Page Content
An interview with Yong Zhao
Who is Yong Zhao?
Yong Zhao will be one of several renowned keynote speakers at the ATA’s invitational symposium Educational Futures—International Perspectives on Innovation from the Inside Out, to be held March 18 and 19, 2011, in Edmonton. Teachers are invited to “Join the Challenge Dialogue” and participate in ongoing discussions about education. Visit www.learning.ca for information.
Zhao is presidential chair and associate dean for global education, College of Education, University of Oregon, where he also serves as director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Education. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Education. Until December 2010, Zhao was a distinguished professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University.
Zhao arrived in the United States from China in 1992. He is married and has two children.
Visit the ATA website (www.teachers.ab.ca) to read the entire interview with Zhao.
ATA News: What is the focus of your research?
Zhao: My current research is in three areas: understanding what knowledge matters to different countries in the age of globalization, exploring online education and how it can prepare our children for the future, and exploring ways to use computer games to support language and culture learning, as well as more authentic assessment of 21st-century skills.
I think the first area is of particular interest to Alberta. All countries have to ask this hard question: What knowledge is of the most worth? We have all these international tests driving our education content as if that is the most important thing for everybody, for every country, developed or developing. Many countries have their eye on the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) results. Recently, Chinese students had the best results, so everyone started to think that China has the best education. This is completely mistaken. You can read my analysis of why Chinese students scored so well on my blog (http://zhaolearning.com).
What does it mean to be well educated and to have world-class education in the age of globalization? What should we try to teach? The answer is quite different from what most would think. The content of education should not be globally homogeneous or globally benchmarked. It should be locally unique and build on the strengths of each child, teacher, school, community and country. The more unique you are, the more valuable you become globally. Moreover, education should be responsive to local conditions, but with a global perspective.
Education should encourage students to discover and develop their talents, and equip them with knowledge and skills that others don’t have. The more we help develop people in terms of creativity and entrepreneurship, the better off we will be. I see students as global entrepreneurs. We should teach them to invent jobs, not find jobs. A lot of current employment may not be there when they grow up.
Alberta scored well on the PISA, but while that may indicate the health of your education system, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your children will be successful globally in the future.
These test scores do not predict a country’s success. Some countries, like the U.S., have not done well on test scores since the 1960s, yet many of them remain strong and innovative. Some bad test-takers now build prosperous companies, become great innovators and entrepreneurs, and grow up to be outstanding musicians, artists or athletes. The countries with high test scores do not necessarily have great economies. The Asian countries are trying to move away from test-oriented education despite their historical excellence in test scores. Again, you can read more about why test scores do not predict a nation’s future prosperity, or an individual’s future success or happiness, on my blog or in my book Catching Up or Leading the Way.
ATA News: What do you think about the U.S. movement that encourages teachers to work longer hours and parents to ensure that their children are working harder at schoolwork? Is this going to help?
Zhao: It’s just more of the same. It’s what you do with the longer hours, what actually happens. Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We don’t really know enough yet about the growth of human beings. We may know how knowledge gets transmitted, what’s more effective, what’s less effective, but for a personal educational experience, we have to go back to our traditional wisdom of a warm, supportive, encouraging environment for kids. Also, exposing kids to broader experiences in the outside world can be very helpful, rather than forcing them into a boring, barren classroom to be instructed for additional hours.
ATA News: How important is it for governments to support teachers’ professional development and teachers’ preparation time? Do you have any examples of what is going on in these areas in other countries?
Zhao: It’s crucial. A lot of our teachers work in information-driven, test-driven education systems, and they’re not up to date on the big changes going on outside of the system. They are not familiar with the exciting things happening in technology, science, even mathematics. So for them to change their perspectives, to get a glimpse into the children’s future and the world they will live in, it’s essential that teachers understand and keep up with what is going on. We all need to grow. We need time to grow. If we want globally oriented students, we have to have globally oriented teachers. In China, they are sponsoring principals, teachers and students to study abroad, in England, Australia, the U.S., Canada and many more countries. China’s vice-minister of education recently announced a plan to send over 10,000 principals to study abroad over the next three years. Most are coming to North America. They already know how to help kids do well on tests; they are coming here to understand how to develop creative and innovative thinkers and how to reduce their students’ excessive academic burdens. They have been working on cutting instructional hours for subjects like math, and increasing physical education and art.
China, Korea and other Asian countries have much more teacher preparation time. In a typical five-day, 40-hour week, a teacher in China will teach 11–13 hours in front of students—what we call contact hours. The rest of the time they are preparing, working in teams, learning the best ways to teach. This, of course, means larger class sizes. For elementary students, typically classes have 30 or 40 students, but some can have 50 or 60 students, and for high school classes it’s higher—up to 100.
ATA News: What do you think the future will look like?
Zhao: Definitely the future will be global. Whether they stay in Alberta or wherever, a lot of our children will be somehow involved in global transactions. A lot of our activities will be virtual, so our consumption, our technology and our lives will be mediated by computers, networks, phones—all those kinds of things. Future jobs in the developed countries will be about creating new things and finding innovative ways to solve the problems brought about by globalization and technology, such as environmental degradation and international terrorism. I don’t think you will see huge manufacturing companies in North America—a lot will be automated or outsourced to developing countries.
ATA News: Do you have any suggestions that would help Alberta teachers prepare our students for the future?
Zhao: I encourage teachers to learn more about what is going on in the world and to try to figure out what will happen in the future. We need to understand children’s lives today and participate in their lifestyle. Otherwise, we will be irrelevant. We need to think like a child—which is healthy anyway.
