A little while ago I was fortunate enough to interview Professor Yong Zhao.
On his website, his bio is as follows:
“He currently serves as the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he is also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. He has published over 100 articles and 20 books, including Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World, Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization and World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students. He is a recipient of the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association and was named one of the 2012 10 most influential people in educational technology by the Tech & Learn Magazine.”
During my post-graduate studies his name keep coming up in articles, reference lists, interviews and Google searches. So, I thought that I would get in contact and organise an interview. He generously agreed. I have had the privilege of interviewing a number of great educators and teachers over the years at I’m a New Teacher and I am always amazed at their generosity to share their research, ideas and thoughts on a range of topics. It’s a strange thing to interview someone who has significantly shaped and influenced your teaching practice. To sit their and speak with people that are doing significant things both locally and globally for education is an incredible privilege.
For those of you that that are not familiar with Professor Yong Zhao’s work please see his biography.
Enjoy:
Could you please spend some time telling me about your experience in education?
Certainly, I have done a lot of research surrounding ICT in education. Recently, I have been investigating the significance of standardized curriculum and standardized testing. The majority of my current research has been in high performing countries such as China, Singapore.
What are some of the things that you’ve noticed in these countries that are characterised as high performing education systems?
These countries have a very narrow focus for children. They focus almost exclusively on academic studies and academic studies. The children work very hard on a very narrow set of subjects. The performance is very high at the cost of other activities e.g. sports, music, art and also thinking outside the box.
Do you think focusing on a very narrow kind of curriculum is really beneficial? Does it give a broader perspective enough to student learning?
I believe education is a lot more about developing each individual’s human capacity, making sure that every child excels in their own way and also developing these kind of talents and creativity. I think too much emphasis on test scores is actually detrimental to the children’s future because the child’s educational experience is narrowed. I think it’s counter-productive. Education is about ensuring children develop their interests, talents and pursue their passion.
It seems more of a convenience for the system as opposed to an accurate representation of student ability.
Yes, I think it’s a misguided view of education. It’s well intended but if they understood education better, they would realize that’s not the end result they want.
You talk a lot about the importance of teacher autonomy. Why do you think it’s so important for teachers to be able to use their judgment effectively in the classroom?
Teachers are not there to teach; they’re there to help students learn. Teachers need to be active as public intellectuals.
It seems to me that children’s innovation and entrepreneurship is innate part of who we are, that sadly dissipates towards the end of high school. What are your thoughts?
Children enjoy creating and being able to do meaningful things for themselves and for others. But we teach children that what matters is to find answers that adults and teachers want, not to create something that is meaningful from their own perspective.
Do you think the curriculum has served very well in the past to get a job done? What are your thoughts on that?
I think it was necessary before because the society didn’t have as much use for really creative and all types of talents. It did okay then but it’s not going to work in the future. We need to really shift our education paradigm.
There seems to have been such a focus on that left brain linear model of education in getting the job done. We need to really encourage students to create things as opposed to just being a cog in the wheel.
We need to teach children that if you’re looking for a job and it doesn’t exist, you need to create the job yourself.
I’ve heard a lot about student autonomy and having a personalized learning curriculum. Could you please share some of the components of that train of thought?
I advocate that we: students, teachers are there to create an experience that supports their strengths and interest instead of trying to impose on them a uniform sort of curriculum. I can imagine schools that don’t teach courses or we have lots of courses that can be chosen by students and students can participate in creating their own courses so they make use of teachers and others as resources.
You talk a lot about product oriented learning pedagogy, teaching students to be creative and to be able to generate ideas for social good. Is that correct?
Here, I emphasize that teachers support students in creating authentic products that’s meaningful to themselves or that are of value to others and that way, they learn how to be creative. That’s the pedagogy that will help them to develop that discipline that high quality work matters and that their work also has to serve a purpose. When you enable students to make their own choice about what to learn, that’s a lot of responsibility, much more demanding than just to follow other people’s orders.
We can’t solve future problems with the ways that we have solved ones in the past. We need to keep re-inventing ourselves I think. How do you view learning hubs and campuses in the future in terms of how integration will take place?
I think about learning is not confined and when they have an iPad, they’re learning from global resources not from school. It sounds very big but it’s actually very simple. Learning for children is not about a physical location.
Why do you think some teachers are hesitant to adopt this open learning spaces and hesitant to place more emphasis on student autonomy?
Many teachers think learning means what they teach children and they think what is prescribed in the curriculum is the outcome that they want to pursue. Teachers feel that they are judged by parents and the community on how well they help students deal with the test scores. Also, the government tells them that they have to follow curriculum.
What would you say to a beginning teacher in the early stages of their profession? How can they incorporate some of the views that you have?
Trust and study the children. Look at what children can do as opposed to what they can’t do. Don’t be nervous if you don’t know everything. Be a co-learner with children. Your job is not to teach, it’s to help children learn. Follow your conscience to help children.
Thank you for your time, I hope that many new teachers will find your responses useful.
Thank you, I hope so.