 |
 | |||||||||
|
|
|
Opening Day RemarksOpening Day Remarks August 29, 2006 David Magill speaks in Chinese: John Sun, the new teacher of Chinese, translates: The Director said, "Good Morning and Welcome Back. To the Chinese, this is the year of the dog. To those of us at the Laboratory Schools, we believe that old dogs can learn new tricks." David Magill: Ladies and Gentlemen, please say hello to Mr. Shihao (John) Sun, our colleague and newest member of the World Language Department. A number of years ago, one of my predecessors stood before the faculty on the first day and noted that the room was filled with a population of graying adults. His candid pronouncement was not lethal, but it was hardly well received. It wasn't long before he was the former Director of the Laboratory Schools. So before I go any further, allow me to clarify my statement about "old dogs." First, it is simply a metaphor suggesting that anyone with experience can learn, grow, and change. Secondly, the descriptor "old" is becoming increasingly personal. (I prefer "experienced" or "chronologically gifted"!) And finally, if you believe any of the spam on the Internet, modern medicine promises that there are many ways to keep all of us young. To cover all of my bases—if there are some who might want to report me to the Humane Society because of what could be perceived as a negative reference to the genus canus familiaris, the dog has always been my favorite pet, and every twelve years, its status among the animal kingdom is elevated by the people of the most populous nation on earth, the Chinese. To the traditional Chinese, "the dog is a sign of fidelity, the original radical, a social reformer, and a minor revolutionary." -Chinese Almanac As many of you know, I traveled to China at the end of June as a guest of their government. Six hundred educators were part of the American delegation, all of whom were either offering Chinese instruction in their schools or considering the addition of Chinese instruction in the future. The College Board also was involved with the promotion of this trip, as this school year is the inaugural year of Advanced Placement Chinese. I'm embarrassed to admit that before arriving in Beijing, I had never really changed many of my childhood impressions of China. Those impressions were formed by reading books like the Five Chinese Brothers and imagining that many Chinese men looked and behaved like Hop Sing, the cook on the television series Bonanza. The other significant impression I had was the image of Chairman Mao and the legion of Chinese soldiers marching legs straight out while he saluted them on Tiananmen Square. Needless to say, I deserved to be slapped out of my unconscious state to a twenty-first century China, which was far beyond my immature and limited imagination. I did not see one Chinese peasant wearing a coolie hat and working in a rice paddy. There were few military or law enforcement officials who were visible to us, and while Mao's picture is still on all of the Chinese currency and prominently displayed in Tiananmen Square, I only saw one person wearing a "Mao-styled" pajama top. His influence is very much a part of China's past. Today's China is booming and, while Eastern culture is still in evidence, the influence of Western capitalism is everywhere. Prada, Ferragamo, and Gucci products are found in upscale malls in the cities. McDonald's, KFC, and Wal-Mart have found their niches in the metropolitan areas. There is even a Starbucks at the base of the Great Wall of China! The skyline of urban China is probably the most visible evidence of the transformation taking place in this country. It has been suggested that the national bird should be changed to the crane, since everywhere one looks there are steel forests of construction cranes working on all sorts of projects. Steel is plentiful, and I am told that 80 percent of all of the construction cranes in the world are found in this country. Zoning ordinances seem to be non-existent with cell towers and even nuclear power stations dotting the landscape. Shanghai alone has twice as many skyscrapers as New York City, and its architecture rivals the best of Chicago. Walking the streets of China can be quite hazardous, particularly during rush hour. Bicycles, all of them black, muddy, and indistinguishable, were everywhere. Roads and highways can't be built quick enough to accommodate the rapid explosion of automobiles and motorbikes. With the expanding economy, legions of people are now able to afford a car. Combined with toxic chemicals coming from coal burning factories, the resulting air pollution can be overwhelming. I was told that senior citizens come outside only during the early morning hours because of it. I can attest to the fact that Chinese senior citizens do rise early, as one day I ventured across the street from my Hotel in Nanjing and walked into a park with thousands of seniors practicing Tai Chi, exercising, and playing board games. Talk about someone feeling like a duck out of water! Most important were the people. They were friendly. They were curious. Staring at tall Americans is not considered rude. (That I couldn't understand—after all, they have Yao Ming!) They waited upon us with courtesy. They looked like Chinese Americans in the States. Many spoke very good English. Most in the city spoke some, and everyone had a cell phone. They laughed when I said "Ni Hao" or "Xiexie." More than 250 million people in China are studying English. Compare that with only 2,000 American schools offering Chinese as of last June. Our written word is everywhere, as signs, road markers, and advertisements are written in Chinese characters with the English translation below. The stated purpose of my trip was to build bridges between American and Chinese education. At every place on our itinerary, we were warmly welcomed with signs, billboards, and fanfare. They wanted to impress. They wanted us to appreciate the quality of their schools and programs. I toured through five different schools in Beijing, Nanjing, and Suzhou. We met with students, faculty, and administration and, with the exception of pre-school education, I think I have a pretty good idea of what is happening in these model schools. And so I've reached the point in my remarks when I should be sharing what I learned in their schools and how we might use that information right here. But unlike last year's abbreviated, but inspired, visit to the Punahou School in Hawaii, I left China unimpressed. Perhaps, that is too harsh as there were many good things happening. But there were also some important pieces missing. It was those missing pieces that made me appreciate what I know to be among our real strengths, why we must elevate their importance, and why we must cultivate them annually for new faculty who join us. For the sake of brevity, I will speak to only three of them—the first having to do with teaching methodology and the resulting expectations for what I refer to as "real" student learning. During the last few years that I served in public education, I began to experience the effects of standardization. It made me most uncomfortable, and in my opinion (notice I say that more than ever after reading Freakonomics this summer—I will try to be careful in qualifying my assumptions in the future!) most of this change for the worse occurred because of the No Child Left Behind legislation. In a very short period of time, I observed a shift in emphasis in public schools from creative teaching and expansive learning to a prescribed curriculum, one-size-fits-all teaching, and quick and dirty measures of achievement. In China, there is one prescribed curriculum with very high standards. A national exam is given upon completion of high school, the result of which almost exclusively determines a student's fate. Everything academic that takes place in their schools is directed toward "the test." On measures of math and science achievement, the best students in China rank among the highest in the world. By itself, this achievement is quite admirable, and there is nothing wrong with having high standards! It's when those standards begin to "standardize" the methods of teaching, preventing teachers from deviating from curriculum and focusing on only measurable student results that real learning is compromised. I question whether "real" learning was happening in the schools I observed. Real learning occurs when the focus is on children, not subjects. Real learning occurs when there is recognition of individual needs other than just the intellectual. Real learning occurs when collaboration takes place and when children value the contributions of others. Real learning occurs when we bring the world into the classroom or go outside of it to find authentic experiences. In the finest of Lab's traditions and in the best of our classrooms, this happens every day.
A second missing piece, or at least something that I did not observe with the young people that I met, was an appearance that they really did not understand their place in the world. In some ways, they reminded me of the students I taught in the city of Philadelphia over three decades ago. Their world seemed limited to a very small geographical boundary and their fascination beyond that boundary was directed to the materialism of the Western world. The English language is being taught in their schools, but for what purpose? Discussions about real world issues (the environment, Chinese life beyond the cities where over a billion people live, their government, the Pacific Rim, the conflict in the Middle East, and AIDS) were all superficial. And again, in my opinion, this kind of worldwide detachment is a glaring weakness in their educational system. It is a stark contrast to what is such an important component of a Laboratory Schools education. We undoubtedly have an advantage because of our heterogeneous student population. Thinking globally can't help but be part of our program. Beginning with our three year olds and continuing through the Lower School, the Middle School, and ultimately U-High, our kids really do learn who they are in the grand scheme of things. They are immersed in cultures of the world from the time they walk into one of our classrooms. Exchanges arranged by our World Language Department and opportunities for world travel are an integral part of our year-round program. In the 2005-2006 school year, we had teachers and students who traveled to Italy, China, Germany, Mexico, and France. An important annual tradition of our schools, the Rites of May, is mostly about the rich cultural differences in our world. We encourage the active participation and responses to world tragedies. The Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11 are tangible examples of recent student-led responses. Learning through service is not only a requirement in our high school, it is embedded in what we do throughout a student's years at Lab. It's therefore not surprising that one of the most popular and nationally successful extracurricular activities for our high school students is Model UN. U-High graduates are living all over the world. I believe that much of their interest in serving mankind and being of this world began right here.
A third missing piece, and perhaps the one that was most disturbing, was the lack of intellectual freedom given to this current generation of Chinese young people. It is to be expected that a Communist country going through transitions will be suspicious of certain behaviors and that speaking out on issues can be hazardous. However, not being able to question, challenge, and actively explore individual thought is, from my perspective, a form of intellectual, if not emotional abuse. Freedom is much more than just living in a democratic society. It is about being able to lawfully act, speak, write, and think without externally imposed restraints. It is about being able to follow one's innate curiosity, to exercise creativity, to challenge assumptions, to risk being wrong without criticism, and to love the process of learning. Those are the values upon which the Laboratory Schools were founded and remain, over 110 years later, the values that distinguish us today. Unfortunately, not all American schools can rightfully claim this distinction, and we must never allow these schools to become a victim of a politically expedient but misplaced emphasis on student testing and superficial fact gathering. Instead, we must find new activities in which young children can discover the wonders of their environment. We must allow play to unleash their creative energies. We must make learning fun and relevant. We must pose thoughtful questions that, in turn, provoke thoughtful responses. We must encourage multiple ways of solving problems. We must make room for character building and opportunities for leadership. We must promote dialogue, discussion, and debate. While in the city of Suzhou, I was visited by a former MBA student at the Graduate School of Business. In Chicago, he lived in a small apartment owned by Cathy Janovjak. He took the one-hour train trip from Shanghai to have dinner with me at my hotel. We had been in touch with each other prior to my trip as he was very interested in hearing my thoughts about starting a pre-school in Shanghai based upon the best practices of the Lab Schools. After dinner, he unveiled a power point presentation on his laptop that was quite compelling. It included a detailed business plan backed by a well-developed market survey as to the need for progressive, child-centered pre-schools in Shanghai. We had a good discussion and, with the right leadership and dedicated teachers, I believe he will attract many parents who want what we have. But to ultimately be successful, they must practice the values of intellectual freedom that we hold so dear. Without them, they will just be an expensive alternative to more of the same.
| ||
 | ||
|
All content © 2007-08 The University of Chicago | Laboratory Schools 1362 E. 59th St. Chicago, Il. 60637 (773) 702-9450 Fax: (773) 702-7455 | ||
