Tag Archives: causing learning

Effective Study Habits Should Not Be a Mystery for Children.

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Succeeding in school is a mystery to most children. The pathway of learning, testing, and good grades is broad and all children travel it but the doorway to academic success is narrow and few are awarded an A grade. The most common road sign along the way reads “Study and you will do well!” But maps for what it means to study are vague and seldom shared. How to study is the mysterious missing link to school success; we preach about studying but do not children how to study.

What do we know about this?

Our study of child development tells us that children, especially when they are young, are natural learners. Their brain sees and hears and files information automatically. Over time, their brain learns to read and textual information magnifies the quantity of information their brain processes. Children are natural learning sponges; they soak it all in.

Our study also tells us that children are born forgetters. There is a natural dumping of the information their brain processes if they do not purposefully change it from short-term to long-term memory. If they did not forget most of the millions of bits of information they see, hear, read, and feel, they would be in perpetual chaos trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Education attempts to meaningfully focus and train a child’s learning brain. A school has curriculum and teachers have instructional methods to teach children subject matter content and academic skills. A spiraling 4K-12 curriculum presents more complex and complicated information so that children can build sophistication in what we know and can do. Teaching and learning help children make sense of what to remember and what to forget.

Education also has tests for children to show they have indeed learned information and can perform academic skills. There is a rational sequence of learn, study, test that drives the annual school calendar. We teach what we test. We test what we taught. We tell children to study, but we do not teach them how to study.

Is there a problem?

You bet there is. On the one hand, schools cite the high-quality instruction of their teaching faculty and their standards-based curriculum. School say all children are taught and prepared to do be successful learners. However, test results continue to look like a bell-shaped curve with as many children achieving less than average as the number of children achieving more than average. And on higher stakes testing, more than half the children tested do not show proficiency in their test results.

It is oxymoronic to claim high quality instruction and accept low quality test results. Yet, we do.

The reason is that most children do not know how to study – how to make sense of what they have learned. I often ask children how they study. “I don’t study” is the most frequent answer. “Why don’t you study? I ask. Again, the most common response – “I don’t know what to do.” When a child tells me that they do study, I ask them who taught them. “No body. I Googled what to do” is the most common response from children who study. Ugh!

What if we taught, practiced, and consistently reinforced best practices in studying? What if students studied for a test under our supervision? What if we did not test a child until we verified that the child had used best practice study habits to prepare for the test? Well, it is likely that every child would be a successful learner. Are we prepared for this result? That may be the greater question.

Best practice study methods

We misconstrue study as how to pack information, and skill sets into the brain. That is why ineffective study is known as “cramming.”  Why is this a mistake? Because testing is about getting information and skill set manipulation out of the brain. We do not test students on how to cram; we test on how to de-cram. Studying should be building the capacity to retrieve what has been learned from the brain not trying to get more information into it.

How do we know this? Without other instructions about how to study and left to their own designs, most children do these two re-packing strategies. They –

  • Re-read the text material and re-read their notes, sometimes several times.
  • Underline or highlight text material and class notes and then re-read the underlining and highlighting.

Post-testing analysis of children who use these practices align how they studied with some B but mostly C, D, and F grades. Study habits using retrieval habits align with A and B grades, though some retrievers still have bad testing days. Study is demanding work – when it feels easy, studying is not working very well. Re-reading, underlining, and highlighting are easy and feel easy. They do not tax the brain; hence they do not work. The following practices feel like and are demanding work.

These are effective retrieval practices.

Flash cards.

  • Making and using flash cards seems tedious with a lot of manual not mental work but using flash cards works. Keep flash cards simple – one fact or one concept per card. Write a prompt on one side of the card – a word, concept, process, or cause and effect. Write the definition, explanation, sequence in a process on the other side of the card
  • Make a card for terminology – words in the text in bold print and words in the text that the teacher uses in class.
  • Make a card for cause and effect, like “these are three causes of the Great Depression.”
  • Make a card for steps in a process – “the steps in photosynthesis are …”
  • Read the introduction to a chapter – “In this chapter you will learn…” or the summary – “In this chapter, you …” Make a card for each of these major ideas, concepts, and processes.
  • Review class quizzes. Make a card for any question you answered incorrectly on a quiz.
  • Then, practice retrieval. Read the prompt from one side of the card and say aloud the fact, definition, process, application, or reasons for on the other side. Doing this aloud is a commitment to the answer; doing it silently is too passive. Mix the cards up so they are not always in the same order. Practice retrieval until you can accurately answer the prompt on every card.

Brain Dump.

  • Consider the topics that will be on a test. For example, a test on a chapter(s) in a book or on a genetics and heredity or cell structure or the order of operations in Algebra or on the causes and implications of the Great Depression. On a sheet of paper write down all you know about the topic(s) on the test. List terms and definitions. People, places, dates, and events AND the significance of each. Write out processes – this is how mitosis works. Retrieve all that you can and try to make sense of it.
  • Then compare your Brain Dump with the text and your notes. Work on completeness and accuracy.
  • Then, repeat brain dumping until your output accurately mirrors the input.
  • Practice tests. When a teacher returns a quiz or test, write down the correct answers to questions or problems you answered incorrectly. Keep all quizzes and tests returned to you. For retrieval practice, copy the questions and retake the quiz or test. Check your answers with your kept copies. Redo practice tests until you can answer all questions and problems correctly.

Distributed retrieval practice.

  • Remember cramming? Do not spend four hours the night before a test trying to remember what you have not remembered. Instead, spend one hour each school night four nights before a test making and reviewing flash cards from the day’s assignments. Spend one hour each night for four nights before a test doing a brain dump. If you do not practice retrieval, your brain forgets as fast as it remembers.
  • Distributing retrieval practice over time builds short term memory into longer term memory.

Interleaving/mixing up the order of retrieval demands.

  • When practicing retrieval for a test, change the “batting order” of your retrieving. If you start with flash cards on terms and definitions one night followed by processes, then explanations, the next night start with processes or explanations. Do not get into a groove for retrieval. Mix up what you are trying to retrieve to make your brain work harder.

Explanations not just facts.

  • Making sense of what we know reinforces the structure of our memory. Retrieval begins with the facts of who, what, and when then builds into stories that explain how and why. This is effective retrieval, especially for essay tests. Remembering the labels and steps of the digestive process is best told in explaining the process of how digestion works.

What should we do about what we know?

Consider your own school education and how you were taught to study. I am wagering that you were taught how to organize what you were to learn but were not taught how to study what you learned. We teach the Cornell note taking system, graphic organizers, and mnemonics to assist remembering. And nothing more. These are processes for learning. They are not processes for retrieving what we have learned

We should teach all children how to remember and how to retrieve what they remember, and we should practice these systems repeatedly in school and not expect children to learn them out of school. What does this look like?

  1. Most teachers plan their first summative quizzes and tests for the third or fourth week of school, usually the end of September. This is when children are finishing a first unit of instruction. BEFORE giving any children their first end of unit test, teach them how to study.
  2. In the third week of school in 4th grade, a week or more before the end of the first unit, TEACH FLASH CARDING. Why 4th grade? We teach children how to read in 4K through grade 3. In 4th grade children begin to read to learn. The amount of content knowledge increases in 4th grade. Additionally, in 4th and 5th grade students begin to attend subject area classes – ELA, math, science, social studies, art, music, world language. Each of these subject areas have content-rich assessments.
  3. Use direct instruction to teach children how to sort what you have taught, what is most important to know, and how to make flash cards of this information. Make this an “I do – we do – you do” lesson to ensure every child knows how to create proper flash cards.
  4. Use class time for children to study their flash cards. Children should study independently and collaboratively. Teachers should actively coach children how to use flash cards reinforcing effective use and correcting ineffective use.
  5. Only give children the first unit test of the school year after they have learned how to study for the test.
  6. Repeat this before any end of semester tests in 4th grade – both first and second semesters.
  7. Do this every year in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Build and support student study habits.

The Big Duh!

The goal of teaching is to cause learning. Learning is knowing. Testing is the way we ask children to show what they know. So, success in testing, retrieving what they know, should not be a mystery for children. High quality instruction does not stop with packing information into a child’s brain, it continues with how children use the information they packed in.

Teach all children how to study. Every child can earn an A on a test if we teach them how to earn it.

New Leadership Is About Solid Outputs Not New Inputs

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What if a school leadership candidate told the interviewing committee, “We will not introduce anything new! We will improve the effectiveness of how we work to improve the quality of our student achievement results!” Would you support that leader?

In our culture of consumption, every version of something new must be bold and innovative. The world’s most recognized brand name is our best example. Each year’s new Apple product rollouts exemplify this requirement. New displays, new functions, and new features make the new product better than the old. With high anticipation, we look forward to the annual Apple rollout of “new and improved.” Even if you have last year’s version, you no longer are in on the best of what is new. In fact, in every industry, including education, the words “new and improved…” precede every big announcement.

How does this work in selecting school leaders?

Currently, our local school board is hiring a new high school principal. Each candidate in the interview process fervently explains that she or he will bring the most benefit to the leadership position. “Pick me,” is the constancy between all candidates. “This is what I will do for you” is the variable that board members listen for and weigh in their hiring decision. Board members want to know what new and innovative thing a candidate gives the district that other candidates do not.

I once was a candidate for principal and superintendent positions selling my “new” ideas and I also was a school board president listening to candidates sell their “new” ideas. From both sides of the interview, the storyline was the same. Leaders are hired based upon how well the candidate identifies district needs and wants and translates those into statements of “new” leadership.

Interview for outputs not inputs.

In hindsight, we ask candidates the wrong questions. We seek leaders who can provide new inputs into our educational systems. Instead, we should be asking new leaders how they can improve the outputs, the results of instruction, in our schools. Just one two-part question matters. How will you improve the teaching/coaching/directing/mentoring to improve the educational achievements of all our children?

Instead of seeking leaders with new inputs, seek leaders who can assure the effectiveness of the professionals in your school to improve the quality of the school’s outputs – its student achievements.

What do we know?

Improving school outputs is not first, second, or third on a principal’s to do list. Principals typically self-report their daily time partitioned in these tasks:

  • Administrative tasks – 15-21%
  • Student affairs – 20-25%
  • Curriculum and teaching – 25-29%
  • Parent/Community interaction – 10-15%

The partitioning of these tasks supports the status quo of a school. The principal pays attention to the business of the school environment when spending time on administrative tasks, student affairs (discipline), and parent/community interactions. Given, each of these task categories is important, but status quo maintenance does not move the student outcomes needle. Too many principals spend too little time on the most important purpose of the school – student educational outcomes.

We get what we settle for from leadership, so raise the bar of what we settle for.

A principal’s primary focus should be on the effectiveness of the instruction, coaching, directing, and mentoring of students. To affect student achievement outcomes, new leaders must focus on what teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors do. To impact achievements, they need to improve professional performances that directly affect student outcomes.

So, what can a new principal do to have a positive impact on student achievements? We know from educational research that everything our teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors do can be calibrated for its impact on student learning in academics, activities, arts, and athletics. A school leader who causes teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors to increase the use of higher impact instruction and to decrease the use lower impact instruction can move the student achievement needle.

What to do?

Start with acknowledging that teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors share the same major task – how to teach children to be competent and improving performers in curricular classrooms and studios, playing fields and gymnasiums, activity venues, and student life. They are instructors, first and foremost. This starting point is significant because very few school leaders consider coaches, directors, and mentors as teaching children. As a generalization, the quality of coaching, for example, is never considered for its pedagogy. Sadly, coaching effectiveness relies singularly on each athlete’s native talent and seldom on talent development.

Second, use educational research. John Hattie provides our starting point. His study of typical school/classroom practices and calibration of their impact on student achievement gives us a ranking of the typical ways teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors “teach” children. See the link below.

Visible Learning – Hattie’s Research on Effect Size

My first take in reading Hattie’s work was clouded by my past understanding of teacher effectiveness studies. I was and still am a practitioner of teaching strategies aligned with learning objectives – direct, inquiry-based, problem/project-based, and implicit methodologies. I had not considered all the aspects of school-centric practices in Hattie’s study. Now, I believe they are the new starting point for improving student outcomes. Increase our capacity and use of higher impact activities and decrease the use of lower impact strategies.

Third, change our concept of the principal as an instructional leader. Instead of being the school’s teacher of teachers, the principal is the school’s empresario of school improvement. The principal causes improvement in student outcomes to happen. Causing positive things to happen is a powerful administrative skill set.

For one, principals neither have the time nor the preparation to teach teachers how to improve pedagogy, coaching, directing, or mentoring. But they can work with their school board to bring experts to the school or send school staff to the experts to learn and improve their high impact strategies.

Fourth, begin a new annual reporting of student achievement that includes all academics, student activities, the arts, and athletics. These are the scope of what students engage in in school, so report on their reality. And stop hyperventilating on annual student performances on state-mandated assessments of reading, ELA, and mathematics. Granted, annual school report cards report reading, ELA, and math for disaggregated groups, and include attendance, discipline, and graduation data. But the governmental view of school achievement exists only for schools and states to receive federal money.

What does this look like?

Use the 25+% of a principal’s current daily commitment to curriculum and instruction to

  • Helping teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors to understand and use data-based research on effective teaching practices. All staff need to see the principal’s big picture – We all are teachers and we all can improve student achievements by using higher impact teaching strategies.
  • Collaborating with the school board, school district leaders, and the school leadership team to teach teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors how to optimize their use of high impact strategies. Do not assume that all “teachers of children” know the top ten strategies on Hattie’s list. Do not assume that their recognition of the strategy is the same as knowing how to effectively use the strategy. Teach or improve the capacity of all “teachers of children” in how to use high impact strategies.
  • Change the principal’s use of daily “walk throughs” around all the school from innocuous comments to reinforcing effective practices and diminishing ineffective practices. Most teachers report that traditional “walk throughs” and notes left in mailboxes are in the “ineffective” practice category.

Effective leadership is not bright and shiny – it is hard earned and endurable.

Most teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors rely on the “teaching” methods they learned in their educators licensing program. Although teachers are required to engage in continuing education, PD is conducted as a check-off requirement. Very little PD is directly connected to the practices that improve the effectiveness of teaching related to student achievements in academics, activities, arts, or athletics.

Consequently, a principal’s initiative to increase and improve the use of highly effective practices and diminish the use of ineffective practices will be “new.”

New is a hard task. New inputs face the age-old trial of change theory. Schools, as institutions, have built-in buffers against change initiatives. School traditions, past practice, standardized training of educators, time, and money are all barriers to novel changes in the system of things. Change theory tells us it takes five to seven years to implement and embed significant changes.

The Big Duh!

Yet, new is required for real change to happen. When school boards hire new school leaders, they must take care that they are bringing a “new” to the school that really will have an impact on the most important things – student achievements.

We Get Lower Achievement Because We Accept Lower Achievement

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Given time and effort, we can teach every child to be proficient in reading and mathematics. In truth, with time and effort we can teach any child to be proficient in any subject. This is a true and correct statement of teaching and learning.

You can define proficiency as reading and solving math problems at grade level for elementary age children or as achieving a standardized score on reading and math assessments. These are not unreachable goals nor impossible tasks, if ensuring proficient reading and math abilities are as highly valued as we say they are. But they are not that highly valued – if they were, we would achieve them. Children in American schools are not proficient because we accept and even expect lower academic skills from 50% of our children.

The problem is not the students in school who are not meeting our achievement goals. They meet the farcical achievement levels we accept. They repeatedly score below their prescribed proficiency levels and repeatedly are advanced in grade levels. I am not advocating retention of any child, because we can teach students to meet higher learning goals. If we choose to do so.

The problem is not our goal for every child to be college or career ready. This is the banner headline goal for Wisconsin public schools, and it is a solid, high ground goal for public education. We can teach all students to be college and career ready. The problem is that we, the State of Wisconsin, and its hundreds of school districts, say one thing and accept far less. Most Wisconsin students are not proficient by any measure in reading or math. And we accept this. If we did not, the results would be different.

The problem is our hypocrisy.

What do we know?

If reading and math proficiencies are our gold standards for educational quality, we are failing.

A search of data says this – “Based on spring 2025 results, Wisconsin student performance showed slight gains, with 47.7% of students proficient or better in English Language Arts (ELA) and 48.6% in mathematics.”  The data has been saying the same things for years. Less than half of all students are proficient in reading and math.

What does this really mean? Student assessment data are grouped into four categories: Developing, Approaching, Meeting, and Advanced. Students in the Meeting and Advanced categories achieved scores at or above the target for proficient skills. Students in the Developing and Approaching categories are not proficient; some are far below the proficient level.

In real terms, 52.3% of students are not proficient in reading and 51.4% of students are not proficient in math. We can use softer words to describe the results, but softer words do not change the true meaning. Today, by our own measures, we do not make Wisconsin or any other state’s graduates’ college and career ready.

What should we know about this?

The word “readiness” is a misnomer. A high school graduate thinks readiness is acceptance by a college or being hired into a career apprenticeship or job. I am accepted = I am ready. Readiness is not the status of entry. Readiness is the ability to succeed in college or in a career. Our children are victims of standardized assessments and intransigent institutional standards. Instead of archaic and uninformative statements of proficiency, we must give children real school achievements targets. Like these –

  • College ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities needed for a 75% anticipation of earning a C grade as a minimum in college level courses.
  • Career ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities to successfully apply learned skills necessary for an adult career.

To be cognitively ready for success in college, a student must be able to –

  • Independently read and understand high-school level and introductory college level texts. These are complex and complicated texts and documents.
  • Analyze, evaluate, and synthesize multiple sources into coherent written and oral arguments (papers).
  • Use personal, collegiate vocabulary in all subjects.
  • As a beginning point, master Algebra 2 problems, quadratic functions, polynomials, basic trigonometry, and an ability to interpret statistics, and
  • Make sense of a messy, real-world problem and translate it into a mathematical equation.

To be cognitively ready to apply skills in an adult career, a student must be able to –

  • Follow multi-step complex instructions, safety protocols, technical diagrams. Career-based reading in technical careers often is more complex and complicated than general courses in college.
  • Navigate digital resources to expediently find specific data.
  • Communicate in writing and orally with clarity, as lack of clarity can cause safety and work errors.
  • Master applications of ratios, proportions, and spatial reasoning – tolerances matter.
  • Accurately interpret charts, spreadsheets, and data and communicate this with others.
  • Master fractions, decimals, and basic algebra and geometry.

These are the academic achievements that matter for a high school graduate to predict success in college and a career. Instead of a test score or a grade point average, colleges, universities, and technical colleges should use acceptance tests, like placement tests, to verify an applicant’s likelihood of success. Placement tests are used selectively today – make them universal acceptance tests.

Apprenticeships in skilled trades and should require real-time applied knowledge tests. A highly successful home builder friend tells me, “For example, I hand an applicant a 2 x 4 and pencil and give them an applied math question of measurement, angle, and dimension. They need to make a sketch. Then, I check their assumptions, figures, and diagrams. They need not be 100% correct but demonstrate an understanding of building basics. We will refine their accuracy if they know what they what to do.”

Colleges, universities, technical schools and trades need to define college and career readiness not public schools.

Improve the expectations to improve student achievements.

Many worry that students will fail to meet new requirements, so they are reluctant to make new requirements. Hogwash! Experience tells us that children adapt to new school requirements. School boards have been adding requirements for years and students have adapted to each addition. However, adding new requirements has not improved academic achievement, it only makes schoolwork denser.

The real “new” that is needed to improve student achievement is labeling and teaching to the new descriptors of college and career readiness.

What to do.

  1. Stop soft selling the lack of proficient achievement. Drop the categories of “developing” and “approaching.” Relabel them as one – “Not proficient.” Then, counsel each non-proficient student on how to achieve proficiency. Today we expect children to self-identify their own remedies. That is more hogwash! We are teachers, so teach them.
  2. Strengthen “learn to read, read to learn” instruction in PK-4 with mastery teaching techniques. And create a “learn the math, do math to learn” mantra for mathematics.
  3. Reduce the current number of academic assignments and insist that all students succeed at every assignment. Spend more time teaching children to understand and plan how to successfully complete every assignment. Today “how to” is a mystery to most children.
  4. Stop accepting holes in student learning. Today, teachers begin the next lesson regardless of students who were not successful in the prior lesson. The 80% Rule leaves holes in student understanding and skills. Use more mastery teaching strategies in PK-4 to ensure every student is at grade level reading in reading and math. Use multi-tiered interventions in regular education to ensure that every student ends each unit of instruction successfully.
  5. Stop issuing less than proficient grades on student assignments and tests. Use an A, B, I grade system. Stop using C, D, and F grades. Every student whose assignments are less than a B grade is incomplete, and all incomplete grades must be improved to a B grade or better. Stop i

Successful student learning begets more successful student learning. Make these changes in the PK-4 grades and sustain these new practices through subject instruction in grades 5-12. Being below grade level can be habitual for a student. Do not let that habit start. Once students are meeting grade level success, do not let them fall below grade level.

The Big Duh!

No child starts school with the desire to be less than successful. All children look to their teacher with the anticipation of “I can do this.” As soon as we start accepting less than successful from a child, we say to that child “Less than successful is okay for you.” This is wrong. We create a learned habit of unproficiency. When we stop accepting less than successful schoolwork, children will need to be successful every day. We must mean what we say when we say, “Every child will be college and career ready” and begin meaning that in PK.

Teachers And Co-Conspiratorial Smiles

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Inside every child lives a teacher pleaser. From pre-school through graduation children are in a student/teacher relationship with their instructors in which “making a teacher happy or satisfied or pleased with me” is a focal motivation/reward of each day. Children sitting in a class with other students often compete for their teacher’s smile. With maturity, a child learns that teacher smiles associated with school-based achievements are earned smiles. Teachers give feedback to children in many ways, but “I am smiling for you and with you” is the simplest yet most rewarding of all. This is true even for the senior-sliding 12th graders. Sincere smiles work wonders!

What kind of smile do you have?

I ask this because children know the difference in adult smiles. Consider these four.

  • I am just smiling.
  • I am smiling at you.
  • I am smiling for you.
  • I am smiling with you.

The first is a loser, the second says little, and the second and third are winners.

Smiling by itself is just smiling. Our human physiology makes smiling easier than frowning, so why not smile. Or said differently, smiling comes naturally. And smiling in the presence of children comes easily. Yet, a smile that is on the mouth and jaw line only and never lights up the eyes is just that, a biologic. On the other hand, a smile that lights up the eyes, raises the cheeks, crinkles the skin, and that even moves the ears is psychological. It is stimulus-response personified. Children learn to know the difference between deadpan smiles and real grins, because they see it in the adults in their world. Children know their teachers’ smiles.

Children in school are in the presence of adults all day. Bus drivers, crossing guards, hall monitors, custodians, food servers, librarians, teacher aides, teachers, counselors, and principals. These folks do not smile all the time. A lot of the work and the stuff they attend to during a school day does not call for a biological smile or psychological. And many smiles are just a reaction to something they find humorous.

“Smiling at you” is non-contextual. It is a pasted-on expression children see all the time. It is the face of an older aunt who has no time for children but is trapped in a family get together as she sits with children on either side of her. It is the face of salespeople in a store who want customers to feel welcome. It is impersonal. Is Washington smiling on Mt. Rushmore? Is he smiling at us?

“Smiling for you” is how teachers invest in children. This is not whole class or group smile, but one that is just for you. The teacher knows it and you know it. It is special.

This smile is not about the teacher; it is about you. “I smile because of who you are and for what you have done and for how you are learning.” In this context, when a child sees a teacher smiling for them, the reward/motivation to keep trying, to do more, and to do it better escalates. A child who shares her math problem and solution with her classmates and gets a teacher’s smile will volunteer to do it again.

Consider all the times a teacher, coach, or director gave you a smile that said, “this one is for you.” You hoped someone at home will ask you, “How was school today” and you will tell them about getting a teacher’s smile. It feels good to tell someone about the time a teacher smiled for you.

And finally, “Smiling with you” is a co-conspiratorial glow. Teachers teach, coaches coach, and directors direct so that children will learn. Most of the time, learning is transitional and immediately leads to the next teaching, or coaching, or directing. Now and again, there is a pause. It need not be a ceremony but just long enough for a teacher and a child to stop, pay attention to something of significance that a teacher/coach/director and child have done. And smile.

The child knows that the teacher knows what and how the child is feeling at that precise time and that the child achieved that special feeling because of the teacher’s teaching. It is a look between two people that transcend words. I see co-smiling when children reach supernal moments in school. A child who masters a musical piece and performs it well because of personalized instruction. A child who uses learned technique to create an art piece that makes others stop for a second and deeper look. A child who struggled with fractions and with teacher help can achieve a perfect test score. These smiles happen all the time, but they are so personal to the child and teacher the rest of us may not notice.

I like the co-conspiratorial wording. Teaching and learning are a very personal transaction between two people.

Good teachers teach children; best teachers connect with children.

Being a lifelong schoolaphile (I make up the word), I can remember the name and instructional mannerisms of every teacher I had Kindergarten thru PhD. And across more than fifty years of schoolwork, I remember the work of hundreds of teachers and know them by name and instructional manner. As a person responsible for the quality of educational outcomes, I learned that any teacher could learn and demonstrate subject content and instructional pedagogy, but no teacher can learn to like children in school if they do not do so innately. Can it be that some teachers, deep in their personality, do not like children? Oh, yes.

I liked art as an elementary and middle school student and learned a great deal about conceptualization, perspective, color and shading, shape, and form. My teacher was a veteran who had taught the parents of many of my classmates, and every generation had the same feeling about our teacher. She was a good teacher, but she was a cold one. A petite woman, she was energetic around the classroom, often looking over our shoulders and commenting on our work. But she never connected. I still have things I created in hanging on a wall and sitting on bookshelves – I was pleased with what I learned to do but never met a “smile for you” or a “a smile with you.”

I compare her with another art teacher, an elfin man whose baggy slacks, long-sleeve shirts and vests were his signature look. He had a smile that could melt a glacier. It began in his eyes, rose in his cheeks, and lifted a grin to ear-to-ear. He never knew just how golden his “smiling for/with you” because it was his natural personality. The child in him never got in the way of his connecting with the child in each child.

The other side of his story was the hundreds of students who warmed with his smile for them. And the scores of young artists who created wonderful works that conveyed their inspiration, learned techniques, and mastered artistry. He conspired with them in their learning and they will know him forever.

The Big Dug!

Know your smiles and use them to benefit children. If you are not a smiler, not everyone is, consider changing professions. If you are a smiler, build your capacity to smile for children like the cheerleader they need and smile with children like the conspirator you want to be. Children in school deserve teachers who like them, want the best for them, and can cause them to learn.

It Is Time to Emulate Others

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Adapt or die. A simple and elegant either/or statement of a problematic state of being. The act of adapting may be voluntary or involuntary, but the need for change is dire. If not, death or literal fading toward obscurity and non-existence will ensue. Such is life.

We use this phrase in many contexts to give urgency to a necessary change. There is no human death, but the symbolism works. Here is one that strikes at the heart of education. American public education is the proverbial mile-wide river that carries a lot of water but has no depth. Our educational system is tasked by legislation and local mandates to achieve a wide expanse of outcomes, but because there are so many tasks our achievements are exceptionally shallow. And without significant depth of achievement, public education is dying of 1,000 cuts of complaint. There is no deep cut channel in American public education to give it an enduring and inarguable purpose.

We need to define the purpose and mission of public education so that our clearly written educational goals for all children are meaningfully understood and assessed and our achievements can stand on the merits of their accomplishment.

Reconsider the problem.

We have tunnel vision in assessing and valuing American public education. We have so many things to do, but we are accountable for only two outcomes – annual reading and math achievement. The Wisconsin statewide school report card system also lists graduation, attendance, and discipline rates and disparities of achievement based on gender and exceptionalities. However, in Wisconsin, as well as every other state, only reading and math achievement matter. And the data for reading and math are not good.

Sadly, the data align with the systems that create them. Our data accurately tell us that reading and math abilities in our students have declined and continue to decline. These are documented facts, because we prioritize and use single data points to assess and label the quality of American education. Thus, we pre-ordain our tunnel vision, fixate on narrowed data points, and bemoan education based on our fixations. Ugh!

It is totally exasperating to public school educators who watch children learn and grow in the arts, music, languages, and technical education curricula. We see children engaged and learning in science, literature, and the social studies. Gyms and auditoriums are packed with students, parents, and community members supporting student performances in athletics and the arts. There are a great many successes in our schools, yet it is the doldrums of reading and math data that form our conclusions about public schools in America.

Our chain link of education systems/assessments/data/conclusions about education are not working so break the chain link.

Adapt new models for American public education.

There are other models of education we should be considering. Today they are competitors and we cannot match the education/assessments/data/outcomes of their schooling. Instead of holding to our non-competitive model, we must learn from them.

Who are they? Singapore and Finland. Although our educational media have described, praised, and then criticized education in Singapore and Finland, we have done little to learn from them. It is time we do. I will generalize about their salient differences from our system. My analysis continues to use math as a curricular example.

  • Educational design.

Singapore is a meritocracy with an emphasis on performance. All students are educated equitably until national assessments begin to sort those with high achievement potential. High potential students continue with a rigorous, academic training and average to low potential students begin career training. A small nation without abundant natural resources, Singapore’s educational system creates human talents that have become their national resource. Education in Singapore is highly centralized, driven from the top down. Their purpose is to find talents in students and optimize talent development for all.

Finland emphasizes social equity, trust, and no stress. All students receive the same, equitable education everywhere. Educational goals are nationalized but delivered locally; teachers not government are responsible for ensuring educational quality. All children are taught to achieve the same high level curricular standards. There are no national/state assessments until the high school (16-year-olds). The Finns place a unique trust in teachers to assess and deliver quality education; they localize education controls. Their purpose is to create generations of well-educated, socially conscious citizens.

American public education is decentralized and regulated by state legislation – we have 50 individual state systems of public education. We define education at the state level and give local control to school boards that create their own priorities based upon local needs and values. Each school has its own mission statement, purpose, and lists of educational goals, but few hold these as their non-negotiable “North Star.” Public education has evolved into educational options with ill-defined standards of excellence. Federal and state governments provide legitimacy and funding to non-public schools as educational alternatives under Parent Choice initiatives. Our purpose is to create literate young adults ready for college and careers and citizenship.

  • Teachers

In Singapore, teachers are recruited from the top 5% of their high achieving students. Teaching performances are rewarded with bonuses, a continuation of their merits system. Curriculum is dictated by the Ministry of Education (MOE). Teachers participate in a career advancement track administered by their government. Teaching is a valued profession.

In Finland, teachers are required to hold master’s degrees in education. Teaching is a prestigious profession, equal to law and medicine. They are experts in assessing student learning and instructional design and have individual autonomy over their teaching.

American teachers meet their respective state licensing requirements. The federal government no longer classifies teaching as a profession and due to diminished public esteem, low annual income, and increasing job responsibilities there is a national shortage of people who want to be classroom teachers. A significant and growing number of classrooms are taught by people who are not trained as teachers.

  • Assessment systems.

Singapore uses a summative assessment that clearly measures and make decisions on what each student has learned. The MOE supervises all assessments.

Finland’s teachers use formative assessments to guide instruction. Teachers develop their own assessments and use data to individualize student learning and growth.

America’s annual high stakes state assessments are evaluative. We rank students and schools based upon their performance on state assessments. Government threatens underperforming schools to improve or lose federal and state funding. We use assessment data to discard and adopt curricular programs.

  • Mathematics

In Singapore mathematics instruction emphasizes mathematical reasoning, modeling, and real-world problem solving. More importantly, the curriculum builds deep conceptual understanding not memorization. Singapore students chronically top the international test takers.

In Finland teachers assess students on learning processes, problem-solving abilities, collaboration, and application of mathematics. Finland’s students chronically top international test takers. Students often work on a single problem for a full week. Add to this, Finland has ranked as the world’s happiest country for eight years in a row (2025).

American mathematics instruction emphasizes problem solving and finding right answers. Students often are assigned a dozen or more problems to solve every night as homework. Students compete with each other and seldom collaborate to solve problems. We focus on the right answers to math problems do not teach mathematical thinking or logic, although high achieving students may intuit these.

What to do?

Singapore and Finland excel in educating their children because they have clear compasses to keep their education system on track. Singapore’s centralized, rigorous, merits-based system is fundamentally different from Finland’s localized, teacher-driven, low stress, socializing system, yet each is a world-class leader in educational excellence because they do not deviate from their well-defined educational goals.

In comparison, we know that American public education will not be centralized and driven by a federal department. Our Constitution says public education is a state’s issue and each state’s politics will form its educational commitments. Because there is no national direction, we do not have a meaningful national purpose. Additionally, there is no consensus among states as to purpose or urgency. Each state treats public education as a status quo issue – it gets attention only when there are problems and or political advantage to addressing a particular issue.

However, we can

  1. From Finland, ensure educational equity for all children regardless of school district, or neighborhood. All children can be taught to achieve our standards of proficiency. Family socio-economic status should not predetermine learning success.
  2. From Finland and Singapore, teach thinking and best solution problem-solving. Our history of rewarding the efficiency of correct answers not their logic and rationale leave more than 50% of all students undereducated. We need to teach for deep understanding not rote recitation.
  3. From Finland, teach collaboration instead of independent competition, an industrial era model that fails us today. Our traditions of competition make socio-economic backgrounds of children even more pronounced. Collaboration is a learned skill set and we need to teach it.
  4. From Finland and Singapore, require classroom teachers to be highly trained experts in pedagogy and assessment instead of being minimally prepared in subject areas. Requiring a deeper professional preparation and continuing education reclaims a professional status for every teacher.
  5. From Finland, teach less curriculum but teach it so that all children master what they are taught. Every course and grade level currently is overloaded with stuff to be taught and learned. Teaching less will allow children to master the learning of more.
  6. From Finland and Singapore, define our descriptors of educational excellence and hold them as our North Stars. End the use of reading and math as our only data points. Use descriptors of high performance in every school program as expectations for educational achievements. Art, music, social studies, science, world language, technical education, et al equally define the quality of our educational systems. If American education continues to provide broad educational programs of academic, activities, arts, and athletics, then teach to, recognize, and celebrate excellence in each of these.

The Big Duh!

There was a time when America’s public education system was a model the world emulated. However, that time has passed. America’s future will not be improved by recreating our past but in our capacity to create a new future. There are systems that are excelling in educating their youth to be productive adults and contribute to the future of their communities and nation. These nations have become beacons for our emulation. We must adapt or die.