School of Education Faculty of Humanities and Education The University of the West Indies St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Reconceptualising the Agenda for Education in the Caribbean Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007, School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Edited by Lynda Quamina-Aiyejina School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine 2008 © School of Education Published in 2008 by the School of Education Faculty of Humanities and Education The University of the West Indies St. Augustine Republic of Trinidad and Tobago ISBN: 978-976-622-001-3 Printed by the Multimedia Production Centre School of Education Faculty of Humanities and Education The University of the West Indies St. Augustine Republic of Trinidad and Tobago ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine, would like to thank all those who made the 2007 Biennial Conference a success. These include the keynote speaker; the presenters; the secretarial, technical, and ancillary staff of the School of Education; the staff of our sister Schools of Education from the Mona and Cave Hill Campuses who helped to make this conference a truly UWI affair; and other conference attendees. Special thanks must go to the members of the Biennial Conference Coordinating Committee: Mr. Krishna Seunarinesingh, Chair Dr. Maria Byron Dr. Dorian Barrow Dr. Jennifer Yamin-Ali Dr. Michael Kallon Mr. Steven Khan Dr. Barrow, Dr. Yamin-Ali, and Mr. Khan further agreed to serve on the Editorial Committee for the publication of the proceedings, along with: Miss Patricia Worrell Mrs. Janet Fullerton-Rawlins Mrs. Lynda Quamina-Aiyejina (Editor) We would also like to thank the members of the Editorial Committee. The School must also express its thanks for the financial support received from Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. to assist with defraying the costs associated with bringing the Keynote speaker, Prof. Theodore Lewis, to Trinidad; from the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education for underwriting the cost of the Cultural Evening during the conference; and from the Research and Publications Fund of the School for Graduate Studies and Research, UWI, St. Augustine, for the grant for publication of the proceedings. Special thanks are due to Mr. Satanand Sharma, Head of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, UWI, St. Augustine, for organizing a very entertaining cultural evening for the participants of the conference. Last but not least, thanks are due to all members of staff of the School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine, who supported the work of all those directly involved in planning for the conference and preparing the proceedings. Thank you all. CONTENTS Acknowledgements Foreword i ix Welcome Messages June George, Head, School of Education Ian Robertson, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Education xii xiii Keynote Presentation Transforming Education in the Caribbean: Are We Ready for Change? Theodore Lewis, Professor Department of Work and Human Resources Education College of Education and Human Development University of Minnesota 1 Papers Part 1: Best Practices in Instruction Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a Foreign Language Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick 23 33 Constructivism and the Enabling of Mathematical Thinking Camille Bell-Hutchinson Sign It In; Sign It Out, Up and Down the Caribbean: Preparing the Deaf for CSME Joan Bobb-Alleyne-Dann 47 Reconceptualizing the Agenda for Language Education at UWI: Languages for All Beverly-Anne Carter 53 Enhancing Learning Through Technology Innovation: Lessons Learned From Online and Face-to-Face Learning in Postgraduate Education at UWI, Mona Austin Ezenne 63 Online Delivery of a Mathematics Course in a Distributed Environment: The Case of UWI Distance Education Centre Martin Franklin and Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi 69 iii Sense of Place and the Teaching/Learning of Lower Secondary Science June George, Joycelyn Rampersad, and Susan Herbert 83 95 The L2 Learner’s Performance Amina Ibrahim Ali Using Blogging as a Teaching/Learning Tool in a Postgraduate Teacher Education Programme at The University of the West Indies (UWI): An Activity Systems Analysis Cynthia James 107 An Alternative Language Experience Approach for Selected Creole-Influenced Students Barbara Joseph 119 The Use of Mass Media as a Didactic Strategy in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language – Music and Songs – Diego Mideros 129 Information and Communications Technology Initiatives in Secondary Schools in Trinidad and Tobago Gerard Phillip 139 Teaching Standard English in the Trinidadian Classroom Thirty Years After the Carrington-Borely Report: A Survey of Recent Trends and Influences Sharon Phillip-Peters 149 163 Participating in a Virtual Community Patricia Worrell Part 2: Issues of Curriculum Bridging the Science and Mathematics Divide: Issues, Challenges, and Promises Camille Bell-Hutchinson and Marcia Rainford 173 “Learning is Hard Work and Sometimes Difficult”: What Pupils With Dsylexia Say About the Difficulties They Experience With Learning at Secondary School in Barbados Stacey Blackman 181 An Error Analysis of Written Spanish Language in Secondary School Students in Trinidad Mariette Cooper 191 iv Teachers’ Concerns About the CAPE Communication Studies Innovations Sharmila Harry 203 Collaborating to Reform Science Education in Context: Issues, Challenges, and Benefits Susan Herbert, Joycelyn Rampersad, and June George 217 Creating a Constructivist Learning Environment: The Challenge of Jamaica’s Revised Primary Curriculum Zellynne Jennings 231 Instructional Materials Development for Primary Spanish in the Caribbean Esperanza Luengo-Cervera and Ruth Albornoz-Chacón 241 251 The Problem of Generating a “Genuine” Social Studies Jeniffer Mohammed and Carol Keller From Traditional School Health to the Emerging Multi-Agency Health and Family Life Education Programme — The Transference of an Identity Crisis Created at the Macro Level Cecilia Reece-Peters 259 A Factor Analytic Study of Subject Choice Among a Sixth Form Sample of Jamaican Students, With Particular Reference to the Natural Sciences Francis Oliver Severin 271 Developing an Agenda for Online Education in the Caribbean: The Importance of Student Perceptions of Quality Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi 295 313 Issues of Language and Literacy Revisited Valerie Youssef and Kathy-Ann Drayton Part 3: Educational Administration When Choosing Might Mean Losing: The Construction of Secondary School Choice in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Jerome De Lisle, Carol Keller, Vena Jules, and Peter Smith 321 347 Curbing Students’ Disruptive Behaviours in Jamaican Secondary Schools Austin Ezenne Managing Student Discipline at the Curepe Junior Secondary School: A Pilot Research Project George Gowrie 353 v Perceptions of School Health: A Study of Selected Primary Schools in the St. George East Education District of Trinidad and Tobago George Gowrie, Mala Ramdass, Cheryl Bowrin, and Marlene Thomas 359 School Improvement in Trinidad and Tobago: A Predictor for the Success of Educational Reform Raymond S. Hackett 371 383 Lessons from the Transformation of the Jamaican Education System Disraeli M. Hutton Principal Professional Preparation at the Secondary School Sector in Trinidad and Tobago Arthur Joseph 395 Defining the Role of the Course Coordinator in UWIDEC’s Blended Learning/Asynchronous Delivery Mode Olabisi Kuboni 407 Students as Consumers of Higher Education: Implications for the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus Linda Steele 415 427 Educational Administration as a Micropolitical Exercise Jennifer Yamin-Ali Part 4: Education and National Development Education for Development: The Case for a Skills-Based Approach Russell Foote 441 447 Education in Crisis: Re-Visiting the “Carnival Mentality” Janice Fournillier Anti-Racist Education and Research: A Vision for Caribbean Education in the 21st Century Michael Kallon 459 465 The Importance of Learning Foreign Languages in Trinidad and Tobago Régis Kawecki and María Pilar Gea Monera Reconceptualizing Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Caribbean Schooling Theodore Lewis 477 Graduate Studies in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the Caribbean – Whose Responsibility? Halden A. Morris 489 vi Building Creative Capacity for the 21st Century: Implications for Caribbean Education of the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education and the CCFA Conference on Societies in Crisis Satanand Sharma 499 Part 5: Measurement and Evaluation Managing Subjectivity in Arts Assessments Lennise Baptiste 503 511 Evaluations of Quality Teaching for Universal Quality Assurance Tony Bastick Questioning Our Fundamental Assumptions: Scientific Measures of Reliability Tony Bastick 531 In the Context of Trinidad and Tobago, How Do We Identify Schools That Are Succeeding or Failing Amidst Exceptionally Challenging Circumstances? Jerome De Lisle, Peter Smith, Yvonne Lewis, Carol Keller Patricia McDavid, Vena Jules, Samuel Lochan, Raymond Hackett Phaedra Pierre, and Krishna Seunarinesingh 547 Validating the Performance Standards in the 2005 and 2006 National Primary School Achievement Tests in Mathematics and Language Arts Jerome De Lisle 563 581 A Model for 360° Teacher Evaluation in the Context of the CSME Sandra Ortega, Lennise Baptiste, and Antoine Beauchemin Online Teacher Training and Upgrading Programmes for Science Teachers: Issues of Assessment Marcia Rainford 587 Part 6: Professional Development of Educators Attributes of Internality: An Alternative Path to Teacher Effectiveness Loraine D. Cook and Tony Bastick 599 Teachers’ Professional Growth: Examining the Effect of Teacher Maturity on LOC Orientation Loraine D. Cook and Tony Bastick 631 Selected Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans (TTEA) Sandra Ingrid Gift 639 vii Pre-Service Secondary School Mathematics Teachers Exploring Computer Technoloy in a Caribbean Context: Challenges Encountered Pier A. Junor Clarke 659 669 Classroom Research: A Defining Feature of Professional Practice Vashti Singh Poster Presentations Biodiversity Education in Teachers’ Colleges in Jamaica: Implementing Theme-Based Learning and Action Projects Marcelline Collins-Figueroa 677 Whole College Approaches to Sustainability in Teacher Education in Jamaica Marcelline Collins-Figueroa 677 Preparing High Quality Mathematics Teachers: A Collaborative Approach to Teacher Development Pier A. Junor Clarke, Thomas McPherson-Kerr, and Denise Brewley-Corbin 677 A Bibliographic Evaluation of the Research of Graduates Over the Last Ten Years at the School of Education, UWI, Mona Dorothy M. Palmer 678 Measuring the Effects of Socio-Cultural Factors in a Jamaican Chemistry Classroom: Findings From the Pilot Study Norda Stephenson 678 Notes on Contributors 681 viii FOREWORD The Biennial Conference of the Schools of Education of The University of the West Indies(UWI) was held from April 23 to 26, 2007, at the St. Augustine Campus. The conference theme was “Reconceptualising the Agenda for Education in the Caribbean.” During the course of those brief four days, conference participants listened to and interacted with presenters who spoke on a rich diversity of issues. There was a range of contributions from fields such as science education, history, linguistics, technical/vocational education, psychological testing, early childhood education, communication studies, and foreign language education. The diversity of the offerings made for an interesting mix of interpretations and representations of the conference theme, which we now have the opportunity to re-appraise and review through this published conference proceedings. In the year since the conference, several issues, such as those relating to assessment and gendered achievement, have assumed greater prominence in educational discourse. Other themes remain enduring ones for which we keep seeking answers. Thus, the compilation of conference papers should serve as a timely resource for those interested in pursuing the theme that had sustained our deliberations for those four days in April, 2007. This conference proceedings has been made possible through the efforts of Mrs. Lynda Quamina-Aiyejina, who worked to collate the final papers, edit, and make them ready for publication, ably assisted by the members of the Editorial Committee (Dr. Dorian Barrow, Mrs. Janet Fullerton-Rawlins, Mr. Steven Khan, Ms. Patricia Worrell, Dr. Jennifer Yamin-Ali), who provided the guidelines and framework for the editorial decisions. I know that it has been an arduous year for them and, on your behalf, I thank them for their efforts. Finally, I thank all those who made the 2007 conference a success. Your contribution of time and expertise gave the conference a professional ambiance that was appreciated by all. Krishna Seunarinesingh Chair Biennial Conference Coordinating Committee ix WELCOME MESSAGES Head, School of Education The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine June George It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the 2007 edition of the Biennial Conference of the UWI Schools of Education. This conference serves to bring academic staff from the Schools of Education on the Mona, Cave Hill, and St. Augustine campuses together to make and renew acquaintances, and to share ideas about our work. It also serves to bring UWI staff in contact with other educational researchers with a Caribbean focus, as well as the many stakeholders in the national education sector of the host campus. As we discuss how we might reconceptualize the education agenda in the Caribbean over the next few days, I trust that you will gain some new insights and that you will leave here with renewed determination to collaborate with significant stakeholders in providing more meaningful and relevant educational opportunities for our citizens. Thank you for coming to the conference and welcome to the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies. xiii Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Education The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Ian E. Robertson The issue of reconceptualizing the agenda for education 45 years after the attainment of political Independence by Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago would seem to invite questions about the nature of the agenda that has been pursued since the signal events of between 30 and 45 years ago. This, in spite of the fact that leaders in academic matters might well have forged ahead without being able to convince their peer stakeholders that the need for reform or even reconceptualization was vital to the capacity of the young nations to prepare their populations to deal with a world that was not standing still. The theme of this conference is a public declaration of intent on the part of academic participants to present the appropriate challenges to education systems to force them to face up to the responsibility for ensuring that the societies are adequately equipped to deal with contemporary requirements and responsibilities. This is the context in which the Faculty welcomes participants to yet another meeting of the Caribbean educators. xiv KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Transforming Education in the Caribbean: Are We Ready For Change? Keynote Presentation Delivered at the Biennial Cross-Campus Conference of the Schools of Education St. Augustine, Trinidad, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis Professor, Department of Work and Human Resource Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA Introduction Are we up to the task of transforming education in the Caribbean? If we go by C.L.R. James, then indeed we may be. But that remains to be seen. In his essay “The Making of the Caribbean People,” James (1980) takes offence at what appears to be a suggestion by W. Arthur Lewis that there was some doubt as to whether our people could make the sacrifices necessary for economic development. Distancing himself from such scepticism, James asserted: I have never found that West Indians, when called upon in a critical situation, do not respond. That is their life. I believe that they can’t help responding. Beginning as we do in a new civilization and leaving such elements that they might have brought with them behind, they have always responded to a fundamental and serious challenge. That is our way of life. That is why we are still alive. (p.175) Decades on, after the first trickle then the flood of Independence witnessed by the region—the culmination of the work of founding visionaries— it is left to us now, inheritors of the legacy of freedom from colonial rule, to make more complete the project of political and psychological freedom. But we have had enough postindependence history now to know that breaking away from inherited epistemologies and hardened habits, whether in the realms of governance, jurisprudence, administration, or indeed education, is easier said than done. A freed people, we are still not comfortable with the prospect of interrogating that to which we have grown accustomed by tradition. We are still hesitant to “buy local.” And yet that is precisely what is needed in education in the region if we are to make forward strides on our own, without the training wheels of continued attachment to the colonial base. It might be argued that the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) embodies real evidence that we have been prepared to break away from the received model, and to launch out on our own with West Indian secondary school curricula and West Indian examinations. That, indeed, was a major tangible psychological breakthrough, though, as Carl Campbell (1987) documents in Endless Education, the impetus for this was largely pressure from below in the 1969– 70 period, embodied in Black Power radicalism in Trinidad, which included the National Joint Action Committee’s (NJAC) call for rejection of imposed colonial curricula—this call being taken up dramatically by Woodbrook Secondary School students—new Caribbean-related curricula in areas such as history and literature being at the core of their demands. The replacement of the General Certificate of Education (GCE) and its infrastructure with the 1 Theodore Lewis CXC now stands as the best evidence of what is possible when we as a people decide to interrupt a default flow of history and to make our own. As important as is the substance of making this change in the region, taking the received curricula and fashioning it to our own designs; by far the more important lesson from the CXC is its spirit— embodied in the act of saying we can do education on our own. CXC has been a resounding success as an idea, with its history being the evidence. And an equally important lesson from this history is that on matters which are common to us in the region, it is better to act in unison than independently—The University of the West Indies (UWI) and our cricket team being of course the best examples of what Caribbean cooperation is capable of accomplishing. But education is more than curriculum and examinations; it is about access and possibilities, and here the CXC comes to its limit. To understand this, we must stand back and look at relationships between educational provision, opportunity structures, mobility, and well-being. And throughout the Caribbean we may find that, as in colonial times, there is great unevenness in access and in the quality of the education on offer, and high correlation between quality and scarcity. Errol Miller (2000) speaks of this tension between quantity and quality of educational provision as the region has striven to democratize education. Despite quantum educational advances since the Independence movement, the work ahead remains daunting. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, estimates are that 70% of students are able to transition from primary to secondary school, and that the range of transition rates is large, varying from 40% in Tobago to 92% in St. Patrick. These are startling and sobering figures, though the country can point to great advances in secondary education provision over the decades. The shortcomings here help account for the relatively low ranking of the country on the 2006 Human Development Index; Trinidad and Tobago ranking 57 out of 177 countries overall. Scarcity in provision and access means that, in some measure, education in Trinidad and Tobago and in most of the region might be likened to a zero-sum game, with winners and losers; those who have it thriving at the expense of those who do not. And this goes not just to access, since, as Miller (2000) points out, schooling is one thing, Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 2 but learning is another. Here we come face to face with colonial history and a legacy of curriculum differentiation where the children who score best on selective exams, and (in the Trinidad and Tobago case) those hand-picked by denominational bodies from the pool of successful candidates, are sent to the best schools, with high status curricula, while others are sent to less desirable schools. Ralph Turner speaks here of the inherited English logic of sponsored mobility (see Turner, 1960) where socio-economic status and access to high status schooling are intertwined. Turner explains thus: Under sponsored mobility, elite recruits are chosen by the established elite or their agents, and elite status is given on the basis of supposed merit and cannot be taken by any amount of effort or strategy. Upward mobility is like entry into a private club where each candidate must be “sponsored” by one of the members. (p. 856) Some things die hard, and schooling as a basis of differentiation in the Caribbean will not go gently. And yet, if education is the key to forward movement in the region, by far the toughest challenge we may face on this count will be in rejecting this inheritance of sponsorship, and seeking ways to provide the best and most challenging curricula to all. Opposition to change of this order will come from many quarters, where there is vested interest in preserving the privilege that comes with sponsorship. An education system that is designed to raise the overall level of wellbeing of the masses, rather than to identify the best and the brightest, requires a completely different philosophy than that to which we in the Caribbean are accustomed. The challenges here do not end at the secondary level. Rather, they persist into tertiary education, and here again we have little history upon which to rely. What does an egalitarian-minded university education look like? The challenge here is to be able to see educational provision as continua rather than as duality, and by so doing we will be better able to accept that people with a range of talents can benefit from university exposure, and that the society will be better off for it. There is also an epistemic challenge around the question of what knowledge Transforming Education in the Caribbean is of worth. Here, colonial history works against us, such that implanted mental models we hold about what constitutes valid knowledge limit our vision about what is possible as spheres of study. Many will not be able to conceive of careers and programmes of study beyond the traditional professions and disciplines. And yet, if we are going to transform education in the region, one of the requirements will be to remove artificial barriers between schooling at all levels and society, by validating knowledge that is constructed in everyday life, such as in workplaces, and engaging in inquiry around problems that ordinary people confront. Except for Guyana and Belize, we are islands, and yet the sea features little in the curriculum. In the United States (US) today, there is an interesting variation of the traditional discipline-based engineering degree called “manufacturing engineering,” which responds directly to workplace needs. At the University of Wisconsin-Stout, which offers this degree in which there is less mathematics than regular engineering, and more hands-on applications related to the design of manufacturing cells, the demand by manufacturers for graduates exceeds the supply. This kind of approach to engineering is more inclusive than the traditional. It does not replace discipline-based engineering, but it is an example of what becomes possible when people are prepared to abandon received conceptual frames and to fashion new ones based on observation and experience. In the remainder of this paper I continue to examine the question of our readiness for transformation of education, by pursuing the following course: (a) Global context of transformation, (b) Education and economic growth revisited, (c) Caribbean education, and (d) The prospect of change. loom large in our educational visioning in the Caribbean, it is imperative that economic considerations be at the forefront of our thinking as well. Education is foundational to unlocking the creativity of our people in every sphere of life—at home, in the community, in industry, in agriculture, and in artistic endeavours. The challenge for countries in the region is to work out just how to employ this variable. In this section of the paper, I draw on recent educational reform experiences from the US, and from a growing literature on relationships between political economy and skill formation posture of countries, to see whether there are lessons from this that are worth the attention of the Caribbean. US School Reform and Skill Polarization We may conveniently set the starting date for the last quarter century of focus on the impact of schooling on global competitiveness at 1983, the year of the publication in the US of A Nation at Risk, authored by a blue ribbon commission, in which alarms were raised about the decline of US manufacturing relative to the Japanese. Searching for an explanation of Japanese edge, authors settled on the differential quality of education. While there has been much contestation surrounding this issue, what emerged in the US has been greater appreciation of the need for a new regime of academic basics and rigour in the schools. The recourse to academics that continues apace still, with focus on rigorous discipline-based coursework and “high-stakes” testing, has been referred to as the first wave of school reform. Education in the US had for most of the 20th century been distributed on the basis of race and socio-economic status, with the tracking of students on these bases into the preferred collegebound trajectory, where they took academic coursework as opposed to the general or vocational tracks where the curriculum was less rigorous. The first wave of reform offered hope that there would be retreat from tracking. But that was short-lived. Subsequent to Risk, a second argument was set forth about decline of American manufacturing competitiveness, the thrust of it being that where the US loses the competitiveness battle is on the factory floor among mid-level workers. The arguments here were compellingly set forth by 3 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Global Context of Transformation Across the globe in countries at various stages of development, there has been in the last two decades a revival of faith in human capital formation through education in school and out. Countries everywhere are seeking to rationalize their skill formation systems on the premise that herein resides the variable that can yield competitive edge in global competition. Even though social and civic considerations must still Theodore Lewis Lester Thurow (1992) in Head to Head, in which he argued that at the highest levels of the labour force, US workers are better educated than their counterparts in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere; the American higher education system providing a constant supply of highly educated graduates to the labour market. But there was a soft middle in US education that results in inferior performance and adaptability on the factory floor, compared to mid-level German and Japanese workers. Workers of the latter countries were more broadly educated, and more easily adaptable in workplaces that had become increasingly more technology-driven and given to constant change. This line of argument was also offered by Carnevale, Gainer, and Meltzer (1988) in their influential book, Workplace Basics—the Essential Skills Employers Want. The skills included learning to learn, problem solving, and communicating. Absent was any attention to discipline-based knowledge. This focus on the middle added a new dimension to the reform movement—a second wave of reform— characterized by a strong chorus in sympathy with the idea that schools should admit that many children would not go on to four-year college, and that these so-called non-college bound students required their own structured trajectory leading to the workplace. There was a preoccupation here with the creation of school-to-work transition structures, and the reconceptualization of vocational education so that its academic content would be increased. At the policy level, this strand of reform was supported by legislation in the form of iterations of the Carl D. Perkins Act and the School-To-Work Transition Act of 1994. It also derived philosophical impetus from the publication of the SCANS (Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) report, which set forth the basic skills that schools needed to provide students who were non-college bound. Basically, it was the Three Rs, thinking skills such as problem solving, and personal qualities. Out of this ferment emerged reform initiatives such as Career Academies, High Schools That Work, and Tech-Prep (Technical Preparation), all having in common the integration of academic and vocational knowledge, and the more deliberate connection of high schools with two-year technical and community colleges. Fundamentally, the two waves of reform in the US, the one offering white collar literacy and the other working-class literacy, resulted in the following policy positions: 1. Every child will start school ready to learn. 2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%. 3. American students will leave Grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter. One important aspect of the US reform movement is that it has caused scholars and policy makers to look comparatively at educational provision and process, particularly in respect to Asian countries (e.g., Baker, 1993; Gordon, 1987). Such scrutiny has yielded some clues to the success of Asian children in academics, including a cultural backdrop of harmony and order; direct teacher-centred instruction; balanced curricula such that science gets as much attention as social studies in the primary grades; and engaging of children emotionally at an early age. In response to perceived and observed differences between American and Asian schooling practice, there has been in the US greater scrutiny of teacher preparation, and radical proposals for the reform of teaching. One of the reforms, the Holme’s Group Proposal, called for all teachers to have a degree in their area of specialty prior to embarking upon programmes of licensure. This extended the length of preparation prior to teaching to between five to six years. Also included here was the provision of professional development schools, on the teaching hospital, medical model. School reform in the US has also meant increased focus on testing, with initiatives such as America 2000 and its replacement, Goals 2000, specifying targets such as: including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, art, history, and geography. Resnick and Resnick (1985) analysed US education and offered lines along which there could be improvement, including (a) upgrading the curriculum through more stringent course requirements, and (b) moving from testing to English-style examinations. Persistent inequality. But amid calls of this order, inequality in educational provision and 4 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Transforming Education in the Caribbean achievement persist, such inequality being reproduced by continued systematic patterns of differentiation and exclusion in education (see Bowles & Gintis, 2002; Gamaron, 2001) to the detriment of the under-classes, among whom are minorities (especially blacks and Hispanics). David Berliner (2006) contends that poverty is the root cause of the problem of the academic achievement gap between majority and minority children in the US, and that its eradication is the key to having educational reforms take hold and to closing that gap. A recent briefing before the US Commission on Civil Rights provides data that illuminate the observations of Bowles and Gintis (2002). In their testimony, experts agreed that following the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, the black middle class grew steadily in relation to whites until the 1980s, after which their percentage has remained constant (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2005). Much of the testimony was devoted to possible reasons for this stagnation, including the need for an increased percentage of black families with two adult earners, and for continued vigilance with respect to the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in workplaces. But the consensus view was that the primary problem lay in continuing barriers faced by black children in gaining access to high-value academic education. Schooling was standing in the way of economic and social advance. This view is captured in the testimony of one panellist who contended that “children from working class and low-income backgrounds are more likely to be placed into lower track classes, placed in less rigorous schools, and be less college prepared. As a result, they are less able to compete for middleclass occupations” (p. 3). My own recent study of vocational education reform in American high schools showed that socio-economic status of the student population was the most significant predictor of the dominant track in schools, and the likely post-school destinations predicted by principals (Lewis & Cheng, 2006). Whatever the politics, current attempts by the Bush Administration, in the “No Child Left Behind” legislation, to hold schools accountable for children’s learning is on target, to the extent that it keeps the issue of race and class-based tracking on the table. Standards-based education. Importantly, school reform in the US has given rise to the standards movement, which is focused upon the various subjects, spelling out the content to be taught in each grade level. Beyond the identification of content to be taught, the movement has included specification of approaches to assessment, pedagogy, and professional development. Associations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the National Academy of Science (NAS), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have set forth standards that delineate what students should learn when they study mathematics and science. Some are of the view that the standards movement, with its emphasis on having all students achieve at high levels, will allow children who traditionally are left behind to begin to catch up. Schoenfeld (2002) has provided data indicating that when standardsbased reforms are implemented: The bottom line is that standards-based reform appears to work when it is a part of systemic effort in which curriculum, assessment, and professional development are aligned. Not only do more students do well, but the racial performance gap diminishes substantially. (p. 17) Some commentators (e.g., Porter, 1993) are of the view that schools must be held accountable if reforms leading to improved student achievement are to take hold. Skill and Qualifications Noticeably in Europe, countries are seeking to systematize and make transparent their stock of skill. Michael Young (2003) observes that countries everywhere are doing this by resorting to national qualification frameworks. The establishment of such frameworks is not without challenge, especially since “high skills” cannot mean mere educational and training provision, abstracted from the cultural context. Keating (2003) points out the difficulties in Australia as that country seeks to align secondary, vocational, and university credentialing to establish articulation across institutions, quality control, and coherence. Bouder (2003) shows, in the French case, that it is 5 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis one thing to establish qualifications frameworks, but that this is not an objective activity. It requires the support of stakeholders. Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch (2006) show how differences in Anglo-Saxon versus Germanic conceptions of skill make the idea of a unifying European skills framework problematic. Where skill is an attribute of jobs in British tradition, it is a mark of social rank in German tradition. Models of skill formation. The quest by countries for arriving at postures that best allow them to mobilize skill has become the basis of scholarship that has yielded country typologies. These typologies tend to be premised upon the view that skill formation approaches are dictated by the ideologies underpinning the political economies of countries. In their run-up to identifying country skill typologies, Ashton and Green (1996) offer a theory of skill formation systems comprised of a hypothesized six conditions that are necessary for achieving high levels of skill formation. Paraphrased, they include: 1. Commitment of the state to the goal of high skill formation, and “innovative use of the productive system” (p. 100) in this cause. 2. An education system that produces high levels of basic competence in science, mathematics, information technology, and language among school leavers. Thus, a large majority of school leavers must leave with intermediate levels of qualifications in such subjects. 3. Employers must be committed to the goals of high skill formation, and be themselves willing to engage in worker training, the workplace being a critical site of work-based learning. 4. Need for “regulation and accountability” of skill formation activities that occur in the workplace. Here they speak of the need for employers to take a long-term rather than a short-term view of training, and thus to see the social benefits of training in the workplace. 5. Workers and prospective workers must be committed to the goal of continuous development at work. 6. A structured system of on-the-job learning to be complemented by off-the-job training in basic knowledge and skills. (pp. 99–104) On the basis of such criteria, Ashton and Green (1996) identify polar types of economies based upon the historical record of the way state formation, industrialization, and class relations interplayed in the advance of these countries. Thus, they suggest that there are countries that have taken a low-skill route, particularly Britain and, to some extent, the US. They acknowledge the world-class status of American higher education, but point to a large section of the population whose lot is “declining real wage rates, poor levels of educational achievement and lowlevel skills and insufficient access to work-based training” (p. 127). They note that: “the extreme polarization of the labour force is mirrored by considerable inequities in the quality of school provision, and relatively severe educational problems among its young college drop-out population” (p. 133). (Indeed, in The Work of Nations, Robert Reich (1991) points out that only 20% of the American workforce have the symbolic-analytic skills needed to make a difference in global business.) Countries that Ashton and Green identify as having taken the high-skills route include Germany and Japan— well established; and the Asian Tigers inclusive of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea—well on their way. In the latter countries, there is tight linkage between state formation and industrialization, and education and training systems that have low autonomy and are directly responsive to the demands of the productive system. Caroline Lloyd and Jonathan Payne (2005) raise questions regarding what model of a highskills society the UK might choose. They raise doubt as to whether skills can deliver outcomes such as higher wages, lower unemployment, pay for a viable welfare state, and provide equality of opportunity. But they assert that: our view is that any high skills vision must include a wider set of criteria than the sum total of skills in use within a particular nation. It is ultimately about what type of society we would like to see created and, in this sense, it is a political choice 6 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Transforming Education in the Caribbean between alternative social and economic outcomes. (p. 167) Thus, they set forth their own criteria for selecting a high-skills vision, including: • a relatively high proportion of intermediate and high-skilled jobs, alongside greater levels of participation and autonomy at work; • a more equal distribution of income; • better provision and more equal access to welfare, health, and education; • strong labour and social rights; and • relatively high waged. (p. 167) With these criteria having been set forth, they declare that the UK and US do not offer a desirable vision of a high-skills society. And like Ashton and Green (1996), the reasons they offer here include high levels of social inequality, limited union and worker rights, polarized distribution of skills, low wages, and long working hours (p. 168). They discount Japan due to lack of autonomy of work and intense work routines. Likewise, they discount South Korea and Singapore as being authoritarian states. They settle on Germany and Scandinavian countries as best meeting their criteria. Thus “Germany is ahead if we prioritize skill levels, while the Scandinavian countries tend to come out on top in terms of egalitarian outcomes and broader social benefits” (p. 170). But in settling on these countries, they note the perils, such as unequal participation of women in the German economy and pressure on German skill systems by new Japanese production methods. Green and Sakamoto (2001) used Total Factor Productivity (TFP) as the best indicator of competitiveness. It includes both capital and labour productivity. With respect to high skill, they set forth a typology of countries as follows: The High Skills Society Model—Germany The Development High Skills model—Singapore The High Skills Manufacturing Model—Japan High Skill/Low Skill Model—The United Kingdom (and the United States) We see here the recurring characterization of the UK and US as undesirable skill models. Despite the widespread availability of higher education, the US is so pegged because most new jobs are in the low-skill sector, and because of differentiated access to high-skill jobs. Why is Germany the high-skill model? The country compares favourably with other developed countries in the production of science graduates, but it excels in the production of intermediate skills via the Dual System. Using the benchmark of Level 3 to be the equivalent to three or more years of apprenticeship, over half of the German working-age population are at this level. For Japan, the figure is approximately 40%; for Korea, 9%; and the UK, 18%. Beyond the distribution of skill throughout the workforce is the presence of trust embedded in the society—deriving from a training system premised in social partnership. Coates (2000) contends that the UK and US, prototypic market-led capitalist economies, have lost competitive edge because of “inability of liberal modes of capitalist organization to tap into (and to harness) sources of economic adaptability and change rooted in competitive relationships which are mediated through relationships of cooperation and trust” (p. 52). The countries of East Asia and Continental Europe that have shown dramatic growth in recent decades have been able to meld competition and cooperation, making them trust-based economies, whether state-led (Japan, South Korea) or consensual (Scandinavian countries and Germany). Coates draws on evidence suggesting that, different from trustbased economies, market-led ones offer inadequate levels of formal education and training to middle- and lower-skill levels of workers. Ashton, Sung, and Turbin (2000) strive to improve upon the models by suggesting that the relationships that are central to skill formation are those involving the State, inclusive of the political elite, the education and training systems, capital in the form of employers, and workers and their organizations. These actors exert varying levels of influence on each other. Out of this is derived: 1. The market model…with the dominance of capital (US, UK). Coordination of skill supply and demand is slow. 7 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis 2. The corporatist model; government and state apparatus playing strong roles in driving industrialization by encouraging the modernization of industry and using education in nation building (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark). The State is involved with unions and employers as social partners. 3. The developmental state model (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). These countries rely on the market for wealth creation but, unlike market economies, there is a state presence in driving industrialization. The State plays a leading role in training. In South Korea and Taiwan, youth are channelled to vocational schools 4. The neo-market model…featuring centralized education, and a history of IMF intervention (e.g., Mexico, Brazil, and Chile). What trends emerge from the high-skill typologies? We begin to see that high skill cannot be taken just as credentialing; that it goes with the attendant value orientations of countries. High skills require at minimum a free society, in which workers and their representatives have voice in nation building, jobs are available, wages are relatively high, and basic amenities are present. High skill means widespread distribution of education and trained capability. It also requires the collaboration of important stakeholders, such as the State, employers, and workers and their representatives. But what cannot be discounted here is the intangible factor of national value systems, seen, for example, in the German adaptation of the principle of productive powers, as articulated by philosopher Freidrich List, where progress is seen as being connected to a long-term view, habits, and civic virtues and relations inclusive of education, religion, and morality (see Winch, 1998). There is also a view that Asian success cannot be disentangled from the strong Confucian influence on social life, where harmony and discipline are guiding ethics. It is instructive that Britain, to which the Caribbean traditionally has looked as exemplar of educational provision, is itself in search of a high-skill identity. The traditional British approach of voluntarism in the offering of technical skill, and class differentiation in the offering of academic skills, comes up short Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 8 of what is required now. It can be seen that the US, too, despite its well-established system of higher education and the wide distribution of tertiary education, falls short because of persistent inequality in the education, which leaves significant percentages of minorities and the poor behind. Some Lessons for the Caribbean As we look at global movements toward skill formation, the lessons for the Caribbean are many, but at minimum they include the following: 1. The need for a broad view of skill that issues out of some grander philosophy of the kind of society we wish to have. 2. That high skills are problematic if the presence of such in the society is accompanied by social inequality. 3. That the normal places to which we have turned historically in search of educational models are themselves searching globally for answers to their reform questions. 4. That learning in the new global economic order takes place in school and out, and that, accordingly, education policy must feature rationalizing of schooling and post-school training systems. Education and Economic Growth Revisited The validation of human capital theory notwithstanding, there still remains conflicting evidence on the relationship between investment in education and economic growth. Investment in primary education has had support, but not so much in secondary and tertiary education. In the Caribbean with a history of slavery, indentureship, and colonialism, where deprivation of education was integral to the maintenance of power differentials in the society, education necessarily must serve the furtherance of the project of freedom, self-sufficiency, and self-hood. Imperfect as the education systems of the respective territories may be, the region is infinitely better of now than in the pre-Independence era, in creative tone, in political sophistication, and in relatively high degrees of tolerance for difference, and much Transforming Education in the Caribbean of that can be attributed to schooling at all levels and the resulting advance of literacy. Still, mere provision of education alone will not necessarily yield growth. Much has to do with the focus of education, the distribution, the quality, and the extent to which it can be connected to the productive system. One way to look at this might be to ask what can be done to make education in the region more effective if we are forced to make do with existing infrastructure. Is there room for innovation? For more effective teaching? For different approaches to the curricula? Some commentators continue to cast doubt on the extent to which improvements in education can be traceable to economic performance. Drawing on evidence from Latin America, Bonal (2007) questions why investment in education in that region has not reduced poverty. He contends that children from poor homes have unequal chances to make capital of education. He notes further that elementary education does not provide sufficient safeguard against poverty, asserting that at least 12 years of schooling are required as the threshold there. Bonal points to untoward effects of education, where, as the supply of educated labour increases, the wage decreases. He points to effects of the global economy, such that only highly qualified workers can protect the value of their qualifications against exposure to international competition. The result is persistent inequality and poverty in the region. As Bonal puts it: “globalization and educational expansion are, therefore, two sides of the same coin, explaining the paradox of both the need for and the insufficiency of education” (p. 90). He laments a treadmill effect where the educational threshold that must be met to escape the poverty trap continues to increase when measured in years of schooling. In the US, such scepticism has been raised by Henry Levin (1998), who contends that while the educational reform movement is premised on an economic rationale, it has not been shown that there exists a link between standards and economic performance. Bils and Klenow (2000) find from cross-country data that only one-third of relationships between schooling enrolments and subsequent growth is attributable to schooling. Ramirez, Luo, Schofer, and Meyer (2006) find from cross-national data that indeed countries with high achievement scores in mathematics and 9 science experience greater economic growth than others, but that the effect is reduced when Asian countries are removed from the analysis. They surmise that the connection seen between academic achievement and growth in Asia might be case sensitive; that “perhaps regimes making a push for development can also make a push for disciplined student achievements in areas such as science and mathematics, which less pressured students might choose to avoid” (p. 22). In consuming the results of this study, we may choose from either the full or the empty half of the glass. For the Caribbean, the full half is more instructive, for it shows the role of national will— of political economy—as an enabling variable in effecting connection between educational provision, academic achievement, and growth. The positive relations for Asian Tigers that Ramirez et al. (2006) show between academic achievement and growth are also shown by other studies. Schofer, Ramirez, and Meyer (2000) found that the size of a skilled scientific labour force substantially and positively influences economic growth. This study showed that investment beyond primary school has a payback. Investment in tertiary education, especially in the sciences and engineering, produces economic effects. The authors noted that countries with significant numbers of scientists in the labour force tend also to have state control of the economy and strong macroeconomic development policies. This is the profile of the newly industrializing countries of Asia. The study looked at the 1970–1990 period, the sample varying from 80–112 country cases depending on which variables were included in analysis. In similar vein, Hanushek and Kimko (2000) adopted a new approach to human capital research by using quality rather than quantity measures as independent variable. Thus, cognitive performance on international tests (in mathematics and science) was employed as a measure of labour force quality. Direct measures for 39 countries were available. The study found that labour force quality has a strong relationship with economic performance; the effects here not seeming to relate to the presence of particular resources. While the evidence from Latin America raises cautions about ways in which the provision of education can exacerbate the problem of poverty, by depressing wages, contrary evidence has been Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis found from India. Tilak (2006) reports that education has been a significant contributor to economic growth in India, and that such investment yields dividends with respect not just to the primary level, but to the secondary and tertiary levels as well. Tilak provides data in the Indian case showing correlation between illiteracy and poverty, and between primary education and poverty. The lesson here is that primary education alone is insufficient to help people combat poverty and illiteracy. He notes that the higher the percentage of population in a state who have secondary education and above, the lower is the poverty level in the state; this relationship being more significant in urban areas. Tilak concludes that secondary and higher education play significant roles in the development of countries, in terms of economic development, poverty reduction, life expectancy, and infant mortality (p. 9). The equivocation in the literature notwithstanding, there is no question that throughout the Caribbean, education must continue to be a high priority focus of governments for reasons that are economic, social, political, and civic. It is arguable which of these should be at the tip of the spear, but it is noticeable that rich countries are better able to offer high-quality education to their citizens than poor ones. In the Caribbean, people who are better off economically have more degrees of freedom when making educational choices for their children. This alone tells us what our order of priority should be. The education of children must issue from homes in which adults have jobs that pay good salaries, and standards of living that are sufficiently affordable to provide the basic comforts supportive of learning, and savings to support the furtherance of such learning. But there are limits to mere education. Kenneth King and Pauline Rose (2005) speak here of the need for us to pay attention to the moral economy of the region, that is, to value commitments and shared understandings, such as respect for the rule of law, valuing not just talent but effort, and having genuine meritocracies such that those who play by the rules get just rewards. Caribbean Education Education has served the Caribbean well. The region has produced iconic scholars including three Nobel Laureates. The availability of this high level of talent in the first half of the last century enabled us to gain and consolidate independence in the second half. Scholars like Eric Williams and C.L.R. James led the onslaught with their anticolonial critique, supported by meticulous scholarship. This availability of talent also enabled us to start and grow an excellent regional university—UWI—which in turn has provided the region with political leaders, doctors, engineers, teachers, civil servants, and upright discerning citizens in all forms of life. Graduates of our high schools hold their own at great universities throughout the world. Throughout the region there is a relatively high level of basic literacy. More importantly, there is a reasonably high level of order, which translates into stable government and smooth transitions of political power based on elections. But the region needs to work harder on this qualitative dimension. There is now, of course, the spectre of crime that exposes the small size and fragility of countries; the actions of a determined law-breaking minority threatening to disrupt the quality of life of the majority. But amid it all there is still intellectual vibrancy, noticeable in the press, evidence of a large font of critical literacy among the people, with average citizens exercising the right to express opinion. In his assessment of reforms in the region in the independence era, Errol Miller (2002) identifies a trajectory from 1944 to the 1960s during which the electorate replaced old-order politicians, who had functioned under conditions of restricted franchise, with a new breed whose immediate agenda included expansion of educational opportunities for those once so dispossessed. He continues that rather than address issues such as race, ethnic, and social barriers directly, the new leaders chose nationalism and nation building as proxies. Historical differences on account of race, ethnicity, and class could be parsimoniously dealt with by the mechanism of democratized educational opportunity at all levels. Miller goes on to identify what he believes are clear achievements of the era, and they include real gains in provision at all levels from pre-primary through secondary; expansion of tertiary education 10 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Transforming Education in the Caribbean through the establishment of UWI and a host of colleges; curricula more in keeping with Caribbean culture; the establishment of CXC; and successful non-formal programmes in adult literacy and skill training. But despite the gains, Miller (2002) contends that there remains an unfinished agenda. Thus: “notwithstanding the impressive gains, the goals of equity and equality of opportunity remain distant for the majority of the Caribbean people. While the barriers of ethnicity, race, and class have been lowered, they have not been removed” (p. 5). The conclusion to which Miller comes here is in keeping with the assertion made earlier in this paper, that education is not about examinations and curriculum, but about access and possibilities. It is true that the perfect is not the enemy of the better—that where we find ourselves now in the 21st century is in a place vastly superior to where we were at independence. But our struggle now is not with history. “Colonialism gone,” as Sparrow said. Rather than looking back we must now look across in this new flat world (Friedman, 2005), not just to North America and the UK, but also to the Newly Industrializing countries of Asia— countries that at the middle of the last century had the same strivings as we do now, and that have leap-frogged to “developed” status in shorter time frames than thought possible. Table 1 shows 2006/2007 ranking of the global competitiveness of selected countries by the World Economic Forum, using indices that include health and primary education, higher education, and innovation. The table shows that along with the more traditional developed economies stand the Newly Industrialized ones such as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. Except for Barbados, Caribbean countries are not favourably ranked. Table 1. Global Competitiveness Rankings 2006/2007—Selected Countries Country Switzerland Singapore United States Japan Germany United Kingdom Hong Kong Taiwan Canada Korea S Barbados Jamaica Trinidad & Tobago Guyana GCI Rank 1 5 6 7 8 10 11 13 16 24 31 60 67 111 Health and Primary Education Rank 29 20 40 1 71 14 35 25 2 18 28 65 64 75 Higher Education Rank 6 10 5 15 18 11 25 7 17 21 24 67 65 114 Innovation Rank 3 9 2 1 5 12 22 8 13 15 49 54 67 116 Source: Global Competitiveness Report 2006/2007—World Economic Forum, released 26 September, 2006. Table 2. Top 10 Countries: Global Competitiveness rankings 2006/2007 Country Switzerland Finland Sweden Denmark Singapore United States Japan Germany Netherlands United Kingdom GCI Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Higher Education and Training 6 1 3 2 10 5 15 18 8 11 Innovation 3 4 6 10 9 2 1 5 11 12 Source: Global Competitiveness Report 2006/2007—World Economic Forum, released 26 September, 2006. 11 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis Table 2 shows the top 10 ranked countries, and it can be seen that they tend to rank near the top in innovation, and in higher education and training. The relatively low German ranking on higher education but still high overall ranking speaks to the country’s emphasis on spreading trained capability across the middle. Table 3 shows the rankings of selected Caribbean countries compared with selected traditional developed countries, along with Japan and Singapore, newly industrialized countries. The data reflect both university and two-year postsecondary institutions. Barbados again shows admirably, ahead of other countries in the region. Table 3. Tertiary Education Gross Enrolment Ratio (Selected Countries) Rank 1 10 11 29 31 39 46 60 64 78 97 108 Country United States Canada United Kingdom Japan Germany Barbados Singapore St. Lucia Cuba Jamaica Guyana Trinidad & Tobago Tertiary Enrolment 72.6 60.0 59.5 47.7 46.3 38.2 33.7 25.4 24.2 16.4 9.7 6.5 Source: UNESCO (NationMaster.Com) Provision Comparisons with developed countries are useful in that they point us to the nature of the task ahead. When we include the Asian countries and see their very favourable comparative showing, we can find therein some valuable lessons for what might be possible in the Caribbean. This section of the paper reflects upon the provision of education from kindergarten to university, bearing in mind the conclusion of Miller (2000) that here the region still has far to go, not just in the quality of education on offer, but on account of asymmetrical distribution. Table 4 shows that on the question of preprimary education, while there is some variance Country Cuba Guyana St. Kitts & Nevis Jamaica Barbados Trinidad & Tobago St. Vincent & the Grenadines Grenada St. Lucia Dominica Belize among the countries, the big picture is that this very critical level of education is offered in high degrees in most of the countries, Belize being the outlier. This is a major plus, since from a cognitive standpoint this is the most crucial period of development for children, a time when they begin to acquire literacy. The region has to do its utmost to regulate the training of providers at this level to ensure needed quality. But more to the point, there is need to ensure that every preschool child has access to schools at this level. Table 5 shows high degrees of access to primary education throughout the region. The table is limited in the extent that it cannot show within-country variation in access. Table 4. Country Rankings: Gross Pre-Primary Enrolment (2004) Gross Pre-Primary Enrolment 116.5 114.8 101.4 92.5 89.0 86.4 85.7 80.6 70.7 64.7 28.2 Source: USAID Educational Statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 12 Transforming Education in the Caribbean Table 6 shows that secondary education in the region is for the most part widely distributed, though, clearly, some countries, including Country St. Lucia Barbados Cuba Belize St. Kitts & Nevis St. Vincent & the Grenadines Trinidad & Tobago Jamaica Dominica Grenada Bahamas Trinidad and Tobago, show more than one-quarter of children not progressing from primary to secondary schooling. Net % Primary Education 97.6 97.2 96.2 95.2 94.0 93.9 92.2 90.6 87.7 83.9 83.7 Table 5. Country Rankings—Net % Primary Education (2004) Source: USAID Educational Statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean. Table 6. Country Rankings: Net Secondary Enrolment Country St. Kitts & Nevis Barbados Dominica Cuba Jamaica Grenada Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize St. Lucia St. Vincent & the Grenadines % Net Secondary Enrolment 98.3 95.1 90.4 86.6 79.2 78.2 73.8 71.9 71.4 71.1 62.3 Clear disparities can be seen across the region. Of course, this is perhaps the most politically sensitive level of education in the Caribbean, not so much because there is scarcity of places (more so in some countries than others), but because the schools tend to be of differentiated quality; the prized among them being those in the English grammar mode, accepting mainly the very best, based on examinations; such examinations being Country Barbados Cuba Jamaica St. Lucia Trinidad & Tobago Guyana Belize Gross % Tertiary Enrolment 37.75 32.96 18.99 14.42 11.90 9.08 2.62 always in favour of those children who are more privileged than others. Table 7 shows rankings for tertiary education, inclusive of university and post-secondary community and technical college places. There are disparities here too across the region, and as shown in Table 3, most Caribbean countries fall behind on this index, comparatively speaking. Table 7. Country Rankings: Gross Tertiary Enrolment Year 2001 2003 2003 2004 2004 2004 2004 13 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis Reflection on Recent Caribbean Literature Several themes emerge from available literature on Caribbean education within the past two decades that are of relevance here. They include (a) Education/Curriculum change (Jennings 1993; London, 1997; Miller, 2002); (b) Class and education (Hickling-Hudson, 2004; Strudwick & Foster, 1991); (c) Teacher change (George, Mohammed, & Quamina-Aiyejina, 2003). London (1997) uses the example of the shift to essay writing as part of the Common Entrance Examination in Trinidad to show the difficulties attached to effecting change. The state met opposition, and countered by bringing in a foreign consulting firm with expertise in assessment to bolster its commitment to make this change. London expressed some reservation that the state would not understand the sensitivities here. The hiring of a foreign firm rekindled old questions regarding dependency. He wrote that the hiring was a retrograde step, which had the effect of “reinforcing the nation’s colonial reliance on the metropole, but even more devastating is the psychology of dependence which the arrangement had the potential to perpetuate” (p. 75). London (2003) addressed the question of English imposition of the English language on ex-colonies, where the local Creole could not find legitimacy, being made to serve mainly as the references point for perfecting use of pure English. One strain of the literature examines questions surrounding teacher change. Jennings (2001) examined challenges teachers faced in implementing policy, in the face of the realities of practice. She identified four kinds of constraints, including (a) physical and material conditions of schools, (b) the home environment of children and their level of literacy, (c) lack of support from principals, and (d) personal shortcomings. The first two of these were the more telling. In their study of beginning teachers, George, Mohammed, and Quamina-Aiyejina (2003) caution that teacher identity is a variable in educational reform. There cannot be disjuncture between teacher perception of themselves and the nature of teaching as a vocation, and the actuality of classroom life. Jennings (1993) examined processes of curriculum change in the Caribbean, finding that they conform to an array of change models, such as Research, Development, and Diffusion Centres, Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 14 Centre-Periphery, and Problem Solving. She notes that it is the central governments that have responsibility for articulating “larger purposes of education,” resulting in curricula that respond to ideologies of those in power. She posed the following questions: Who decides what methods teachers should use? Who decides what to teach? She noted low pass rates in Caribbean exams, and suggested the need for an evaluative system that includes observations of how teachers use CXC syllabi as part of a system of accountability for student performance. Teachers reported a host of constraints on their ability to participate in curriculum development. Some were physical, such as poor conditions of schools. Others were existential; teachers needing their spare time to earn money to supplement their incomes. Some of the work has dwelled upon the question of schooling and class. In an account of the hiring of Cuban teachers in Jamaica, HicklingHudson (2004) makes observations about disparities in school quality. She writes that: The ghost of colonialism remains in the deep-seated inequities that are difficult to dislodge from the education system. The current Jamaican government is committed to reducing the huge disparities inherent in Jamaica’s three school types, the Elite High Schools, the less wellendowed secondary modern style ‘New Secondary’ schools, and the impoverished and formerly neglected ‘All-age’ schools. These constitute a pyramid of minority privilege and majority disadvantage. (p. 290) New secondary and all-age schools are characterized as poor cousins of the grammar schools, being overcrowded and resource-poor. And these are the schools relegated to the poor. Also set in Jamaica, Strudwick and Foster (1991) followed 1,010 fifth form students from 19 randomly chosen secondary high schools in Jamaica, seeking to establish whether factors such as social class, academic performance, and the reputation of schools could predict subsequent educational and occupational experiences. In 1989, 41.8% of children were employed, 35.7% were pursuing full-time education, and 14.6% were unemployed. By 1989, only 7% of the Transforming Education in the Caribbean sample continuing in full-time education were from the lower class. This relatively low level of presence of children of the lower classes in postsecondary education prompted the lament that: Unfortunately, it would appear that the massive expansion of educational opportunity at the secondary level which has occurred has done little to increase the ‘permeability’ of the Jamaican social structure and has probably not significantly enhanced the ‘life chances’ of lower class Jamaicans to enter the higher levels of the educational or occupational structure. (p. 157) The Prospect of Change Moral Economy—Need For a Theory of Caribbean Society Transformation of education requires that the region revisit and reflect upon the kind of Caribbean society we wish to create, the values that the people must hold in common, and the basic principles we wish to live by and be known for. In short, transformation requires the articulation of a theory of Caribbean society that outlines the region’s moral economy. We are fundamentally a constructed society, our forebears for the most part having been brought to the region involuntarily. Each of the countries has its own national ethos now—its own unique set of norms—and this far from Independence, its own socio-political and historical experience that defines the people. A failed attempt at federation is evidence of the strong pull of within-country nationalism. Within Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago there is the enduring question of race. It is difficult against this backdrop of separate nationalisms and identities to forge anything that we can point to as being peculiarly and coherently Caribbean. And yet this is what is required now in the region if we are to improve on our lot. Even if there is not political unity in the region, there can be moral or civic unity. It is being recognized now that a large part of the Asian miracle in economic development turns on the tone of the respective societies, influenced by Confucian principles of harmony, and collectivism. In the case of the European Union, 15 philosopher Jürgen Habermas has stated that “Europe cannot just be based on common or political interests but also on some founding ideas and values” (cited in Nyhan, Cressey, Tomassini, Kelleher, & Poell, 2004). Modern German political economy reflects the theory of productive powers articulated by philosopher Freidrich List. Christopher Winch (1998) has examined List’s influence on German modern thought and disposition to skill formation. He explains that List’s theory of productive powers encompassed “all of the means by which a nation generates, preserves and develops its ability to produce” (p. 368). “Productive powers include habits, wider social relations and institutions, including education, morality and religion” (p. 370). Thus, according to List: Human capital consists not just in labour power as a form of physical strength, mental or manual skill or a combination of these, but as acquired habits and virtues of solidarity, discipline and self-discipline and other-regarding virtues such as courage, justice, charity etc…. A modern society has a state, a national identity, and institutions which support the society itself and its economic life. Religion and morality, as well as the law, provide the basis for the development of those virtues which make men likely to work diligently, to co-operate with others and to seek to improve both themselves and the products that they make. Institutions like trade and craft guilds, and the apprenticeships associated with them, embody the skills on which production rests; they also provide the possibility for nurturing and development of skills across generations, so that some skills may take generations to build up through refinement within a stable institutional base. (p. 370) Winch explains that under a Listian approach, the development of productive powers is the primary economic concern. Here, economic policy is longterm in outlook, and general education and levels of skill in the population are increased. This sort of approach leads to “high skill equilibrium,” where the interest of all are satisfied—workers, employers, consumers, and the State. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis The point to be taken away here is that the vaunted German skill formation strategy is premised on a theory of German society. We see the same in Asia, where Confucianism prevails, and in the American mid-west, where so-called small-town values of self-help, cooperation, patience, and high degrees of order prevail. The longstanding societies have had centuries to fashion and practise the modes of thought that guide their actions. In the Caribbean, our history is more recent. But, as C.L.R. James points out, we brought ourselves. Thus, absent history and what we left behind, what do we do? I am suggesting here that there is need for articulation of a theory of what we must be, and that this can be set these forth as part of the necessary backdrop for education transformation. The Unfinished Inequality Agenda of Educational intact families, over children of the lower classes, especially where they live in depressed urban or rural areas. Prestige schools in the Caribbean remain so because of self-fulfilling prophesy. The children who do the best on exams are sent to these schools. Thus, they get the most attention, because they tend to be denominational and because of tradition. These, indeed, are the “sixth-form” schools for the most part. But what makes these schools great in our time are the students. Accordingly, one way to remedy this is by the upgrading of the schools that are now at the second and third tiers on a massive basis. If all schools are good, cream will rise in any case, and there will not be the pressure, as in the Trinidad and Tobago case, for students to get their “first choice.” They would simply attend neighbourhood schools. Expansion of Tertiary Education Errol Miller (2000) speaks of continuing unequal access to high-status education in the region, and Hickling-Hudson (2004) documents this in Jamaica. Throughout the region, there exists hierarchies of secondary schools that assume a pyramidal structure—a pyramid of inequality, such that the more valued is the education on offer the scarcer are the school places. This secondary provision logic extends into university education, where the places are scarce and those who attended the prestige high schools have better acceptance chances. The region as a whole has to come to terms with this problem of asymmetrical distribution of high-status education, since within it lies the root of some of the social discontent we see, as reflected in the crime statistics. It is true that secondary enrolment rates are high generally, and that it is difficult to expand both quality and quantity of education at the same time. So-called prestige secondary schools in the region were established in support of a colonial logic of class distinction, race, and privilege. These schools were the preserve of the children of the elite. With Independence, class logic in the society unravelled, but these schools remained as agents of elitism, backed by a logic of scientism in the form of standardized tests. While national 11-plus examinations appear to be fair in their administration, they confer an advantage on children of the middle and upper classes, and from Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 16 Expansion of education has to extend to the tertiary level, where at the apex of the pyramid there has historically been room only for the best and the brightest as determined by success on A’Level examinations. In recent times, with the coming on stream of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and the University of Technology, Jamaica, there is some easing of the pressure, but the data show that the shortage of places here is acute. There is need in the region for a paradigm shift in the way we conceive of what university education is for, and what university education should look like. Indeed, there is need for the region to come to terms with the view that there can be different types of universities. For example, there could be a type of university that is devoted solely to scientific and technological knowledge. Another type could be devoted to technical careers. The critical paradigm shift that is needed is one where university education is viewed not as the preserve of a limited few, but for a much broader pool of citizens. School Improvement Benchmarking and Quality While there has been common secondary schoolleaving examinations for children across the Transforming Education in the Caribbean Caribbean, such that all schools have a common curricular standard against which to measure the achievement of students, there is no such standard specifying the quality of schools. Thus, one dimension of transformation could be the establishment of benchmarks—quality standards—that can be used to design and evaluate schools. To have good schools and poor schools in the same system is to discriminate against those children whose fate is poor schools, and these tend to be the children of the common people. If common quality standards are set for schools, and schools are subject to periodic inspection to see if they are in compliance with standards, the results would surely be that more children get a better quality education. In the US, the No Child Left Behind legislation includes criteria for school quality. Schools can fail if their children do not perform. Accreditation is a normal part of post-secondary educational provision in North America. For example, teacher education departments that are worth their salt typically wish to be evaluated by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). NCATE sets forth a set of criteria that must be met, inclusive of quality of courses in the curriculum, reputation of faculty, graduation rate, and so on. Two-year technical and community colleges typically are accredited by external accrediting agencies. These agencies specify criteria such as the qualifications of instructors and the proportion of liberal studies in vocational programmes. In the Caribbean, criteria could be set forth for schools, including benchmarks for space, physical amenities such as availability of water and toilet facilities, playground, school libraries, computers, health and safety, and science and technology facilities. Criteria could also extend to the quality of content taught, and quality of teachers. Need for Innovative Spirit in Education There is need in the Caribbean for a more inventive spirit in education at all levels. We are very conservative when it comes to educational provision. For example, many universities in the US accept Caribbean students on the basis of O’Levels. We are not quite there yet. Many US high schools offer summer programmes to help students who are falling behind. Typically, at least 17 in Trinidad and Tobago, summer is primarily a vacation period that probably is untouchable. During the regular school year, schools could be innovative in the scheduling of courses, for example, to facilitate students who are falling behind. There is need for innovation in education that could see us building special high schools that are thematic in nature. For example, we could build science and technology high schools, or agricultural and fisheries high schools, to attract students who already have particular career inclinations. We can have sports high schools that are designed for athletically gifted students, who could perfect their prowess while studying academic subjects. We could build career academies that focus on technical themes that include a strong academic focus. We could have enrolment programmes that see high school students earning university credit while at school. We have to invent Caribbean schools—that is, schools that make a statement about how we view education. Such inventions do not have to be system-wide. Vocational Education and Entrepreneurship Vocational education throughout the region should be academically inclined in the high school and job-focused beyond it. We should think expansively here about forms such education could take, inclusive of industry internships in summer or during the school year, job shadowing, and school-based enterprises (such as running school cafeterias). There is great need here for Caribbean-wide standards, and for a new ethic in this aspect of education that backs away from traditional imposition of academic stringencies. All vocational programmes beyond the high school should include a very substantial entrepreneurship component. More to the point, vocational programmes should be accompanied by incentives to graduates to form companies after graduating, such incentives to include easy access to venture capital that provides start-up money for getting technical companies established. Role of Universities UWI has played a critical role in the development of educational personnel in the region. In Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis particular, the B.Ed. degree has introduced a different model of teacher credentialling, one that should become the benchmark. UWI has been instrumental in the preparation of principals, as well as specialist teachers in early childhood education. In my view, the next frontier for the universities, particularly UWI, is in knowledge production around educational problems of the region. Research and evaluation in education should become mainstays of educational policy making, and all phases of educational delivery, including teacher education, access to schooling, school effectiveness, instruction, and learning. Although there are many active and successful educational researchers in the region, whose work appear in the major research journals, we have not had consistent and focused programmes of work aimed at resolving important challenges. The Caribbean remains virgin territory here. Stakeholders such as scholars, teachers, policy makers, and members of the community could collaborate to arrive at frameworks that could drive research and evaluation. Out of such frameworks could emerge problems to be studied. A fruitful area could be existing databases relating to student achievement on national or Caribbeanwide examinations. Many problems come to mind, such as: What factors predict success for secondary schools in the CXC? What reading strategies work best in our primary schools? What mathematics teaching strategies work best? What do effective teachers in our primary and secondary schools do in their classrooms? What misconceptions do children bring to the classroom that impede their learning of various subjects? Is spoken Creole an impediment to written language competence in our schools? Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1986) suggests an ecological framework of child development and learning that is suggestive of lines we may take in our own framing. In this model, student learning and development depend upon a multi-layered, interrelated context of systems. Children are nested in these systems. The micro-system is the most intimate and includes the family, and extends to day-care and kindergarten personnel. The more supportive the relationships here the more the child thrives. Next is the meso-system, the relationship between institutions, home, day-care centre, and schools. The exo-system comes next with the influence of the community, neighbours, Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 18 and so on. Finally, there is the macro-system, from which ideological and social forces exert pressure. The suggestion from this model is that to understand children’s learning and development, we must search for predictor variables among the systems in which children are nested. Bronfebrenner’s model, along with others, can push us into thinking about frameworks for research that reflect our circumstances. We could draw on existing models, we could modify them to suit our purpose, or we can fashion our own. In his essay “Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom,” Lloyd Best (1971) wrote that we in the Caribbean must engage in independent thought; such thought being the prelude to action. Since action presupposes theory, he suggested that we should set ourselves three tasks: 1. To fashion theory on which to base intellectual leadership 2. To conduct the enquiry on which theory can be based 3. To transmit results to the community Education is one of the areas in the Caribbean where the need for this interaction between theory and research is most urgent. Universities can help the society resolve controversies or areas of contention by being a neutral and objective voice. If we do not seek to fashion our own theory, or to modify existing theory to our own designs, and if we do not conduct research ourselves, then we are at the mercy of outsiders who, though well meaning, might not have the requisite folk knowledge needed to ask questions of local significance, or to give meaning to findings at which they arrive. Conclusion I have attempted to argue in this paper that education in the Caribbean has to be set against the backdrop of a theory of Caribbean society. History has always framed the way in which we think about education, but we are at the stage now where looking across is more fruitful than looking back. I have set forth basically two kinds of ideas relating to transformation—one evolutionary, that speaks of improving upon that which we already Transforming Education in the Caribbean have in place, and revolutionary, that requiring paradigm shifts in the way we think about educational provision. We have to build on what we have already accomplished in education. Thus, one dimension of transformation relates simply to quality improvement. But we also need to be inventive, such as by creating new types of educational institutions that are peculiarly ours, and by finding new ways to organize schools. I have also said here that research must become a more central part of educational discourse and decision making in the region, and that the universities have a major role to play here, in addition to critical roles they already play. I began this paper by asking if the people of the region are ready for and capable of change. It is my view that we are, most certainly, since it should be evident that education has been the driving force behind the great strides countries in the region have made in improving the well-being of their people. For inspiration in effecting educational transformation in the region, we could look to those whose creativity and artistic giftedness has drawn the attention of the world to who we are and what we can be. I speak here of the talent of Hasley Crawford, Bob Marley, Louise Bennett, Winifred Atwell, Boogsie Sharpe, Vidia Naipaul, Garfield Sobers, Dwight Yorke, Sonny Ramadhin, Ellie Mannette; Peter Minshall, Kitchener, and, of course the prince, Brian Lara. References Ashton, D., & Green, F. (1996). Education, training and the global economy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Ashton, D., Sung, J., & Turbin, J. (2000). Towards a framework for the comparative analysis of national systems of skill formation. International Journal of Training and Development,4(1), 8–25. Baker, D. P. (1993). Compared to Japan, the U.S. is a low achiever...really: New evidence and comment on Westbury. Educational Researcher, 22(3), 18–20. Berliner, D. C. (2006). Our impoverished view of educational research. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 949–995. Best, L. (1971). Independent thought and Caribbean freedom. In N. Girvan & O. Jefferson (Eds.), Readings in the political economy of the Caribbean (pp. 7–28). Mona, Jamaica: New World Group. Bils, M., & Klenow, P. J. (2000). Does schooling cause growth? The American Economic Review, 90(5), 1160–1183. 19 Bonal, X. (2007). On global absences: Reflections on the failings in the education and poverty relationship in Latin America. International Journal of Educational Development, 27(1), 86–100. Bouder, A. (2003). Qualifications in France: Towards a national framework. Journal of Education and Work, 16(3), 347–356. Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2002). Schooling in capitalist America revisited. Sociology of Education, 75(1), 1– 18. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology, 22, 723– 742. Campbell, C. C. (1997). Endless education: Main currents in the education stystem of modern Trinidad and Tobago 1939–1986. Cave Hill, Barbados: The Press UWI. Carnevale, A. P., Gainer, L. J., & Meltzer, A. S. (1988). Workplace basics: The essential skills employers want. San Francisco, CA, Jossey Bass. Clarke, L., & Winch, C. L. (2006). A European skills framework?—but what are skills? Anglo-Saxon versus German concepts. Journal of Education and Work, 19(3), 255–269. Coates, D. (2000). Models of capitalism: Growth and stagnation in the modern era. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Gamaron, A. (2001). American schooling and educational inequality: A forecast for the 21st century. Sociology of Education (Extra Issue), 7, 135–153. George, J., Mohammed, J., & Quamina-Aiyejina, L. (2003). Teacher identity in an era of educational reform: The case of Trinidad and Tobago. Compare, 33(2), 191–206. Gordon, B. (1987). Research news and comment: Cultural comparisons of schooling. Educational Researcher, 16(6), 4–7. Green, A., & Sakamoto, A. (2001). Models of high skills in national competition strategies. In P. Brown, A. Green, & H. Lauder (Eds.), High skills: Globalization, competitiveness, and skill formation (pp. 56–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press Hanushek, E. A., & Kimko, D. D. (2000). Schooling, labor-force quality, and the growth of nations. American Economic Review, 90(5), 1184–1208. Hickling-Hudson, A. (2004). South-South collaboration: Cuban teachers in Jamaica and Namibia. Comparative Education, 40(2), 289–311. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Theodore Lewis James, C. L R. (1980). The making of the Caribbean people. In Spheres of existence: Selected writings (pp. 172–190). London, Allison & Busby. Jennings, Z. (1993). Curriculum change in school systems in the Commonwealth Caribbean: Some implications for the management of curriculum development. International Journal of Educational Development, 13(2), 131–143. Jennings Z. (2001). Teacher education in selected countries in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The ideal of policy versus the reality of practice. Comparative Education, 37(1), 107–134. Keating, J. (2003). Qualifications frameworks in Australia. Journal of Education and Work, 16(3), 271–288. King, K., & Rose, P. (2005). Transparency or tyranny? Achieving international development targets in education and training. International Journal of Educational Development, 25(4), 362–367. Levin, H. M. (1998). Educational performance standards and the economy. Educational Researcher, 27(4), 4–10. Lewis, T., & Cheng, S-Y. (2006). Tracking, expectations, and the transformation of vocational education. American Journal of Education, 113(1), 67–99. Lloyd, C., & Payne, J. (2005). A vision too far? Mapping the space for a high skills project in the UK. Journal of Education and Work, 18(2), 165–185. London, N. A. (1997). Socio-politics in effective curriculum change in a less developed country: Trinidad and Tobago. Curriculum Inquiry, 27(1), 63– 80. London, N. A. (2003). Ideology and politics in English language education in Trinidad and Tobago: The colonial experience and a post-colonial critique. Comparative Education Review, 47(3), 287–320. Miller, E. (2000). Education for all in the Caribbean in the 1990s: Retrospect and prospect (EFA in the Caribbean: Assessment 2000. Monograph Series No. 19). Kingston, Jamaica: UNESCO. Miller, E. (2002). Educational reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean: An assessment. In E. Miller (Ed.), Educational reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Retrieved from http://www.iacd.oas.org/Interamer/miller.htm Nyhan, B., Cressey, P., Tomassini, M., Kelleher, M., & Poell, R. (2004). European perspectives on the learning organization. Journal of European Industrial Training, 28(1), 67–92. Porter, A. (1995). Research news and comment: The uses and misuses of opportunity-to-learn standards. Educational Researcher, 24(1), 21–27. Ramirez, F. O., Luo, X., Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. W. (2006). Student achievement and national economic growth. American Journal of Education, 113(1), 1– 29. Reich, R. B. (1991). The work of nations: Preparing ourselves for 21st century capitalism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Resnick, D. P., & Resnick, L. B. (1985). Standards, curriculum and performance: A historical and comparative perspective. Educational Researcher, 14(4), 5–20. Schoenfeld, A. H. (2002). Making mathematics work for all children: Issues of standards, testing, and equity. Educational Researcher, 31(1), 13–25. Schofer, E., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2000). The effects of science on national economic development, 1970–1990. American Sociological Review, 65(6), 866–887. Strudwick, J., & Foster, P. (1991). Origins and destinations in Jamaica. International Journal of Educational Development, 11(2), 149–159. Tilak, J. B. G. (2006). Post-elementary education, poverty and development in India, International Journal of Educational Development, 27(4), 435– 445. doi:1016/j.ijedudev.2006.09.018. Thurow, L. (1992). Head to head: The coming economic battle among Japan, Europe and America. New York: William Morrow. Turner, R. H. (1960). Sponsored and contest mobility and the school system. American Sociological Review, 25(6), 855–867. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. (2005). Economic stagnation of the black middle class. Washington DC: Author. U.S. Department of Education. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (19873). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: Author. Winch, C. (1998). Two rival conceptions of vocational education: Adam Smith and Freidrich List. Oxford Review of Education, 24(3), 365–378. Young, M. F. D. (2003). National qualifications frameworks as a global phenomenon: A comparative perspective. Journal of Education and Work, 16(3), 223–237. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 20 PART 1 BEST PRACTICES IN INSTRUCTION Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a Foreign Language Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick Department of Liberal Arts, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Abstract. This paper discusses the need for language learning methods designed to capitalize on the rich cultural diversity of students. It introduces basic subjectivist teaching principles and shows how these were successfully applied to the multi-ethnic, multi-ability, and multi-age teaching of French as a foreign language. The paper underlines the importance of language competence for social, economic, and political development within an increasingly globalized world. While the last quarter of the 20th century recognized the status of regional and Creole languages, the 21st century is set to place greater emphasis on the role of international languages for economic development and political integration. National education systems ought to respond to these new market-oriented political pressures by devising language curricula that maximize attainments for culturally diverse students in at least one foreign language. This is a commitment that has major pedagogical implications. To address this diversity, a culturally responsive language teaching approach is presented, which uses multimodal subjectivist techniques. These powerful techniques utilize student diversity and empower learners by enhancing positive subjective feelings of learning. The techniques are presented using examples from a subjectivist French as a foreign language lesson. Introduction This paper underlines the importance of language competence for social, economic, and political development within the increasingly globalized world. While the last quarter of the 20th century recognized the status of regional and creolized languages as fundamental tools for cultural recognition and social unification, the 21st century is set to place greater emphasis on the role of foreign languages for economic development and political integration. A major implication for national education systems is the need to devise language curricula that maximize attainments for all students, not only in their mother tongue but also in at least one foreign language. Providing quality language learning to large culturally and intellectually diverse student populations is a pedagogical challenge, which can be met through a culturally responsive subjectivist language teaching methodology. This paper presents such a methodology and shows how its integral, powerful, multimodal subjectivist techniques were successfully tested in a multi-ethnic, multi-ability, and multi-age French foreign language class. Using Subjectivist Pedagogy for Enhanced Foreign Language Learning Subjectivist language teaching is a psychopedagogical response to educational changes. It aims to provide empowering experiences for all students through engrossing learning tasks. Its main characteristics are described below. Theoretical Stance of Subjectivist Language Pedagogy Subjectivist language teaching is an application of Bastick’s (1998; 1999a; 1999b, 1999c) “subjectivism” to language teaching. Subjectivism is an embodied cognitive theory (Brown & Reid, 2006; Niedenthal, Barsalou, Winkielman, KrauthGruber & Ric 2005), and subjective teaching is one of its applications to education (Bastick, 2003). Subjectivist teaching aims to enhance learning by utilizing the personal “subjective” feelings that accompany learning, that is, it uses affect-structured constructivist language methodology to emphasize feelings and emotions that increase cognitive learning (Kramsch, 1997; 23 Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick Lozanov, 1979; McCarthy, Mejia, & Liu, 2000). Fundamental characteristics of multimodal language pedagogy are the indivisibility of affect and cognition of all learning experiences that occur in the language classroom. These methods utilize developmentally appropriate cognitive and affective activities and the use of techniques of “enculturation” for learner “empowerment” (Bastick, 2003, p. 210). Enculturation is the process through which competent language users develop their linguistic skills and their sociocultural understanding. This enculturation is a natural process, which is enhanced in the classroom by designing learning activities that enable the language learner to rapidly internalize the culture of the subject (Jacobson, 1996). The use of enculturation techniques in the classroom is intended to sensitize the learner to the values inherent to the culture of the discipline. Learner empowerment is the process by which the learner grows as a self-directed lifelong learner (Martinez, 2001). The process of empowerment is demonstrated by the learner’s autonomy in choosing what best to learn and how best to learn it. To this end, the role of the language educator is to provide sufficient diverse learning experiences from which the learner can make informed decisions towards empowerment. Triggering Needs-Driven Language Learning The two theoretical principles of enculturation and empowerment are articulated in pedagogic activities designed to guarantee the learner’s success (Salmon, 1996). These activities, called “surface purposes,” range from simple rotelearning games to complex needs-driven social communication tasks. These surface purpose activities distract students’ attention from the “pedagogic purpose” of the teacher by focusing the learner’s awareness on the surface purpose of the activity. These activities use three subjectivist affect-structuring techniques. These are (a) an emotional anchor (for task-focusing); (b) a cognitive direction (for learner guidance); and (c) Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 24 a motivator (for activity engagement). These three techniques are demonstrated in the French foreign language class described below. Utilizing Multimodal Subjectivist Pedagogy in a French as a Foreign Language Class Subjectivist language pedagogy was successfully used in the experiential French foreign language class presented here. Methodological Design Participants. This multimodal experiential French lesson was taught to a multi-cultural, mixed-age, and mixed-ability class. The participants were 23 students and 3 adults from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The students were from Grades 9–13 of a local International School. It is important to stress that the multifaceted diversity of the participants is an exaggeration of the diversity found in traditional streamed, single-age classrooms. This extreme diversity is to show more clearly how subjectivist language pedagogy can be used to positively utilize the diversity that is found to be problematic in more traditional language classrooms. The participants were divided into two protogroups (“Conservative For” and “Green Against”), which were further divided into two smaller working sub-groups. The participants’ division into four small groups of 5 or 6 was to optimize involvement and facilitate in-group convivial communication and inter-group competition. Description of the learning situation. The context of the learning situation was the main setting for the lesson, followed by six integrated activities culminating in a “For vs. Against” debate and ballot on French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The methodological design for each activity is a mini-example of the methodological design of the whole lesson. The whole lesson was choreographed so as to maximize students’ participation as befitting their varied levels of linguistic and cognitive development. One student Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a FL proto-group was encouraged to represent the Conservative party in favour of nuclear testing, whereas the other proto-group chose the ecological Green party and were against nuclear testing. Students wrote their names on iconic labels and wore them to enhance identification with their roles. Identifying the surface and pedagogic purposes. The culminating surface purpose of the lesson was a debate and a ballot on nuclear testing. This surface purpose was chosen because learners were self-motivated by the opportunity to express their disapproval of nuclear testing. The personal involvement and strong feelings of the French learners in this newsworthy topic were utilized for the initial setting of the lesson, which consisted of the main emotional anchor—to hold their emotion for the duration of the lesson; the main motivator—making them want to participate, showing them how to participate, and confirming that they can successfully do so; and the cognitive direction—carrying the motivation into showing them how to start. The emotional anchor was a commercial video news clip of an official spokesperson, a General, supporting arguments on nuclear testing and showing the bomb blast rupturing their peaceful South Pacific paradise. This was chosen as the highly arousing emotional anchor for the lesson because it was a current news issue about which all students had recently demonstrated and about which they felt vehemently abhorrent. An interview with a popular member of the class had been edited into the prepared video of the official pro-spokesperson as a motivator with which students readily identified, implying that they had an equal public voice and right to speak, and the ability to successfully speak publicly on the issue. The cognitive direction was the simplifying stark question “Pour ou Contre les essais nucléaires” [For or Against nuclear testing] suddenly presented in a different black and white medium to call them back to imminent action. The pedagogic purpose was to learn and practise an argument register in French. This was 25 articulated through six language activities, such that each was a supporting foundation for the next, namely, (a) headlining a news article, (b) listing arguments For or Against, (c) selecting one’s argument, (d) phrasing one’s argument as a question, (e) presenting one’s argument, and finally (f) expressing one’s true opinion on the issue of nuclear testing. These six communicationdriven activities aimed at the integrative use of the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing through the cooperationdirected design, that is, by encouraging individual contributions, practising them, and bringing each individual’s contributions together in small groups before having them appreciated by the whole class. The pedagogical purpose of this experiential French class was achieved when each participant presented his or her argument at the level of complexity reflecting his or her maximum linguistic and cognitive competence. The following description of the six integrative language activities shows how both the surface purposes and the pedagogical purposes were achieved. The Six Integrative Multimodal Activities The surface purpose for each activity utilized a feasible and energizing communicative role-play. The description of these activities is intended to show how this energy of the class is choreographed and how needs-driven communication is privileged. These brief descriptions of the six constituent activities are organized by (a) presenting the setting, (b) describing the surface purpose, and (c) describing the hidden pedagogic purpose for each activity. Each description is followed by an explanation of the methodological design for the activity. This affords six illustrative explanatory examples of the application of multimodal subjectivist methodology to foreign language teaching. As the methodology for each activity is a mini-version of the methodology of the whole lesson, the setting for each activity comprises an emotional anchor, Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick motivator, and cognitive direction with the same functions as those in the main setting. Activity 1: Headline that article Setting: Each group of participants is a small group of investigative journalists working in a Paris news office. Surface purpose: As investigative journalists, the learners need to find a suitable headline for a news article. When the students have decided on a headline for their group, they put it on the editor’s desk, simulated by the teacher’s overhead projector. Pedagogic purposes: (a) practising reading French for understanding to a socially-defined standard, (b) communicating to agree on a one-line headline for their group, and (c) practising and learning relevant lexical register. Methodological design of the activity: In this first activity, the teacher suggests party membership. A balance of ability is necessary in each group, and both proto-groups include participants from different ability levels. Participants from each proto-group choose one of the two sub-groups, but subtle changes are encouraged to ensure a balance of ability between sub-groups. Abilities needed for this activity are an intermediate level of French to summarize the article, a high level of French to confirm the authenticity of the summary against the original article, and a low level of French to suggest headlines and choose the “best” headline. The implicit requirements of this activity encourage relevant communication in the groups and ensure needs-driven communication. Practice slips are provided so that students can try out a headline before committing the group to one answer. The same article is given to each group so that the contributions can be compared. This implicit comparison uses the same energy for completion that is generated in the groups, and it also gives implicit feedback on the quality of the Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 26 group’s efforts. Note that empowerment comes from peer recognition and never from teacher approval. In particular, the least able need and receive high empowerment. In this activity, the students with the least ability have equal “power” to judge the work of the most able. The teacher is careful to maintain participants’ empowerment and the potential of each contribution being the best by avoiding giving “authoritative” comparative evaluations of the groups’ contributions. Activity 2: List arguments "Pour ou Contre" Setting: Each group of participants is a small group of political researchers working for potential spokespeople (ministers), as in the party’s research office. Surface purpose: The less proficient participants have to find and discuss arguments to give to their most proficient group members, who are to represent them as official party spokespeople. The group members also need to be aware of what counter questions “journalists” might ask against their arguments. Pedagogic purpose: Further practice of skills introduced in the first activity and integrative use of the four language skills. Methodological design of the activity: The pedagogical purpose is the same as in Activity 1. However, rather than by extending Activity 1, for example, by giving more articles to headline, the energy of the class is intensified by recasting the pedagogic purpose in a different surface purpose, This difference in surface purpose was enhanced by physically transforming the workstations from “newsrooms” to “party research offices,” and by arranging the party membership so that all students physically moved to different workstations. This physical re-positioning was unnecessary for the pedagogic purpose and was included to enhance the surface activity. Notice again that the least proficient have high Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a FL empowerment by choosing arguments for the most proficient to present as their spokespersons. The arguments “for” and “against” were then summarized and listed on sheets provided. This was an open-ended activity—it could have gone on indefinitely. It was stopped when the energy of the class was at the highest—even though all arguments, or even the best arguments, may not have been recorded. The atmosphere was choreographed to give a sense of urgency— building to the controlled climax of the ballot result, in the same way as the media build the climax to an election result. To add to this affective energizing “urgency,” the next activity, Activity 3, was cut short by an “unexpected” event, which was itself cut short by Activity 4, the live TV debate. Activity 3: Choosing your arguments Setting: At the party central office. Each party member chooses an argument with which he or she feels comfortable. Then, he or she agrees with the party leader to one or two roles—to be the official party spokesperson for this argument, and/or to be an investigative journalist, using his or her argument in the form of a question to ask the opposition at the time of the debate. Surface purpose: Party leaders agree on who should be the official party spokespersons for the various arguments in the coming debate, and prepare journalists with challenging questions for the Opposition. Each spokesperson has to choose an argument that he or she can repeat in the TV debate, and which the most able can defend when questioned by opposing journalists. Pedagogic purpose: To focus the learners on smaller content areas in which they can achieve high mastery level and inevitable success/ empowerment, as judged by social/peer approval from the whole class. Methodological design of the activity: This activity builds on the previous activity. It is a 27 larger group activity, in that the two previous subgroups from the last activity re-combined into one proto-group for this activity. Students bring and share their lists from the previous activity. The surface purpose motivation for this activity is that it is an administrative necessity to prevent duplication of arguments in front of the media, that is, each student has to have his or her own argument. In addition, for the debate, the party leader needs to know whom to call as a spokesperson for each argument. These administrative difficulties are utilized by the surface purpose of a party needing only one official spokesperson for each argument, and for the leader needing to agree to this. So, within the surface purpose, the leader confirms each participant's written choice of argument or question for the next activities. Having the arguments and questions written also gives participants the security of being able to always refer to their written record. Within the surface purpose, this record acts as a confirmation record/contract of their assigned role as official party spokesperson or journalist. Although each participant can choose the argument with which he or she feels most comfortable, it is in the party’s interest that the lower-ability students are given preference of choice and “coached” by party members of higher ability. This ensures peerteaching within needs-driven communication for this activity. When the energy peaks, this activity is interrupted by a fourth “surprise” activity. Activity 4: Interviewing the whistle-blowers Setting: Learners, in their roles as journalists, have a tip-off to go to a warehouse and to a hotel room for inside information that might help them win the coming debate. The classroom is thrown into darkness, lit only by lights on the faces of each “whistle-blower” at opposite corners of the room. Surface purpose: Anonymous party defectors are willing to “spill the beans” and divulge confidential information about nuclear testing at Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick the last moment before the debate. This can help investigative journalists to expose the official spokespeople who support (or oppose) nuclear testing during the coming live TV debate, by asking the “right” questions. Pedagogic purpose: The whistle-blowers, and where necessary their aides, are chosen from reasonably competent speakers so that the participants can, by phrasing their argument as a question, both practise and hear French relevant to increasing their mastery of their chosen content, further guaranteeing their public success in the imminent debating activity. Methodological design of the activity: To enhance the emotional change between surface activities, the change was rapid—to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity—the classroom went from light to semi-darkness. The intimate setting of the warehouse and hotel room workstations in the darkened room contrasted markedly with the open setting of the last activity. This activity is duplicated in two medium-sized groups to give the students double the opportunity to practise and hear relevant French lexicon. This is achieved by having the two workstations—a warehouse and a hotel room—at opposite corners of the classroom so that the “sound” is separate. The journalists then move as they choose between the two sites. Two smaller groups were chosen rather than one large group so that all students would be able to speak more spontaneously to a whistle-blower. Again, at the height of the class energy, this activity is also cut short, simply by switching on the lights to destroy the emotional ambience of the warehouse and hotel room settings, rather than by explicit instructions that would threaten the participants’ autonomy. This is done by changing the lighting and sound in preparation for the TV debate. Activity 5: The live TV debate Setting: A TV studio with a presenter/compère (the teacher), an expert panel of the two party Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 28 leaders, and their aides who will call their official spokespeople, in front of the audience of investigative journalists. Surface purposes: (a) the participants, as spokespeople, have to convince the TV viewing public (the rest of the class not currently debating) of their party’s point of view, Pour ou Contre les essais nucléaires dans le Pacifique; and (b) the participants, as investigative journalists in the audience, have to represent the viewing public, by asking searching questions of the official spokespeople, possibly exposing any hidden agenda as intimated by the whistle-blowers. Pedagogic purpose: To experience the greatest success/empowerment, in terms of social/peer approval of the whole class, by publicly demonstrating their practised competence at a high level of mastery in support of their shared endeavour. Methodological design of the activity: Loud cacophonous music and bright lighting mark the change of activity. The loudness of the music encourages informal chatter amongst the students. The need for a “television” camera accommodated the use of the camera making a research record of the lesson. The teacher, in her role as compère, reminds the leaders that they can advise their spokespeople of official party policy, if they think it is necessary. This uses the surface purpose to enable the higher-ability students to help the lower-ability students in a “win-win” situation, ensuring success. The role of the compère/ commentator allows the teacher some control hidden under the surface purpose, inter alia, to encourage the students and, subtly, to correct and simplify the students’ French expression for the other students. This is achieved under the guise of explaining for the “less knowledgeable” viewing public. This activity is designed to ensure that every student experiences maximum success of learning to the limit of his or her ability. The minimum any student is expected to do is simply to repeat his or Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a FL her argument as it is written on the sheet they have carried since the third activity, and that they have practised in the fourth activity. Hence, every student can successfully fulfil the requirements of the surface purpose. Some higher-ability students have confidently discarded their written sheets and are ready with investigative questions. What drives the students to speak to the limit of their ability is their involvement in the surface purpose. Their need to communicate is greater than their accuracy in using their new learning. Thus, the teacher has to be skilful and sensitive in maintaining the effectiveness of the pedagogic purpose (accuracy), while maintaining such a high emphasis on the surface purpose that the pedagogy used to meet the objectives (i.e., to learn and to practise argumentation in French) remains totally below the students’ awareness. To this end, two techniques are employed in this activity to ensure that the surface purpose remains paramount, while best achieving the invisible pedagogic purpose. The first technique is to model the standard of skills required, whereas the second technique is to allow some inaccuracies compatible with the students’ needs, even to the extent of allowing some English intrusions. Activity 6: The ballot Setting: A French polling station where everyone casts his or her vote “Pour ou Contre les essais nucléaires dans le Pacifique.” A ballot box is on the table. Surface purpose: To ascertain the public’s opinion—the winners of the debate. Pedagogic purpose: Throughout the lesson, it was necessary for the learners to support arguments to which they were opposed. This ballot resolves any dissonance that may have arisen; first, by allowing the learners to vote for their true opinion, and, then, by rewarding them for their participation in the lesson by giving them the result they all want, that is, to express their disapproval of nuclear testing in the Pacific—this 29 outcome fulfils the surface purpose of the lesson and resolves their intrinsic motivation to take part. The ballot also gives opportunities to further enculturate students by demonstrating how the French vote. This cultural addition is made relevant to the lesson by the surface purpose ballot activity chosen to close the lesson. Methodological design of the activity: This last activity has three major functions. First, it is intended to influence positively any re-constructed memory of the lesson. Secondly, it is expected to motivate further learning. Thirdly, it acts as a debriefing bridge between the illusion of the surface purpose and the reality of the lesson’s end. The purpose is to de-emphasize the students’ roles in the surface purpose and, simultaneously, to raise their awareness of having been successfully and enjoyably learning French language and culture. A cultural insight into French voting is given in this last activity. Students cast their votes. The votes are then separated into those “for” and those “against” and counted in French. The students finally choose one student to announce the result of the ballot. As it is expected, the students naturally choose whom they consider to be the most deserving student—the one who will benefit from the most empowerment. The lesson ends with their chosen student proclaiming the result, which is the needed “Contre,” result, to the applause of class peer approval for her. This grand finale also signals the official end of these enculturation and empowerment activities. Evaluating the Pedagogical Success of the Subjectivist French Language Class Qualitative and quantitative student feedback is used to improve teaching and learning (Alvarez, 2001; Shepard, 2000) rather than merely assess the obvious improvements in language use, which can be done more rigorously by traditional language testing. The success of subjectivist teaching is in the degree of empowerment and enculturation engendered by the activities. An indicator of this success is students’ lack of awareness of the Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Béatrice Boufoy-Bastick pedagogic purposes and teaching methodologies used to achieve them. To this end, the students who participated in this Enhanced French language class were asked to state what they liked or disliked, and to rate their liking on a 10-point scale. Content analysis of the students’ evaluative feedback showed that the lesson was very successful in that no reference was made to any of the pedagogic purposes or teaching methodologies as described above. The feedback students gave only referred to liking or disliking aspects of their experiences within the surface purposes. The content analysis showed that the students were totally engrossed in the surface purposes of the lesson and no attention was given to the pedagogic purposes or methodologies. For example, it was not unexpected that the most prevalent dislike came from the students who were required to speak vehemently and convincingly against their own beliefs. As shown in the students’ lesson feedback, this French language class, through its multimodal subjectivist techniques, engaged all students in collaborative learning tasks. References Alvarez, M. C. (2001, April). A professor and his students share their thoughts, questions and feelings. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA Bastick, T. (1998, November). Constructivist pedagogy and student-centered learning: The subjectivist th paradigm. Paper presented at the 8 Annual Conference of the Institute for the Study of Postsecondary Pedagogy – Creating Alternative Learning Cultures: Culture, Cognition and Learning, Ellenville, NY. Bastick, T. (1999a, January). Subjectivism – A learning paradigm for the 21st century. Paper presented at the 3rd annual North American Conference on the Learning Paradigm, San Diego, CA. Bastick, T. (1999b, May). Subjectivist psychology: An affective-constructivist pedagogy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Psychology Association, Irvine, CA. Bastick, T. (1999c, July). Enculturation and empowerment in the subjectivist classroom. Paper presented at the 9th biennial conference of the International Study Association in Teachers and Teaching, Dublin, Ireland. Bastick, T. (2003). Subjectivist psychology and its application to teaching. In T. Bastick (Ed.), Education theory and practice (2nd ed.; pp. 209–218). Mona, Jamaica: Department of Educational Studies, UWI. Brown, L., & Reid, D. A. (2006). Embodied cognition: Somatic markers, purposes and emotional orientations. Educational Studies in Mathematics 63(2), 179–192. Jacobson, W. (1996). Learning, culture, and learning culture. Adult Education Quarterly, 47(1), 15–28. Kramsch, C. (1997). Culture and constructs: Communicating attitudes and values in the foreign language classroom. In P. R. Heusinkveld (Ed.), Pathways to culture (pp. 461–486). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Lozanov, G. (1979). Suggestology and outlines of Suggestopedy. New York: Gordon & Breach. Martinez, H. (2001). Autonomie: Une question d’interdépendance entre apprenants et enseignants [A question of inter-dependence between teachers and learners]. Les Langues Modernes, 95(1), 26–33. McCarthy, C., Mejia, O., & Liu, H. T. (2000). Cognitive appraisal theory: A psychoeducational approach for understanding connections between cognition and emotion in group work. Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 25(1), 104–121. Conclusion This paper presented aspects of a foreign language pedagogy, which employ multimodal subjectivist strategies for promoting needs-driven collaboration and inter-communication between culturally and cognitively diverse students. It showed how subjectivist affect-driven strategies, derived from embodied cognitive psychology, were used effectively to empower highly diverse students to communicate through French as a foreign language and to enculturate them into the accompanying values and attitudes of French culture. It is suggested that national education systems can employ such methods to unlock the potential of students to reach the competences required regionally and globally in foreign languages. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 30 Subjectivist Methodology for Teaching French as a FL Niedenthal, P. M., Barsalou, L., Winkielman, P., Krauth-Gruber, S., & Ric, F. (2005). Embodiment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(3), 184–211. Salmon, H. (1996). The case for a modified pedagogy in the foreign language classroom. In D. Craig (Ed.), Education in the West Indies: Developments and perspectives, 1948-1988 (pp. 269–280). Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, UWI. Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4– 14. 31 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Constructivism and the Enabling of Mathematical Thinking Camille Bell-Hutchinson Science and Mathematics Education Centre, Department of Educational Studies, The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica Abstract. The way mathematics is taught in many Caribbean classrooms often hinders the development of mathematical thinking skills and the attainment of mathematical understanding. This paper puts forward the view that the essential task of mathematics teachers is to enable the construction of meaning in order to facilitate their students’ mathematical thinking and mathematical understanding. The paper argues the view that mathematics is not something that exists “out there” but, rather, is an activity that is socially constructed and validated. Findings of research conducted in Jamaica in two Grade 8 mathematics classrooms, where two teachers implemented thinking-focused pedagogy grounded in social constructivist ideology, are discussed, in an attempt to demonstrate how they used strategies that were aimed at the construction of meaning through access to mathematical ideas and the attainment of mathematical understanding. The paper argues that the use of such teaching approaches can fundamentally change the face of mathematics education in Caribbean schools. Introduction A key objective in every mathematics classroom should be the enabling of mathematical thinking— a construct defined by Bell-Hutchinson (2004) as the ability to think critically within a mathematical domain. In most Caribbean countries, however, mathematics classrooms are characterized by rote teaching where the emphasis is on drill and practice, rehearsed algorithms, the memorization of facts and formulae, and the regurgitation of rules. Students are not typically encouraged to question, to explore, to examine open-ended situations, and to engage in creative thinking. As such, any mathematical knowledge that is attained by students tends to remain “fragile” and often unusable outside of the context within which that knowledge was gained. Evidence of the “fragility” of the knowledge gained is seen in our annual CXC results. Table 1. Percentage of Candidates Gaining Grades I And II in Mathematics (General Proficiency) in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examinations, 2002– 2006 2002 Antigua and Barbuda Barbados Grenada Guyana Jamaica St. Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago 14.59 25.12 5.77 10.55 14.01 19.5 2003 10.42 21.26 11.63 9.18 10.38 13.22 2004 13.8 22.23 11.19 11.78 8.4 13.74 2005 15.26 25.57 11.95 15.34 13.83 14.34 2006 13.86 20.32 11.54 10.89 11.84 9.86 37.39 24.42 25.24 25.32 21.69 33 Camille Bell-Hutchinson This paper argues that mathematics classrooms in the Caribbean could be radically transformed if teachers focused more on meaning-making by emphasizing mathematical thinking and mathematical understanding. In so doing, emphasis would not only be placed on procedural facility, but also on “deep learning” of mathematical ideas. By deep learning, I refer to the ability of the learner to build connections between current learning and previous knowledge in such a way as to utilize this newly found knowledge in flexible ways to solve problems. I further argue that this meaning-making can be achieved through the use of teaching approaches that are underpinned by a constructivist philosophy about how mathematics is learnt. (adapted from Watson, cited by Bell-Hutchinson, 2004, p. 84) I subscribe to the notion that learning to think mathematically also requires the development of an intrinsic desire to engage in mathematical activity and to value and use the processes of mathematization (Schoenfeld, 1994). This seems an important point to emphasize because what we should be aiming for in our quest to change the face of mathematics education is not just book knowledge, but also an overall positive orientation for the learning of mathematics. I would therefore add that the more confident a learner is and the more competent in the mathematical content a learner is, the richer the mathematical thinking experience process will be. The Nature and Development of Mathematical Thinking An exploration of the literature will reveal that mathematical thinking is defined in many different ways. Indeed, there seems no common viewpoint as to what it is. As used in this paper, therefore, mathematical thinking refers to the use of critical thinking skills within a mathematical domain. Such skills include, but are not limited to, the use of mathematical processes such as specializing, generalizing, conjecturing, testing, justifying, and verifying. All these processes depict various kinds of mental activity, an observation made by Watson and Mason (1998). However, I do not use the term to include such mental activities as calculating, recalling formulae, or simply thinking about mathematics. Rather, mathematical thinking as defined here is a meta-activity requiring the use of higher-order mental processes. Other kinds of actions that depict the use of mathematical thinking include the ability to: • identify similarities beyond superficial appearance; • use prior knowledge in making connections within mathematical situations; • create own methods; • generalize a structure from a diagram or from examples; • choose an appropriate technique from a variety • deal with unfamiliar problems • change one’s mind in the face of new experience. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 34 Mathematical Understanding In discussing mathematical thinking, it is also necessary for us to examine the notion of mathematical understanding because the perspective that this paper assumes supports the notion that these two constructs exist within a kind of symbiotic relationship. Any attempt to promote one will, as a natural consequence, facilitate the development of the other, and new understandings emerge as mathematical thinking is exercised. But an exploration of the literature reveals numerous definitions of this concept. The scope of this paper does not allow for an exegesis on these various definitions, but it is important to state that mathematical understanding, as used in this paper, is synonymous with conceptual understanding. I also believe that mathematical understanding resides along a spectrum from not understanding at all to 100% understanding—the purist form of understanding that will normally remain elusive to achieve. Whatever the definition and however we view mathematics, a central objective in the mathematics classroom is for students to “understand” what they learn in such a way that their knowledge can be used flexibly, adapted to new situations, and used to learn new things (Hiebert et al., 1997, p. 1). How do we detect, then, when our students have attained some level of mathematical understanding? Learners who have gained mathematical understanding will be able to demonstrate more than a superficial knowledge of what they are learning. For example, they will not Constructivism and the Enabling of Mathematical Thinking only be able to recite a rule, “take it to the other side and change the sign,” or a formula, area = length x width, but will be able to explain why these processes work. As Watson (2002) argues, “understanding requires more than rote-learning or following procedures correctly” (p. 163). In summary, when mathematical understanding has been attained, some expected outcomes are that the learner: • is able to make connections with previously learned concepts; • can use mathematical knowledge in flexible ways; • can typically explain the “whys” of algorithmic procedures; and • can use their understanding to gain new understandings (learn new things). Social Constructivism, Mathematical Thinking, and Mathematical Understanding The principal tenet of social constructivism is the belief that mathematical knowledge is socially constructed and validated (Neyland 1995). The theory acknowledges that both social processes and individual sense-making have central and essential parts to play in the learning of mathematics (Ernest, 1994). As such, classrooms that operate within the social constructivism paradigm are typified by social interactions— students with students and students with teachers. Yet, while the constructivist view of learning provides a valuable framework for thinking about the learning of mathematics, Simon (1995) reminds us that it does not really tell us how to teach mathematics. In other words, it does not stipulate a particular model. At best, we can only use the ideas emerging from constructivism to assist in developing and testing various models of teaching, and depend on more research in mathematics pedagogy to provide examples of such models. We also have to continuously examine constructivist thinking in mathematics education in order to assess the extent to which frameworks that are developed do result in mathematics pedagogy which brings desirable effects in the mathematics classroom. However we look at it, there seems to be a commonly accepted notion that mathematics 35 teaching has much to benefit from constructivism, and Nickson (2006) has captured well the three major implications of a constructivist approach for the effective teaching and learning of mathematics. Firstly, children can no longer be seen as simply “receivers” of knowledge. Freire (2002) suggests that this is a “banking” concept of education in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (p. 72). He argues that this type of education is oppressive and negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. Rather, students must be considered as active makers of knowledge. This means that they must be “actively engaged in selecting, absorbing and adjusting what they experience in the world around the world” (Nickson, 2006, p. 5), in light of their new experiences. According to Nickson, the logical implication of this is that to learn mathematics, children have to be placed in situations where they have to mathematize and so be involved in doing it (p. 5, emphasis added). The second implication is that students need to experience mathematics in contexts other than a purely mathematical one: “In order to make sense of the mathematics they meet in school, to access it and make it their own, they have to link it with the reality of their world and what they already know” (Aubrey, 1993, cited by Nickson, 2006, p. 5). Finally, Nickson (2006) suggests that each child’s contribution in a mathematics lesson needs to be acknowledged and considered, not just by the teacher but by other members of the class. The three implications highlighted above essentially point to one major implication—that mathematics teaching must be linked to meaningmaking and must be removed from the traditional view of it being “out there,” totally alienated from the lives of learners and comprising of nothing but rules to be learnt. Making Meaning in the Mathematics Classroom By using the term meaning making, I refer to the effort of the teacher to enable learners to make connections with the subject matter in such a way that the learners are able to fit any new knowledge gained into their personal existing schema. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Camille Bell-Hutchinson Further, the process of meaning-making requires that learners be enabled to see mathematics as a very human activity that can be changed over time as new knowledge emerges. The view of there being only one “single, convergent and acceptable response” (Aubrey, 1993, cited by Nickson, 2006, p. 5) is not the dominant view in a class where meaning-making is paramount. Essentially, then, making meaning in the mathematics classroom focuses on the learner, involves dialogue, and emphasizes conceptual understanding. It would be difficult to go further without acknowledging the work of Vygotsky (1978), who could be considered the father of social constructivism. The process of meaning-making previously discussed rests well with a Vygotskyan view of learning, and it is well accepted that social constructivism emanated from his work. Vygotsky placed much emphasis on the social dimension of learning and highlighted the impact of the social environment of the child on learning. From his perspective: “every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice; first on the social level, and later on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (p. 57). He contended that learners can attain two levels of performance—one, when unassisted, and the other, when assisted: An essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of developmental processes that are able to interact only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in collaboration with his peers. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90) In order to facilitate this meaning-making, then, teachers must provide a learning environment that provides students with opportunities to: • see mathematics as more than a rigid set of rules; • explore mathematical ideas individually, with the teacher and with peers; • develop a propensity for inquiry; and • use their existing schema to generate new understandings. In establishing such an environment, students must be allowed to gain ownership of their mathematical learning by being encouraged to share their own methods of solution with appropriate justifications, even while actively participating in processes of negotiation concerning both strategies and solutions. As Nickson (2006) points out, meaning develops in the process of this reflection and discussion. In the ensuing section, episodes from the classroom of two teachers will be used to demonstrate ways in which meaning-making can be facilitated in order to meet a greater objective— the development of mathematical understanding and mathematical thinking. Meaning-making was derived through the use of three distinct teaching strategies, described as: • Enabling access • Motivating thinking • Enabling ownership and independence Enabling Access This refers to teaching strategies aimed at facilitating students’ access to either mathematical ideas or mathematical tasks. The strategies are: contextualizing, explaining, clarifying, reviewing, and prompting. • Contextualizing: This refers to the teacher’s use of either a cultural (real-world) context or a contextual framework (a context for the mathematics), usually when introducing a new idea/topic. • Explaining: This refers to the teacher’s explanation of the salient features of an activity (exercise, problem, investigation) prior to the students starting the activity. • Clarifying: This refers to instances when the teacher interrupts the whole class or individual students in order to clarify what she discovers to be a misinterpretation or a misconception. This usually occurs after the students are engaged with the activity, and typically arises from the teacher’s observations during the lesson. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 36 Constructivism and the Enabling of Mathematical Thinking • Reviewing: This refers to the teacher’s review of prerequisite knowledge, concepts, or skills, typically at the start of a lesson, with the intent of providing the students with a means of connecting to the mathematical ideas in the lesson to be taught. • Prompting. This refers to those occasions when the teachers provide hints about possible strategies for solving problems or obtaining a generalization; typically, when students become “stuck.” “Hints” include the pointing out of an error in the students’ work that could have affected the extent to which they could gain access to the mathematics embedded in a task. Contextualizing. Whenever the teachers were introducing a new concept to their students they always started their classes within a context, which, in their view, would enable their students to establish some connection with what they already knew and the mathematical ideas they would be introduced to in the lesson. For one of the teachers, Yolanda, the “connection” she tried to establish was either with some previously known mathematical concept or with something “in their everyday life.” The important factor was that she provided an introduction that gave the students something they could relate to. The other teacher, Marjorie, also often tried to relate the mathematical ideas her students were working with to something with which they were familiar. She believed that establishing such connections would better enable her students to “form meaning for themselves,” and would help them to see that mathematics was not something “in a vacuum.” To provide some kind of context, Marjorie often used one of two main strategies. Sometimes she sought opportunities where she could relate the mathematics she was teaching to other school subjects. At other times, she used the school environment as a source of exploration of the mathematical ideas that were being studied in the classes. In the following paragraphs, examples of instances from both classes where contextualizing is exemplified are provided. Making connections with the students’ “everyday life” Excerpt #1: Yolanda’s Brown’s dilemma classroom: Mr. In this excerpt, Yolanda is introducing a lesson where the students will be exploring the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. I’m going to read something for you. A little story. And we’re going to answer a few questions from it. Mr. Brown has a circular plot of land where he planted some corn. Each day he goes to water it he realizes that the neighbour’s cows are eating more and more of the corn. This made Mr. Brown very upset. I want you to advise Mr. Brown about a way in which he could avoid the cows from eating his corn. What would you have done if you were in his position? Bearing in mind that the school was located in rural Jamaica, this scenario would not have been uncommon in the lives of Yolanda’s students. Excerpt #2: Marjorie’s classroom: Solving a social problem In this lesson, students are asked to develop and solve an equation based on a story. Marjorie begins the class by giving them a story that she had written. The story reads: Stuart and Randy are brothers who love each other dearly. Interestingly, they are of different complexions (Stuart is fair and Randy is dark). One day Stuart “dissed” Randy because of his colour and called him “black boy.” Randy was offended. Stuart felt horrible. He decided that he would give Randy some gum to make up. A pack of gum has x sticks. He bought 5 packs and took 11 sticks for himself. Randy was so happy that he forgave his fair brother. Jody saw the exchange and boasted “I have the same amount of gum as you do!” They checked and sure enough she had one pack and 9 single sticks of gum. Find the number of sticks in a pack of gum. 37 Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Camille Bell-Hutchinson According to Marjorie, the story arose from a real-life problem that arose between two students in her class, Stuart and Randy, where Stuart called Randy “white boy.” This resulted in a quarrel between the two boys. Marjorie felt that this situation presented an ideal opportunity to try to get the boys to resolve the issue and, at the same time, incorporate the use of some mathematical ideas they were learning. While the problem itself was not being modelled through the mathematics, the context within which the mathematics was presented provided sufficient interest among the students to cause them to be motivated to engage themselves in the task. “Cultural context” framework” versus “contextual The difference between the use of a “cultural” context and the use of a “contextual framework” is seen in the following excerpts taken from the introduction to a set of lessons from both teachers. A contextual framework is concerned with providing a context for the mathematics being encountered. The use of a contextual framework was a deliberate teaching strategy used by both Yolanda and Marjorie, though in different ways. They each tried to provide their students with activities, or engage them in discussions, that would either (a) enable them to focus on the mathematical ideas that were to come, (b) foster conceptual understanding, or (c) aid their students in remembering important aspects of the concept to be taught or the task to be undertaken. Sometimes their use of a contextual framework enabled all three objectives to be achieved. In Table 2, examples of instances where Yolanda used a contextual framework as she introduced three of her lessons are given. Table 2. Examples of Yolanda’s Use of a Contextual Framework Yolanda’s class: Lesson on the median (a) “I want five students to come up. Please stand in order of height. Who is in the middle?” (b) I am going to give you some shapes and you are going to tell me how to find the middle of the shape. Yolanda’s class: Investigating palindromes Yolanda writes on board the words “level,” “mom,” “dad.” “Can you tell me what is similar about these words?” Yolanda’s class: Introduction to volumes Students are placed in groups of four. They use a set of dice to fill a space by using different size cubes and cuboids. Some instances of the kinds of contextual framework Marjorie used are illustrated in Table 3. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 38 Constructivism and the Enabling of Mathematical Thinking Table 3. Examples of Marjorie’s Use of a Contextual Framework Volume of cuboids Class started with a review of the painted faces exercise from the previous class. (In this exercise students had to count the number of cubes that had a certain number of painted faces after the larger cube from which they were cut had been painted.) Students were then given various shapes made up of stacks of cubes and asked to state the volume by counting cubes. I told the students that they were going to go outside Introduction to rotation (Marjorie reporting on her and that we were going to rotate an object around a class) centre through an angle of 90 degrees. That’s all I told them. I told them I wanted them to find a way to do it as accurately as they could. I took a student out and I put a book on the floor and I said that we could turn the student 90 degrees about that book as the centre point. I asked them where the person would fall and they estimated and I said yes. Introduction to relations (Beginning of class) In maths there are lots of different relationships that we have looked at throughout the year. Maths is a lot about relationships. Relationships between different things. Can you think back...I’m not going to suggest any to you...I’d like you to think back throughout the year and tell me any relationships that we have seen in maths. Sometimes in her quest to enable access through the use of a contextual framework, Marjorie capitalized on experiences that her students had had in other subject areas. Her attempt to do this was very striking in the introduction to one of her lessons reproduced below. Excerpt #3: Investigating pool tables The aim of this investigation was for students to explore the number of bounces a ball would 39 make when hit from one corner of a four-holed pool table until it landed in one of the pockets. In order to access the task, that is, in order to be able to begin to explore the possibilities that existed, students needed to understand how the ball moved as it was hit from any one of the corners of the table. The excerpt begins as Marjorie is introducing the activity to the class. I have only included sections of the discussion that highlight how Marjorie made the connection with the task and the students’ prior learning in both science and mathematics. Proceedings of the 2007 Biennial Cross-Campus Conference in Education, 23–26 April, 2007 Camille Bell-Hutchinson Marjorie: Think back to when we were looking at reflection. Remember Charles was telling us something that you had learnt in science involving light and a mirror. Right? Charles, you remember that now? You could try to tell us about that now? Charles: When you had the angle miss... The 90 degree angle..one side would be equal to the other side miss. Marjorie: Alright, but what was it about though? What were you learning in science? Charles draws the following diagram and writes: