Reaction in Progress: Indicators (continued)

The definition of indicator has something to do with pointing fingers. Yes, I do that sometimes. But I’d like to offer a simple indicator to measure the quality of a teacher. Measure the minutes. How late are they?

The typical teacher is around 15 minutes late. If they leave the teachers’ room 5 minutes late, it’s perfectly reasonable and then if the classroom is far away, another 10 minutes is quite sensible. It’s hot. Why rush?

I worked in Japan for 15 years. It is in my system. My blood changes color if I’m late. In the 15 years I worked in Japan, I remember being late one time.

I know a few teachers who are not late. One says that his time to teach is never enough. He even finds ways so as not to waste time taking attendance. He knows each student by name and is proud that he instilled confidence to learn in every student. Giving students confidence requires planning and monitoring, consulting and amending and this takes time.

I was surprised with another teacher when I found him in class before I arrived. It happened more than once. What’s going on? I noticed a qualitative change in him. Rather than give tests with questions like, “How many personal pronouns are there in the English language?” to students who admitted that they can’t even write the alphabet, he negotiated with them. “What can you do? What do you need?”

The students agreed on clear and reasonable goals and rose to the challenge. The teacher gave them an oral test and looked at me repeatedly in surprise at what the students could do. Seeing students thrive on success rather than be browbeaten by defeat is something I suspect most teachers don’t see, don’t look for, don’t recognize and surely don’t cultivate. This one teacher was delighted at what he saw and I’m sure that is what brought him to class on time.

Back to indicators, I won’t argue with the number crunchers, but maybe we should just use definitions of “indicators” from chemistry or biology. Both are quite useful.

“A compound that changes color at a certain PH value or in the presence of a particular substance and can be used to monitor acidity, alkalinity or the progress of a reaction.”

“An animal or plant species that can be used to infer conditions in a particular habitat.”

Indicating the indicator

I hardly think I can get you interested in downloading, “Indicators of Educational Development: Concept and Definitions www.educationforallinindia.com/.../ ..”, but you might glance at the pretty diagrams and the techno speak.

Even the guy at the ice cream shop was asking me, “What are your indicators? At what level do you feel you’ve succeeded in what you’re trying to do? How do you determine that education has improved?

Strange that in the same day a half naked man at the herbal sauna asked, “Give me a number. How far do you think you’ve come? Ah, forget the abstract numbers. Considering your effort, you’ve got to be at least 50% there.”

That’s how well I’m known. That’s how much some people are concerned of my sanity and that’s how futile many people think the whole thing is.

Nobody really knows how to measure things. You can’t measure a stench. In this paper, with all the pretty diagrams and mind-bending formulas, there is only one short paragraph for indicators on educational quality. It’s easier to measure access to a school in inches and yards, how many schools have toilets, how many students enroll and how many drop-out. When it comes to quality, this is a quote:

“The indicators of coverage and efficiency fail to give any idea about children completing an educational level and also the level of their educational attainment.”

This sentence is even better: “Educational attainment is measured in terms of learners’ achievement. Learners’ achievement is also considered one of the important indicators of quality of education.” (I think this is a tautology, but I go cross-eyed first.)

Furthermore: “In India, data on learners’ achievement is not available on a regular basis, as the same do not form part of the regular collection of statistics.”

So even after this disclaimer, the report spits up its indicators of educational quality that include; “completion rate”, “gross completion ratio”, “net completion ratio” and “graduation rate”. Pardon my English, but this is so stupid. In Laos, it should be, “gross rate of complete inability to communicate in English despite being awarded an A and an advanced degree.” Oh, come on. Completion rate depends on how much you pay. Everyone knows that.

Battle over words and minds

Words, definitions in particular, can be used to challenge conventional thought. What term took on the idea that all legitimate learning only happens in schools?  I would vote for the all too unimaginative term, “non formal education.” There are even disputes as whether to use a hyphen or not.

The  “socio (hyphen) cultural accepted norm” for learning was first challenged by Scribner and Cole in 1973 according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-formal_education). They said, “Most things in life are better learnt through informal processes, citing language learning as an example.” They encouraged us to look at what happens in indigenous communities for more proof.

There is no such thing as an exciting term without an agenda. What’s in it for who(m)? For starters, online distance learning programs could issue PhDs in “life learning” for those who like to travel to places like India. There’s got to be a market for that.

If this is the case, the desire for certification takes us back to formal education and the reason most people endure insufferable years in a classroom.

How has the term been mined in development work? There’s not much sense in awarding degrees for rice farming. Instead, organizations can cull money for “non formal education” projects in literacy for adult learners. I’ve heard first hand that this is much harder to accomplish than it sounds, but it looks wonderful on paper.

The convenience of this funding is that it is done outside the formal schools, a place that is wrapped in red tape and almost impossible to change. However, at the end of the day, we need to consider that many adults are illiterate not because they didn’t go to school, but because they went to school.

So it all depends on how you define the term and why you even bother. If for example, we define non formal education as an activity that people do because they want to learn and enjoy doing so, regardless of the degree they get, it means non formal education should be happening in formal education.

If you find this confusing, come to Laos. It’s not difficult to understand.