Cleverlands: The secrets behind the success of the world's education superpowers

by Lucy Crehan, Μαρία Παπαηλιάδη (translator)

Secondary school teacher and education consultant Lucy Crehan was frustrated with ever-changing government policies on education; dissatisfied with a system that prioritised test scores over the promotion of creative thinking; and disheartened that the interests of children had become irrelevant.

And yet, politicians and administrators consistently told her that this was how the world’s ‘top performing’ school systems operated.

Curious to discover how they could operate in the same way but perform so much better in Maths, Reading and Science, Lucy dug deeper and was shocked by what she found: the politicians and administrators were wrong. The ‘top performing’ schools were designing education in completely different ways from the UK and from each other, and yet, despite their differences, they were all getting top marks.

Determined to find answers she couldn’t get from reports and graphs, Lucy set off on a journey around the globe to see these schools and students for herself.

Cleverlands is the story of her journey through Finland, Canada, Japan, China and Singapore – five countries regularly at the top of the education charts. She spent three weeks immersed in classrooms in each country – living with teachers, listening to parents, teaching, watching and asking questions.

The result is a guided tour of the world’s best educational systems and a reflection on what success in the UK might look like in light of these varying possibilities… not just what our politicians would have us believe.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching, Politics, Sociology, Academic, China

Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2016

About the author

Lucy is a qualified teacher, an education explorer, and an international education consultant. She taught science and psychology at a secondary school in London for three years before turning her sights to research and policy, and gaining a distinction in her Master of Education at the University of Cambridge.

Since returning from her ground-breaking trip around the world’s ‘top performing’ education systems, she has published a report on teacher career structures for IIEP UNESCO, advised the UK government as part of a working group on teacher workload, and spoken about her work at conferences in the UK, US and Sweden. She now works as part of a team advising foreign governments on education reform at Education Development Trust. Lucy lives in Bath with her fiancé, Mark.

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written by the young, brave and daring UK teacher, who did not want to take for granted what the politicians are telling us about education. So she decided to find out for herself and visited 5 countries scoring high in PISA tests (Finland, Canada, Singapore, Shangai (not the country, i know) and Japan). She did not want to go through the official channels, in order her study to be more representative. So she planned and organised her visits through internet.

The result is well researched, well written book summarising what she has learned. Apart from her experience in each separate country, she has written a chapter about the "best practice" policies in education based upon her findings. In one sentence, they are: 1) no selection by ability (streaming setting etc) until 15 or older; 2) high expectations of all kids irrespective of perceived abilities reflected in the required achievement standards; 3) respect and constant professional development to teachers.

This sounds hardly revelatory, but it seems neither the UK nor the US manage to get it right.

The book is much more than this containing lots of her anecdotes and observations of the cultural differences. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in education or has a stake in the system.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ένα εξαιρετικό βιβλίο που αναφέρεται στα πέντε "κορυφαία" εκπαιδευτικά συστήματα του κόσμου, τουλάχιστον όσον αφορά στην επιτυχία τους στο πρόγραμμα αξιολόγησης PISA (η Ελλάδα είναι πάντα αρκετά κάτω από το μέσο όρο). Η συγγραφέας επιχειρεί να δει στο πλήρες εύρος ποια είναι αυτά τα χαρακτηριστικά που κάνουν το εκπαιδευτικό σύστημα επιτυχημένο, σε συνδυασμό με την κουλτούρα του τόπου, τις αρχές και τις αξίες, τόσο των μαθητών όσο και των γονιών τους. Επικεντρώνεται στο επίπεδο των εκπαιδευτικών, την αξιολόγηση των σχολικών μονάδων, τη χρηματοδότηση.

Η απάντηση στην οποία καταλήγει, μεταξύ άλλων, είναι ότι δεν υπάρχει συνταγή επιτυχίας, π.χ. να πάρουμε το σύστημα της Ιαπωνίας και να μεταφέρουμε στην Ελλάδα, αλλά να μελετήσουμε ποια στοιχεία του κάθε συστήματος θεωρούμε ότι είναι σωστά, μπορούν να εφαρμοστούν στη χώρα μας και με ποιον τρόπο. Ένα βιβλίο που οι ΠΕΚ έφεραν στη χώρα μας και απευθύνεται σε οποιονδήποτε έχει επαφή με την εκπαίδευση, είτε ως εκπαιδευτικός, είτε ως γονιός.

[Lisajean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want my kids to go to school in Finland!

This is a great book, although a frustrating one, because it makes me realize how far the US is from implementing some of these best practices. I have great confidence that Crehan is correct in the best practices she identifies, because her approach is to balance personal observation – visiting schools, talking to principals, teachers, parents, and students, and spending time in the country to get a sense of its national culture – with hard data and a thorough review of the relevant educational research. Furthermore, although the countries she visits are those that have performed consistently well on the Programme for International Student Assessment test, she does not consider the test results alone as proof that their schools are top-performing. Instead, she considers the equity of the results, data about student happiness and interest in school, and general reflections on the values that the educational programs instill.

So, what are the takeaways and what do we in the US need to do to improve?

1. Get Children Ready for Formal Learning

Enhance children’s social and preacademic skills through rich environments and playful learning before age six, rather than requiring specific academic outcomes from them.
Take the time early on to teach children the routines.
Give children (and teachers) a 10-15 minute break between each lesson.
Resource schools with access to professionals who can address children’s non-academic needs.

2. Design Curricula Concepts for Mastery (and Context for Motivation)

A good national/provincial curriculum should be:
Minimal – Focusing on fewer topics, but in greater depth.
High-level – Clear on what concepts and skills are requires, without prescribing context or pedagogy.
Ordered – Organizing concepts in a logical order, based on research into how children learn.

3. Support Children to Take on Challenges, Rather than Making Concessions

Delay selecting children into different schools based on ability until age 15 or 16.
Teach children in mixed-ability classes until 15 or 16.
Provide small, flexible group support from qualified professionals before/during/after lessons.

4. Treat Teachers as Professionals

Require prospective teachers to undergo a rigorous teacher training programme of at least a year, which is recognized by a professional body and includes the study of pedagogical content knowledge.
Ensure newly-qualified teachers have a reduced teaching load, and time with a dedicated mentor who also has a reduced teaching load. Encourage teachers to plan and evaluate lessons in small teams, so that all teachers are pedagogically supported and learn from one another.

5. Combine School Accountability with School Support (Rather Than Sanctions)

Monitor school performance at a local or national level using school-level data or irregular national assessments.
Make use of or create a network of successful former school leaders, to visit schools regularly and provide practicing school leaders with advice, support and connections.
Incentivize demonstrably good teachers and middle leaders to work in struggling schools, and provide pedagogical leadership to other staff.

These takeaways seem both encouragingly simple and maddeningly impossible, in that it sounds so obvious that we want teachers to be well-trained and delivering a research-backed curriculum, we want to hold all students to high academic standards and give them professional support when they aren’t meeting those standards, and we want to put the best teachers in the most challenging schools. And yet, we’re pretty far from those goals, and in some ways, such as increasing reliance on Teach for America to fill the ranks of urban schools, actively moving away from them.

We have parents competing to get their kids into the most rigorous preschools, despite evidence that gains of learning to read early evaporate by the time kids are through elementary school. Instead, delaying the start of academic learning could actually be a huge step towards reducing the performance gap between boys and girls, since boys mature later and need more time to be ready for school.

The point about instituting a national curriculum was interesting, because my first reaction was strongly negative. I’ve seen too many pre-fab unit and lesson plans that were truly terrible and seem to be designed to take the teacher out of the equation entirely. However, teachers in the schools that Crehan visited all said that they felt like they had a great deal of autonomy in the classroom. The key details here are that focusing on fewer topics gives teachers the time to include additional topics based on their and students’ interests. Plus, having a national curriculum leads to high-quality textbooks that include materials for lesson planning that are based on tried and true pedagogical strategies. Teachers had support if they wanted it but weren't mandated to follow any particular strategy. I find it mind-boggling how susceptible the education world is to trends and fads – a generous interpretation would be that we’re so eager to help the kids, that we want to try new strategies and hope they work. A less generous interpretation is that we’re being sold new approaches by organizations and authors eager to make a buck and we’ve somehow decided that we’re ok experimenting on students without first running small-scale, rigorous studies to show that the new approach actually works. An example of this is project-based learning or discovery learning. As Crehan mentions, widespread adoption of this approach may actually explain Canada’s declining scores in math. It might feel good to give kids more control of the classroom and more real-world, hands-on experience, but they just can’t make use of that experience unless they have a firm grasp of the fundamentals first and a teacher who’s been trained not just in math, but in the nuances of teaching math.

The third point is actually what we’re doing best on in the US, as most schools have moved away from tracking students at a young age. They do still set students into different level classes, but this typically doesn’t happen until 9th or 10th grade and a student can be in a low level math class but a high level English class, for example. Also, schools are moving towards full-inclusion models, where students with special needs or English language learners are in the same class as everyone else and receive additional support as needed outside of class. That sounds great, but in practice, we still have a long way to go. My first year as a teacher, I was responsible for teaching an English support class to help students catch up to their peers. I had zero support in planning what to teach, had absolutely no idea about pedagogical strategies (I did a program similar to Teach for America. Mea culpa.), and in general did little more than help kids with their homework. This is all too common, and a stark contrast to Finland, for example, where support teachers actually have more training that gen-ed teachers.

That connects to the fourth point, perhaps the one that worries me most. We do have rigorous teacher training programs in the US, but we seem to be moving away from them. More and more, students in the highest need schools are being taught by TFA graduates with only 6 weeks of training, which I think is shameful. Even qualified teachers struggle to meet the needs of their students due to limited time for planning, grading, and meeting with kids outside of class. In most schools, professional development is seen as a joke, a workshop that you attend once in which you eat some cookies, drink some coffee, and then go back to teaching as usual. In my school, teachers are eager for development and administration is well-meaning, but it is often just a few sessions with little coaching or follow-through to help teachers actually implement the changes. And, of course, it tends to be based around educational trends or the hot new book that someone in admin just read, rather than research-based strategies to improve student learning. I’m envious of programs that Crehan mentions in the book, in which there are a variety of programs offered in each region and teachers can pick the training that would be most useful to them, interacting with teachers from other schools and swapping ideas as they do so. Or programs that send master teachers into a school, giving them time to review the existing approach before sharing their recommendations.

One last thought: while it’s clear that waiting to track students gives them the time they need to learn at their own pace and keeps opportunities open to them, Crehan doesn’t talk as much about what happens at 15 or 16, when students are tracked. In the US, that means that the high-performing kids take AP classes, while the other students just stay in their low-level academic classes. But in Finland it means that students have the chance to switch to a vocational school, a choice that is not seen as a failure to do well academically, but as the result of a rational appraisal of their skills and future goals. I so wish that we hadn’t gotten rid of most voc-tech programs in our eagerness to move past tracking students. As Crehan notes, a kid who feels disengaged at the start of high school would be much more motivated if he knew that decent grades in 10th grade math and English would determine his admission to an auto mechanic program that would put him on track to have a well paying job by the time his peers were shouldering mountains of student loans for college. I firmly believe that every student should have the option of going to college, which means giving them a high-quality education until they’re ready to make their own choices… but I also firmly believe that students shouldn’t have to see voch-tech programs as a “lesser” option.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, despite the fact that there were few actionable steps that a lone teacher could make. And I'm not quite ready to move to Finland...

[Athan Tolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have two kids in early primary school here in London and I take their education seriously. My primary and secondary education was in the Greek system, which does not stream till you turn 15 and even then does not stream for ability, merely for specialization. So I find it rather unsettling that the English system separates my kids out from their peers by ability at such a tender age. What am I meant to do? Prepare them extra, so they will make it to the higher group and feel smarter / get better teaching / be challenged by better peers? Or let them be kids and play and have a normal childhood? What if, horror of horrors, I prepare them extra and they fail to meet the higher standard regardless?

And I was more than a little weirded out when the school called us in last year to inform us that my son’s class was being specially prepared for a test on which the school itself would be evaluated. We were supposed to prepare them for the sake of the school’s status (perhaps even funding?), but also not tell them they would be tested, lest this ended up having an impact on their attitude. You could tell the teachers were terrified, that’s for sure.

Author Lucy Crehan, a teacher in the English system, must have been confronting similar dilemmas when she decided she wanted to explore what works in other countries. So she visited five countries that score high on the PISA test to see how they go about educating the young.

Her tour starts in Finland, where kids don’t go to school till they’re seven, but proceed to catch up with the world by the time they are fifteen years old and then comfortably sail past the average, all in the absence of any type of streaming of the students or official testing and supervision of the schools. What seems to do the trick for them is five (count’em) years of education for their teachers. Educators in Finland have a sense of entitlement that comes from belonging to a respected profession, a position accorded to educators by Finnish history. They additionally benefit from a rather uniform student body and a strong emphasis on discussion among teachers about the lessons they will give, supported by continued education and time dedicated to the discussion of the curriculum and the teaching methods.

From Finland, the author goes to Japan, where the primary role of the school is to instill traditional Japanese values in the students. The classrooms are not heated, so the students must learn “gaman” (Japanese for “saintly patience in the face of uncalled-for suffering,” it seems) and students are never praised or punished individually. You get an answer right, the whole class is congratulated. You mess up, everybody suffers alongside you. Streaming is, most obviously, out of the question. Rote memorization is anything but! Primary school is all play, but once you hit junior high your life ends, as you get buried under homework. And you’d better do well, as your future (including who you will marry) is determined by what school you’ll get into. The teachers must work very hard too. They specialize in improving teaching methods and take great pride in developing them to perfection. In their efforts, they are supported by the mothers of the pupils, who are pretty much obliged to put in hours of work every single day, helping out their offspring with schoolwork. In Japan, a career is not a realistic option for a mother who wants her kids to do well in school. Flip side is that all the kids get a strong and broad education, both in academics and in how to fit in Japanese society. Finally, the author admits that alongside this very egalitarian and well-thought-out system operates a semi-mandatory system of private cram schools, juku, that are attended by all students who plan to do well on state examinations.

Next stop is Singapore, where the emphasis is on identifying and focusing on the development of the smart kids. Exams in Singapore are all graded on a curve, not against the attainment of specific educational goals. By the time the kids are 12 the system has arrived at a verdict for every student, with hardly any room for a pupil who’s been selected for vocational training to ever make it to university. Funny thing is that upon graduation the “less gifted” students (the ones who have been selected out) reach a level of educational achievement that places them far above their peers in other countries. Singapore, it seems, pulls everybody up, but at the price of extreme prejudice and unconscionable pressure, including on the families. Singapore, moreover, takes the education of its teachers extremely seriously, offering them three separate career paths and showering them in (mandatory) further education. Excellence is state-mandated and a matter of national importance.

In many ways, China (or Shanghai, rather, as this is where the author spent her time) is the polar opposite. Students are never streamed and are praised exclusively for effort. The thinking in China is that you can “study yourself smart” and that’s what people do. Classes are enormous (50 kids to a class) but the teachers somehow find the time to send multiple text messages per day to the parents, informing them about any work that was not done right! The emphasis is not on creativity. It’s on memorization and on learning the correct methods. A further similarity with Japan is that the curriculum is not only deep, but also broad. The culmination of the secondary school experience is the gaokao, the thousand-year-old tradition that is the end-of-school examination that determines where you will end up in university and in life. Because attendance of a good school is paramount, connections (guanxii) are necessary, both to dance around the huku (the system that effectively separates the rich from the poor parts of the country) and to land in the good schools in the big cities. The most important thing to take away from China is that education is a duty the student has to family. In turn, the family will move heaven and earth to help its offspring in their educational endeavors.

Last stop on the tour is Canada, a country that places below the first four in the PISA tests, but must teach a much more diverse student body. The author does not hide that it’s her favorite of the five (p. 235). In common with all but Singapore, Canada does not stream its students. Neither does it ever leave a child behind who can’t handle the work on its own. The motivational hit from staying behind one’s peers is too high a mountain to climb for any potential stragglers; it’s better if the school allocates the necessary resources to keep classes intact. Students are forced to participate in group activities, which enforce the sense of belonging to a class and a school. Expectations are set both for all pupils and for all schools. Same as for the students, schools that are struggling do not see their resources cut. To the contrary, they are showered with the necessary resources to keep up with their expectations.

And there you have it!

But Lucy Crehan does not leave it there. She distills her tour of the “Cleverlands” into five principles:
• Get children ready for formal learning
• Design curricula concepts for mastery (and context for motivation)
• Support children to take on challenges, rather than make concessions
• Treat teachers as professionals
• Combine school accountability with school support (rather than sanctions)

The thing I most liked about reading Cleverlands is that it’s a book with a soul. You can read my summary above and all you really have is the bones of her account, but you’re still missing the meat. What obsesses the author most is how we can create individuals who are better prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century. And that is what she talks about with you as she takes you along on her tour. The other thing is she’s very clearly super young and impressionable. You’re doing something here too, you’re escorting a young girl on her discovery tour. It’s fun!

[Daiya Hashimoto · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young English teacher visited classrooms in countries whose teenagers ranked within top 5 in reading, math and science. the chosen countries were Finland, Japan, Singapore, China, and Canada. You can see various successes and failures of the countries' educational policies, and you can also see the difference between Western standard of education and Asian one.

What we, Japanese, have taken for granted turns out not to be so natural at all in other part of the world. For example, the author was surprised at frequent group activities in Japanese Junior High school. Actually, Japanese children learn from the group activity called “Han”, how to become a good member of the groups to attain their given goals.

The author analyzed that Japanese education realizes internalization of mind to follow the rules through the group activities from early ages. She wrote that Japanese try to mold children's personalities so that they can get on well in society, whereas in the west they foster individuality, though she seems to take the Japanese style as Japanese society's strength which Westerners can't imitate.

The five countries introduced have different features and advantages, Finnish egalitarian education and teacher's high social status, Japanese collective education and significant roles of mothers and cram schools, Singaporean exceptional enthusiasm for education and severe competition, Chinese Confucianism value systems and focus on rote memorization, and Canadian diversity education. Reading this book, I virtually inspected the countries schools, and concluded that as education were deeply involved with countries' cultures and national characters, we can't easily adapt other country's success as it is to other countries.

At the last part, the author discussed the trade-off between "21st century abilities" like creative thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving, and general academic abilities. The tradeoff is universal issue today. We can't pursue both with finite resources. She proposed some integrated ways like teaching problem-solving through math or teaching critical thinking through history.

[Annetius]

Δεν ξέρω τελικά τι με οδήγησε σε αυτό το βιβλίο. Το μόνο σίγουρο είναι ότι μου έμεινε αμανάτι η τελευταία χώρα μελέτης, ο Καναδάς, και είχα ήδη βγει από το μουντ• έκλινα σε πιο λογοτεχνικούς δρόμους. Ίσως είναι το κακό τάιμινγκ, ίσως είναι ότι είμαι δύσπιστη σε αξιολογικές κλίμακες τύπου PISA γιατί δε λαμβάνουν υπόψη όλα τα δεδομένα, πάντως με μερικές αντιμετωπίσεις λίγο ταράχτηκα, ήμουν αντίθετη δηλαδή και στη συνέχεια ενώ η συγγραφέας πήγαινε να το "σώσει" αντιπαραθέτοντας τη θετική πλευρά μιας εκ πρώτης όψεως αρνητικής πρακτικής, εγώ είχα ήδη καταδικάσει τη φάση και τη χρωμάτιζα αμετάκλητα αρνητικά. Αυτό που ξέρω εγώ είναι ότι ο κάθε μαθητής χρειάζεται κίνητρα και ΕΜΠΝΕΥΣΗ. Και καλούς δασκάλους. Σε όποια βαθμίδα κι αν βρίσκονται. Δεν μπορούν όλοι να είναι καλοί δάσκαλοι. Θυμάμαι ακόμα τους δασκάλους που με ενέπνευσαν. Και οι βαθμοί κι ο ανταγωνισμός ίσως πρέπει να πεταχτούν στον κάλαθο των αχρήστων.
Τον Καναδά θα τον χρωστάω..

*Το βιβλίο είναι μια καλή έρευνα κατά τα άλλα και συγχαίρω τη νέα συγγραφέα για το εγχείρημα

[Coenraad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucy Crehan has travelled, researched and thought deeply to produce this books about five education systems that fare well in international comparative testing. But more importantly: she writes in such an accessible way that just about any interested reader will be able to follow her arguments and conclusions. This book should be read widely.

Lucy Crehan se verslag oor vyf toppresterende onderwysstelsels is duidelik gebaseer op deeglike navorsing, en word tegelyk só toeganklik geskryf en aangebied dat dit baie vlot lees. Hierdie prestasie verdien om wyd gelees te word.

[North Landesman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all books on education I read in 2022, Cleverlands is the best. Lucy Crehan spent a year visiting schools in Finland, Sinagapore, Canada, Japan, and Shanghai, (yes, this is not a country) to compare and contrast schools in those places.

Her perspectives are fair, nuanced, and well reasoned. Most importantly, she understands the latest research into how students learn, but she can also tell an anecdote to bring the educational system to life. This book is a must-read for people who want to understand what education is like in other countries.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleverlands is a well-researched book about the educational systems of nations that have shown excellent international test scores and outcomes for their primary and secondary school student populations. The author travels to Finland, Japan, Singapore, China and Canada to see in action the types of policies and cultures that seem to enrich their school systems and allow them to consistently score higher than her home country (UK), as well as America. I was very impressed by the research about everything from learning styles to teacher training to national culture to tracking (in British "setting") students on different educational paths from different ages, and particularly enjoyed the sections about fixed versus growth mindset beliefs and how debunked ideas about intelligence and potential are often ignored by many western countries. I learned quite a bit and found the book unique compared to other tomes about the same sorts of topics because at the end, it actually sums up some easy and low-cost changes that could be implemented by any school systems anywhere without much political blowback. I also appreciated her mention and concentration on how diversity actually does (or does not) affect overall PISA scores and what research shows to help improve outcomes for non-native speakers/refugees from other nation in helping them obtain higher educational objectives. Finally, I sincerely was impressed by her straight forward points in the final chapters about what practices and beliefs simply are not helpful, are actually harmful, to our students and why it would behoove countries to get rid of them (early tracking of students, lowered standarads, overly broad curricula without enough time for mastery for all students, etc.). Overall, Cleverlands is an excellent resource on best practices of educational on a global scale, and is also immensely readable as a non-fiction book. Four stars.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehm… takze. Co jsem od cteni ocekavala? Ze budu proplouvat nabusenymi skolskymi systemy a budu zasnout, jak skvele to funguje jinde (prestoze jsem si trochu Finska zazila a zjistila, ze ta bublina dokonalosti je trochu prifouknuta a realita se medialnimu obrazu uz nejakou dobu vzdaluje).
Co jsem dostala? Jedno velke WTF. Popravde, mela jsem ze cteni celkem depku.
Ony totiz ty PISA vysledky jsou vystavene na dost krutych podminkach - minimalne teda v asijskych zemich. Na prvni pohled to bylo Whyyyyyyyy?!?!?, ale tak na druhy maji ty zeme i dost dobry napady, ktere by se daly nejak modifikovat a aplikovat u nas - v idealnim svete teda.
Kdybych chtela nekde zit a ucit, tak v Kanade. Tam to skolstvi dava smysl. Tam se premysli nad detma a jejich wellbeingem.

Nicmene, kniha je to skvela a rozhodne vyvola milion otazek. Neustale jsem to resila s muzem a dost se u toho rozcilovala. Moc se mi libily ty kulturni vlivy, jak to vlastne vsecko funguje a proc a dava to smysl. Z meho cecho-evropskeho pohledu jsou nektere ty systemy silene, ale to je tim, ze nejsem Japonka a neziju v jejich kulture a nemam jejich hodnoty. Smysl to dava.

[Lin F · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. If you're curious to know how 5 other education systems compare to ours, read this book. There are things we are doing right, and things we should look into further and consider changing. It gives you a lot to think about!

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inte speciellt förvånande rön. Det som betonas är vikten av didaktik - olika ämnen är olika. Därutöver är det självklarheter: problembaserat lärande är bra, och människor svarar an på utmaningar. Om vi straffas när vi misslyckas blir vi sämre, inte bättre. Att förbereda småbarn för utbildning fungerar, men kontext är det barn saknar, vilket gör att det är vad förberedelser behöver fokusera på.

[Seán Mchugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every student teacher should read Cleverlands, it’s refreshingly anecdotal, a travelogue with an educational emphasis. She exposes flaws in the way universities prepare teachers that are essential to understand. In addition she does a great job of summing up much of the essential research of the last 10 years in a way that is practical and succinct. In fact the whole narrative was reassuringly much more research based than I was expecting it to be. It is has some very interesting perspectives on differentiation that are fascinating when extended across all 5 focus nations, and written in an informal style that makes it easy (and at times laugh out loud funny!) to read. I was particularly interested as it really unpacks the whole approach to teaching in Chinese cultures... which has been my working life for 20 years, as I live and work and teach in Singapore.

Having lived in Singapore for so long, I’m amazed she seems so oblivious of the many international schools here, the fact that expats spend vast sums of money every year to keep their kids OUT of the Singapore system, should tell her something about the shortcomings of the PISA winning system, that expats shun, strange she chose to ignore that.

She’s a relatively inexperienced teacher, so some of her conclusions seem a bit ... naive? Like her uncritical acceptance of PISA scores as a valid measure of effective teaching practice, so really I’d advise reading it along side Yong Zhao’s ‘What Works May Hurt” nice and short and a much needed antidote to her PISA centric view of global education. It’s great reading a Chinese academic perspective on Chinese teaching, he rips it to shreds in a way that caucasian academics couldn’t without being accused of prejudice.

So read it, but remember, there’s a reason why expatriates in Asia (especially pan Asian families) spend VAST amounts of money to keep their kids out of the local schools, despite their glowing PISA scores—this is an issue critical to this area that for some reason Crehan completely ignores...

PS read the conclusions first! Knowing where she’s headed makes the rest of the book much easier to appreciate.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had really high hopes for this book. It was fine and I really appreciate the effort to do research in the field and be as unbiased as possible, but a lot of things seemed glossed over.

It does provide an interesting glimpse into the education system of some high achieving countries around the world. Crehan takes us into the education system of Finland, Japan, Canada, Beijing, and Singapore in an effort to figure out what makes these countries one of top scores in the PISA (international education study) exam.

I also did appreciated the open mindedness of the author and how she addressed that education has multiple facets. Teacher, educators, school admins, and even parents make the choices they do because of the system around them and what they have in place. The system is based off of not only the culture of the country, the social expectations of individuals, how highly teachers are looked upon in society, but also the history - how things came to be.

You won't come from this book having a solution or common thread of the world's education system, and the book is clear it doesn't really want to offer solutions. But instead, you'll get a nice high level view. For me, I wish there was more meat in each school and we dived deeper, but I guess this is a good starting point for me to look into other literature instead.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crehan has travelled the world to investigate the most efficient school systems when it comes to scoring well in PISA. The account is interesting, but chatty, and facts are mixed with remembered conversations and anecdotes from various schools. I actually enjoyed the format, but 200 pages I found the book a bit repetitive. The most informative chapter is the conclusion at the end - which could actually stand alone!

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to PISA

Really enjoyed reading about education in other countries being s teacher in the UK. However, i found writing style patronisingly annoying, very similar to some teacher conferences I’ve been, some of it was very tongue-in-cheek, if you are not a teacher yourself you might enjoy it more

[jaroiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jsem zhýčkaná populárně naučnou literaturou. Tahle kniha je jen naučná. Není moc zábavná (aspoň pro mě ne), ale obsahuje zajímavé informace.
I když se autorka ke konci snažila to zvrátit, stejně jsem ráda, že nežiju v Asii.

[Christian Moore-Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for brushing off old stereotypes of other countries and updating your ideas with evidence based information.

[Julius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es un ensayo descriptivo muy interesante sobre los mejores modelos educativos del mundo. La autora es una consultora experta en educación, y dedica varios años a vivir, entrevistar y experimentar los sistemas educativos que más éxito están teniendo en los últimos años, sobre todo según los resultados de los exámenes PISA. Estos sistemas son el finlandés, coreano, japonés, chino, canadiense, singapureño...

Como persona que vive profesionalmente de la docencia, el libro me ha encantado, se lee muy fácil, y el libro está estructurado en capítulos cortos en los que se utilizan uno o dos capítulos para describir el modelo de cada país, y destacar algunas características que le han llamado la atención. La autora también da algún palo a los tests PISA y a la predominancia que han conseguido como vara de medir. Quizás también nos debiera de hacer pensar.

No voy a destripar aquí el libro, y a cualquier persona interesada en la enseñanza, le recomiendo que se lea el libro. Me ha llamado mucho la atención la postura de los padres de los alumnos en Japón, la autonomía que tienen los profesores en Finlandia, que en China algo así como el equivalente a nuestra Selectividad es primordial para encontrar una buena pareja...


Más info en el blog: https://jeibros.blogspot.com/2023/03/...

[Ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Súťaživosti sa ťažko zbavíte vo vzdelávacom systéme, ak tam hlboko zapustila korene - píše sa o Singapure či Šanghaji. Ale mohol by to byť aj štát v štáte Praha, kde alternatívne školy otvorene hovoria o tom, že ich prístup je vhodný pre každé dieťa, ale nie pre všetkých rodičov (a ti, aby prejavili svoju vhodnosť, chodia na semináre rok a viac pred zápisom), kde všetci očakávajú, že už základnú školu vyberajú rodičia (a tie ju vyberajú obchádzaním pravidiel a nikto to nikomu nemá za zlé) a tiež - kvôli situácii v Prahe!- máme dve vlny zápisu na ZŠ, ktorý znevýhodňuje deti s dočasnou ochranou. Toľko aktuálna frustrácia.
Bodaj by táto kniha viacerým vysvetlila, prečo nemá zmysel triediť deti pred 15tym rokom a že práca učiteľov a učiteliek sa nedeje len v triedach, ale aj po vyučovaní, v kvalitnej príprave hodin a dávaní spätnej väzby. Alebo aspoň niečo o vnútornej motivácii, precvičovaní, upevňovaní a používaní znalostí, budovaní vztahov.

[Britta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleverlands is reminiscent of Surpassing Shanghai, another book about the exact same countries with top PISA scores. Cleverlands, however, was written by a British educational researcher and former classroom teacher, and I appreciated learning about her perspective on the state of British schools. I also really liked that Crehan gives a detailed history of how the top PISA scoring countries got to the top, showing that some countries, like Finland, had to go through many, many years of educational reform to emerge as a top performing country. The U.S., with its often quick fix approach to educational reform, could learn a lesson or two from Finland in this regard.

Crehan did promise in her forward that one of the factors that made Cleverlands different from other books on top PISA scoring countries was more personal stories from individual teachers, students, and parents, especially as she stayed with many of them in their respective countries while researching this book. While there were some great nuggets of personal experience shared throughout the book (I'm thinking, specifically of the half Japanese daughters of a British woman and Japanese man that Crehan seemed to spend a lot of time with in Japan), I yearned for more of these stories, especially since Crehan promised them at the start!

Other than that one complaint, Cleverlands was an enjoyable, acccessible book to read, jam packed with well researched data and nuanced analysis of what makes education work so well (along with fair criticism of each system) in each respective country.

[Louis House · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crehan makes a compelling case for her suggestions regarding the improvement of education systems around the world, nicely summed up in a section at the end of the book. I find it hard to disagree with her point of view, and I enjoyed her writing style for the most part. I would recommend it to anyone concerned with effective education.

[νίκη κωνσταντίνου-σγουρού · Rating 3 out of 5]

Τα παιδιά στα νηπιαγωγεία του Καναδά αγκαλιάζουν τις λέξεις.
Στην Ιαπωνία μαθαίνουν να μην ενοχλούν τους άλλους.

Έξυπνα παραδείγματα που δείχνουν τη σχέση κουλτούρας και εκπαιδευτικού συστήματος - μια σχέση που συχνά εξηγεί την επιτυχία του δεύτερου.

[προτείνεται για εκπαιδευτικούς που θέλουν να αντιμετωπίζονται ως επαγγελματίες | 3,5/5*]

[Yana Abramova · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book if you want to learn more about different education systems across the globe.

The researcher has done an excellent work and did it all totally by herself. So enthusiastic. Big thanks for the work done.

[Amanda Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting! It may be a little dated now, but this book answers many of my questions about education in other countries. It turns out that the U.S. is doing many of the same things as Finland and Canada. The reasons we are not seeing the same results could fill many pages.

[Grantpinkston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. I think this book put all of the themes of the class together in this global survey. Well organized. School is interesting.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read an Economist review for this book when it first came out and thought, "Well that does sound like a great premise for a book!"

The premise, now that I've finally been able to track down a copy, is great: an education Masters sets out on an academic gap year trip, where instead of hitting the most beautiful beaches in the world, she visits some of the countries with the highest ranking PISA scores. She visits Finland, Japan, Singapore, Shanghai (which is notably only ranked as a city on the PISA, because all of China doesn't take the test), and Canada. She lives with teachers, visits schools, and talks with administrators in order to get the full 360 of family, culture and school influences, and she writes charmingly about all of it (and her teaching subject is science, not literature, which makes it doubly impressive how well she turns a phrase).

Crehan is realistic about the trade offs high scores on a standardized test might make--and so are the Chinese and Japanese education officials who wanted to roll back some of the stress on students. She also recognizes that you can't just "teach like the Japanese" or "teach like the Finns" in a vacuum--the culture and the parents are part of the equation. But that's not to to say culture or parental expectations are fixed. After all, universal education in Japan is only a little more than half a century old and Finnish schools had a major educational revamp in the 70s--educational culture can change dramatically.

I might dock the book half a star for the section on Canada, though. Canada is included as not a rock-star on the PISA--S. Korea would be a better inclusion on that front--but as a solid performer (11th as of the writing of this book) with a diverse population and a concern for the "well-rounded individual" that better approximates the UK or US education systems to which Crehan has her eye. Much of the Canadian chapter is written in contrast to (admittedly older) UK systems, but are common in US schools, such as letting students self-select into different classes, so that the student might be in the advanced course for, say, math, but in the basic course for English. It's not immediately clear to the US reader what Canada is doing so effectively--we have personable superintentants! we encourage students to participate in clubs! Why don't we have that ranking?

Well, for US and UK would-be educational reformers, Crehan does give us a short chapter of takeaways from her journey, and most of them are extremely reasonable. Here they are, with my commentary:

Principle 1: Get Children Ready for Learning (239)

* "Enhance children's social and pre-academic skills through rich environments and playful learning before age six, rather than requiring specfic academic outcomes from them" (242). [Yes, absolutely, and this is in standing with....all the very many books and articles I've read about play-based learning.]

* "Take time early on to teach children the routines" (242). Specifically simply physical routines: how do you line up? What outer layers do you need to take off before sitting down? Which groups are you supposed to get in when the teacher says, "Get into groups"? [Well...yeah. I don't know that any teacher on earth doesn't want to do this. Feels a little like first-year teacher stuff rather than national policy]

* "Give children (and teachers) a 10-15 minute break between each lesson" (243). [This one is an absolute no brainer in my mind. It's madness that in the US k-12 teachers are expected to teach for hours on end without getting a bathroom break, much less a chance to ask a colleague a question, or provide additional instruction for a student who needs help or is simply curious. Not to mention, the students benefit from a break in concentration! As a college professor used to the 50-minute hour, it's so bizzare to me that k-12 teachers aren't afforded the same thing. It's such a small time cost to improve student learning and teacher morale!

* "Resource schools with access to professionals who can address children's non-academic needs" (243). [ The US has long had a shortage of counselors, which is only worsening, but counselors are only part of the equation, and Crehan emphasizes we need a different attitude--not that students with difficult circumstances need to be given a lesser standard, but that the resources to help them meet the expected standard are given them. I'm always surprised how many of my students assume their mental health and learning disability accommodations in the classroom will exempt them from doing the work.]

Principle 2: Design Curricula Concepts for Mastery (and Context for Motivation)

* "A good national/provincial curriculum should be: Minimal--focusing on fewer topics, but in greater depth; High-level--Clear on what concepts and skills are required, without prescribing context or pedagogy; Ordered-- Organizing concepts in logical order, based on research into how children learn" (245). [This set of criteria remind me of The Knowledge Gap which argues for similar things, focusing on content learning. However, some of the same concerns of that book (there's a power struggle of what to include. And what gets excluded? and who decides?) are endemic in these proposals. Americans are notoriously balky about national curriculum, but Crehan points out even a school or a district could include the sequence. I was the beneficiary of some required and required sequences in my public education--2nd grade Thanksgiving time we learned about pilgrims and 3rd grade you got to learn about Indians, which everyone thought was much cooler; most freshmen at my high school took AP world history, and sophomores traditionally took AP US history. Sequencing could specifically help students who move schools and generally help all students build on previous information instead of starting over. But none of this means having a script for teachers to follow, just a handful of concepts that need splaining in some way]

Principle 3: Support Children to Take On Challenges, Rather than Making Concessions.

* "Delay selecting children into different schools based on ability until age 15 or 16"(248). [Americans might say, "Well, duh," but this includes the "school within a school" phenomenon magnet schools and G&T programs sometimes create. Student growth is too uneven over the first grades, and there's real inequity issues. Okay, but what about classes? That brings us to...]

* "Teach children in mixed-ability classes until 15 or 16" (249). I admit, if someone dropped this statement on me, I'd have strong opposing opinions and a story about how in junior-high English we read YA books aloud and watched movies-- Romeo + Juliet over three weeks-- during class time and never did anything challenging. But remember that principle about not making concessions. Instead of dumbing down the class for the weakest students, the idea should be making those students have to work harder, seek additional support like teacher and peer tutoring. As Crehand says, "expect all students to work towards the same curriculum, which is pitched at a reasonably high level, but alter the amount of help given" (249).]

* "Provide small, flexible group support from qualified professionals before/during/after lessons" (250). [American teachers might be screaming, "WHEN?!" at such a principle, but the countries with higher PISA scores actually require far fewer teaching minutes per day for teachers than the US. In Singapore, for example, "teachers have more non-teaching time during the school day than the OECD average" (145) or there might be additional teacher aids who help out after school or during lunch (249).]

Principle 4: Treat Teachers as Professionals

This principle is such a hackneyed complaint of the teaching profession it might be easy to dismiss, but Crehan means it in both the respect and the responsibility frame.

* "Require prospective teaches to under go a rigorous teacher training programme of at least a year, which is recognized by a professional body and includes the study of pedagogical content knowledge" and "Ensure newly-qualified teachers have a reduced teaching load and time with a dedicated mentor who also has a reduced teaching load" (251). [Okay, Americans may say "A year? Our teachers had to get a whole degree!" But I think the operative word here is "rigorous." There are some exceptions, but I'm shocked at how little rigor teacher education programs provide their students. I routinely have had education majors in my upper-division writing classes who have never written more than a 5-page essay in any of their education classes--it's less about page-length and more about sustained thinking and research about a given topic. I'm afraid I'm very rarely impressed with intellectual curiosity and rigor of the education majors that come through my doors.

This may sound like the old "Those who can't do, teach" chestnut or rage-baiting about an already demoralized profession. But if you are an excellent teacher, you don't want to be a big fish in a small pond; you want all your colleagues to be top-notch, not least because it will help your students learn, especially sequentially dependent learning. If Ms. Hypatia did a good job teaching fractions in 3rd grade, it will be easier for you to teach dividing fractions in 4th. There is in teacher education, unfortunately, many of those same concessions rather than high expectations going around.]

Principle 5: Combine School Accountability with School Support (Rather than Sanctions)

Remember in the Obama administration when all these reformers were into firing administrators for poorly performing schools? But also remember HISD this year? What if we gave them more resources instead?

* "Moniter school performance at a local or national level using school-level data or irregular national assessment" (256). [And in my opinion, if representative sampling is good enough for the US Census, it's good enough for US standardized tests. We're testing schools, not students.]

*"Make use of or create a network of former school leaders, to visit schools regularly and provide practicing school leaders with advice, support, and connection" (257). Remember that professionalization step? If your administrators are all master teachers, they can provide valuable pedagogical support.

*"Incentivise demonstrably good teachers and middle leaders to work in struggling schools and provide pedagogical leadership to other staff" (258). The carrot instead of the stick.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent, being a teacher she could understand how school systems worked in other countries. She choose 5 top performers in Pisa, stayed and taught in the countries and this is a description of how the different systems work and how they achieve excellence. There are major cultural differences, and in general support and parenting. As an ex maths teacher, her coverage was intriguing. I have also felt that numerical fluency is valuable, faced with 15 year old kids who can't divide by 3, lamented the lack of good textbooks in the UK, hopefully now being remedied and I have always seen the value of structured courses, where one bit is understood in depth before you move on, and there are less bits, our syllabus is very fragmented and our teacher pace too knee jerk to allow time to properly absorb and practise. I loved the Chinese emphasis on time between lessons, transition discipline, and daily exercises although I'm glad I didn't have that at school myself except what we called the break run to warm up before breakfast in the icy conditions of 1963. I'm not so sure about her liking Canada, for all its belief in diversity, I think it can be very conformist in culture and my niece's kids were electively home educated and are a fantastic pair. But a country good on second chances even in middle age.

[Nadya Estefani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book because it gives me new insights on some of the best education systems in the world.

[Mauricio Coindreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loves how the book not only relies on first-hand experience, but also on education and psychological studies. Very similar in content to The Smartest Kids in the World by Amada Ripley, think it pays a great service different education reforms around the world, while understanding how culture and environment support countries that want to do better.