being.
00:12:51
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That's what I think.
00:12:53
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I want your group teachers to think about this.
00:12:55
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Your restoration of humanity is the right thing.
00:12:59
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Resist the technique kind of way of doing things.
00:13:03
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Yeah, and it's kind of the exact same thing, too, that's going on with students, which is the idea of teaching only for career or as some kind of financial gain or economic gain, which ignores all the complexities of human growth and probably the reason why we're seeing so many different social emotional issues in general when your entire value is tied to, you know, your finances.
Upcoming Book and Self-Directed Learning
00:13:24
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And kind of in the exact same vein, I know that you mentioned that you have a new book coming out surrounding self-directed education.
00:13:31
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What do you then see as the role of an educator day-to-day within a self-directed classroom?
00:13:38
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Like, would it work in the standard 25-people-to-one-room class that we see now?
00:13:45
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Well, you know, the book is coming out from ASTD.
00:13:49
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It's called Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners.
00:13:54
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I co-write this with Michael Wynneier, who is a really huge expert scholar in special education.
00:14:01
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So that's, and then several other books I've written, let's include this one.
00:14:08
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And it's really, first of all, we're talking about students, not student boys, not student agencies.
00:14:16
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Students as human beings deserve the right to self-determination.
00:14:22
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as anybody, as any human being, as teachers do.
00:14:25
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You have the right to self-determination, self-determination of your goal, your outcome, your environment.
00:14:32
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So how do we help students to develop as human beings?
00:14:35
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The same thing as teachers, it's like autonomy.
00:14:38
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So, and I would say teachers back off from looking at the teaching process as implementing the curriculum standards or transmitting the content.
00:14:50
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but rather you look at every child to say how they grow.
00:14:55
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And if children can take responsibility to grow for the learning environment, actually you can reduce that.
00:15:02
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I'm running experiments of similar methods in China, in Australia.
00:15:07
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Think about it in China, we got a class of 60 kids.
00:15:10
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And I've convinced actually US teachers to do it and Australian teachers to do it in China.
00:15:16
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And they're doing fine.
00:15:18
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You reorganize.
00:15:19
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You organize the student in a very different way.
00:15:23
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But the key is to have students to take ownership, to be responsible for their own learning.
00:15:28
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They work with you.
00:15:31
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And they just have you have different specialties.
00:15:34
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And when you go to these schools and you propose these ideas,
00:15:39
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What do you say to those that offer pushback that say things like the students, quote unquote, need certain types of knowledge or need that traditional style of learning in order for them to do anything?
00:15:50
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That sounds kind of gross, but I mean.
00:15:52
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First of all, I actually, I, I, I,
00:15:56
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Well, I do different kind of talks that people always ask.
00:15:59
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If they ask those questions, I will give them evidence to say, well, look at this.
00:16:03
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This is evidence one, evidence two, how it's been done, how it's been done.
00:16:07
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So I can talk about that.
00:16:08
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But more importantly, when I work with schools, I'm not kind of a, I'm an invitation on that, not in position.
00:16:16
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I always believe I'm going to invite people, the ones who are willing to try to do it.
00:16:21
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Like your organization, your podcast, you know, it's more like invitations.
00:16:24
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So I do not try to spend too much time talking about students.
00:16:29
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So I think a lot of them may want to say examples.
00:16:32
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I always believe there are teachers who are not happy with what they're doing, who believe what we're talking about intuitively.
00:16:40
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Everywhere I go, there's somebody who wants to try it.
00:16:43
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And that's where I work with the ones
00:16:45
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But we need to try.
00:16:46
Speaker
But more and more people, you know, the social movement happens is that when a few people like it, they do it as an example, they say alternative, they're not going to follow.
00:16:55
Speaker
I'm thinking about teachers that might be listening to this that are maybe younger, maybe just started teaching, and they love all these different ideas, but they just really don't know where to start because there isn't necessarily like a set step-by-step guide on what to do in order to change everything that it is that you were taught in terms of teacher education.
00:17:17
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Well, I mean, I would say they're small.
00:17:21
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I've got suggestions.
00:17:23
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In my other book, I wrote this thing called, you know, they are rich for greatness.
00:17:27
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The book is called Personalizable Education for All Children.
00:17:31
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And just a new book came out.
00:17:33
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I worked with my students.
00:17:34
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We collect a lot of examples of how teachers can get started.
00:17:38
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And there's a lot of teachers started out of the blue because they're tired of teaching the old way.
00:17:44
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I mean, I would say the first thing you can say, okay, start with one tiny project.
00:17:48
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People always say, how about a passion project?
00:17:51
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You're going to teach in eighth grade English.
00:17:53
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You ask kids to say, okay, and this one assignment, you can do whatever you like.
00:17:57
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Then this is how that goes.
00:17:59
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And there's other projects that I'm involved in that I always want to say, okay, your kids go out and say, okay, can they find a problem that's worth solving?
00:18:10
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And whatever subject you're teaching, use the subject to solve a problem for the community, for others.
00:18:16
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You know, I'm doing language, for example.
00:18:18
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I'm working with kids in China who are learning English.
00:18:21
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Now I've got involved Australian teachers to have their students to be writing English materials for Chinese kids, you know.
00:18:30
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And I co-writing recipes, I co-writing history books and bilingually.
00:18:34
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That's the kind of work you can do.
00:18:36
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Just start with something very small or start with...
00:18:40
Speaker
The kids really don't like your class.
00:18:42
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The kids who are disengaged, you know, maybe start with them asking what they would like to do and what chance they would like to make.
Implementing Change: Projects and Partnerships
00:18:51
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And also the kids who you really feel challenged, you know, put them in charge because put them in charge and make them help you to do something.
00:18:59
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Kids always like to be valued and like to contribute to something.
00:19:03
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I would say do not try to do big changes.
00:19:06
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Start with one little project, a few weeks, start with a couple of students,
00:19:10
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And you probably see amazing things.
00:19:12
Speaker
Another thing I've done myself in my teaching, if I have to teach, let's say, this class, I would tell my students maybe one third of the content I have decided is good for you.
00:19:24
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Everybody has to learn.
00:19:26
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One third of this you can decide on yourself, but have to justify why you want to learn it.
00:19:31
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Another third maybe have to be negotiated among your colleagues, among your friends, why you have to learn.
00:19:36
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So this make it relevant, make it authentic.
00:19:39
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and that really trust the kids can do something.
00:19:42
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You can gradually relinquish your control to them.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that brings up a lot of great points surrounding the dangers of labeling students.
00:19:50
Speaker
And when we have grades and standardized tests and report cards and things of that nature, we tend to see students who aren't performing academically very well in that system as the quote unquote bad kids.
00:20:01
Speaker
And as a result, I think that they get
00:20:04
Speaker
less attention or at least frequent negative attention.
00:20:07
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And that's not going to help anyone in the situation.
00:20:09
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I mean, I know I've given students that who traditionally don't perform very well in school, some like assignments that they want to do or a project that they want to do.
00:20:17
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And all of a sudden they were obviously the leaders in the classroom, which I doubt in the teacher's lounge is how they were described in the past.
00:20:25
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And that is a serious issue with
00:20:27
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like assigning a number to someone or assigning a value to someone based on... Yeah, or let them shine everywhere.
00:20:32
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I mean, if I were a teacher or school principal, I would say, you know, does every student in your class, in your school, feel that good at something?
00:20:40
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I think that's a really important measure for me.
00:20:43
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You feel that good at something.
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that should just be a normal thing about school.
00:20:49
Speaker
The fact that that wouldn't be a normal thing about school is shocking and worrying that someone wouldn't feel like they're good at something.
00:20:56
Speaker
But sadly, that is the case.
00:20:58
Speaker
I have a final question for you, which is what goals do you have personally or what organizations have you seen that you feel would be great for a school to partner with or something that you're working on?
00:21:10
Speaker
that could help change how education's currently working and how we're using data and everything of that measure?
00:21:16
Speaker
Well, I really honestly have seen many organizations.
00:21:20
Speaker
I haven't seen one that I would highly recommend, but I think it sounds like your group may be the one.
00:21:27
Speaker
Okay, I'll take that as an endorsement.
00:21:29
Speaker
I'll put it on our website.
00:21:30
Speaker
I really like to see teachers taking charge because, you know, right now we have a lot of young teachers.
00:21:35
Speaker
I really want them to become social activists, you know,
00:21:39
Speaker
Advocated for just and fair education for all children.
00:21:44
Speaker
It's like environmentalists.
00:21:47
Speaker
Now the youth is a big movement.
00:21:50
Speaker
I think in youth, I want the teachers to partner with students to say, how we create a new kind of community, a coalition, a social movement.
00:21:59
Speaker
Training, bringing humanity out of education.
00:22:03
Speaker
Education is a science, we know, but education is also value-driven science.
00:22:09
Speaker
There's a lot of value in it.
00:22:11
Speaker
That's why when I wrote the book, What Works May Hurt, it's to show that it's not only so-called evidence or not only empiricism, it's value.
00:22:19
Speaker
You make a judgment about it.
00:22:21
Speaker
I haven't really seen anyone in particular, but again, there's so many organizations.
00:22:27
Speaker
People can work together.
00:22:29
Speaker
Anybody can, social organizations can work.
00:22:33
Speaker
Trust me, you're speaking to my heartstrings.
00:22:35
Speaker
I love that idea of building a new future and kind of
00:22:38
Speaker
making others kind of step out of the way.
00:22:41
Speaker
Um, because that's what's going to take.
00:22:42
Speaker
It has to be a little bit more forceful.
00:22:44
Speaker
It can't be baby steps when it comes to systemic change.
00:22:47
Speaker
It's always going to have to be, you can't tinker around utopia essentially.
00:22:50
Speaker
You got to do it.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:51
Speaker
I mean, I learned the line on like, for example, teacher unions.
00:22:54
Speaker
And I mean, I'm, I,
00:22:56
Speaker
Teacher units have different functions, but a lot of them teacher units' problem needs to be focused a lot more on the moral purpose of teaching the professionalism of it too, you know?
00:23:04
Speaker
Exactly.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, the idea of like actually changing what school is, not necessarily just protecting someone's job.
00:23:11
Speaker
There's a lot more to it than that.
00:23:12
Speaker
Exactly, yeah.
00:23:13
Speaker
Because if you are indispensable, then you will have an indispensable.
00:23:18
Speaker
You'll be indispensable, right?
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:21
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Things Fall Apart from the Human Restoration Project.
00:23:25
Speaker
I hope that this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:23:30
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.