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The teaching profession: Why doesn't it attract the best?

 

We all keep the memory of a special teacher. One who helped us look at mathematics in a different way or who told us fabulous stories of heroes and battles. That teacher who taught us a lesson we wouldn’t forget. Every time I talk about this subject with a colleague or friend it is common to hear a comment like “what a shame, we no longer have teachers like that.” Against which I always try to argue that there are still wonderful teachers, masters of their craft and committed to their mission. My job allows me to see them occasionally. Unfortunately, there are not as many as we wish, and it is not difficult to understand why: You have to be a kind of modern hero to embrace the teaching profession and exercise it in a committed way. This is when we wonder about the working conditions of teachers. This is not a new issue but it seems to require further debate. Let’s take a new look.

The report of Fundacion Compartir uses data from the Great Integrated Household Survey (In Spanish: GEIH) of 2011 showing that monthly teacher salaries are below those of other comparable professional occupations. Well, which are these comparable professional occupations? How much each of them earns? And, how much has this changed in recent years? We looked at the same data source, the GEIH, and its antecedent, the Continuous Household Survey (In Spanish: ECH). This allowed us to extend the analysis as far back as  2001. Also, we took the opportunity to update the results until 2014. Here, a chart that speaks a more than thousand words. http://www.hotels-scanner.us

First, a technical digression is in order. It is worth noting that here we only measure the monthly monetary earnings from the main occupation. We do not take into account non-monetary earnings or extraordinary bonuses, as the study of the Fundacion Compartir does. The results change very little when we take this into account. See this other study for different measurements of earnings per hour, month and year to teachers and other professionals with comparable features.

Now, let’s go to the central message. Teachers are among the lowest-paid professionals in Colombia. It has been this way for several years and it seems this won’t change in the medium term. Then we can ask: Under these conditions, who are those who choose to study to become a teacher? Baron and Bonilla already told us in 2011 that the best students of the SABER 11 tests do not graduate from education programs (Bachelors of Arts degrees). This article provides some newer material on the same.

Nevertheless, with a dose of optimism, one might ask: Do the skills of students pursuing degrees in teaching improve during college? The answer, discussed in detail in this article I wrote with my colleague Felipe Balcazar, is no. On the contrary, their math and reading skills deteriorate in relative terms. We’re not even close to taking the best professionals to our children’s classrooms. The next figure illustrates the situation.

Improving education systems requires faculty improvement. It is necessary to upgrade the conditions of current teachers, and thus, encourage talented young people to consider becoming teachers in the future. To attract themit is necessary to offer a decent, appealing, and meritocratic teaching career. As we said in this other entry, a comprehensive solution is complex and requires action on many fronts and in different time horizons. However, one thing is clear: it is unlikely that anything will change in the teaching profession if we keep maintaining the status quo and low wages without recognized meritocracy.

This article is for everyone to think about what we could do to have more good teachers for our students. These are scarce and those who remain, as I said, are a kind of modern heroes: They work against all odds and because of true vocation. Incentives are practically nonexistent.

And you? How do you think we can change the teaching profession?

5 myths of the educational discourse

Our beliefs and convictions about education and learning affect significantly the options we drive for its improvement. Let’s see if these five common assumptions are true or false.

① You can’t teach an old dog new tricks: the first three years of life determine the development potential and success in life

Without a doubt, the first years of life are the most critical for learning and establishing brain, and they are an important precedent for socio-emotional development. However, new research shows that the human brain is more flexible than once thought. Today we know that we have the ability to develop connections (or synapses) throughout life and, therefore, to learn new things. There is evidence that teenagers are able to learn socio-emotional skills that are essential to identify and regulate their emotions, understand others, show empathy, develop and maintain positive relationships, set goals and make responsible decisions. These skills are essential for employment performance and to successfully integrate into society. Disconnected, a publication of the IDB shows the importance of teaching socio-emotional skills and how these are demanded in the labor market.

② In order to learn, students must repeat and memorize the concepts properly

Memorization is a critical tool of the human brain to store and collect information to be used when required. Furthermore, repetition is a powerful strategy for achieving intellectual, athletic, and musical skills, among others. However, the education systems have overused memorization and repetition as teaching strategies and, in many cases, these methods have replaced critical thinking and in-depth approaches.

The publication The path towards success in mathematics and science: Challenges and Successes in Paraguay (Only available in Spanish, El camino hacia el éxito en matemáticas y ciencias: Desafíos y triunfos en Paraguay) shows the findings of an IDB program that aimed at strengthening critical thinking since preschool and primary.

③ Bad teachers are responsible for poor educational outcomes 

Did you know that, in the best scenario, only an average of 30% of the difference between students who learn more and those who learn less is attributable to the school and the teacher? Research in this area signals that individual, familiar and socioeconomic factors are responsible for at least 70% of these differences.  The kids’ physical and mental health, their IQ, and their family and cultural environment, influence the student’s academic achievement.

Although teachers cannot do everything or be blamed for everything, their effectiveness is key to the success of the education system. For that reason, education policies focus largely on improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers.

④ Girls perform higher in reading and boys, in mathematics

Although  national and international assessments in Latin America and the Caribbean show that girls achieve higher scores in language than boys, and that boys outperform girls in math, test scores from other parts of the world confirm that this is not universal trend. In fact, scores from 23 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) do not show gender gaps. Furthermore, in Iceland, Jordan, Malaysia, Qatar and Thailand, girls surpass boys in mathematics. 

The gender-differentiated results do not stem from a genetic or physiological predisposition, but from socialization patterns or cultural biases that encourage and value different skills for each sex. For example, the Technical Note entitled IDB Gender inequality, the hidden curriculum in Chilean textbooks presents evidence on how textbooks, especially in subjects such as math and science, give a different treatment of male and female characters.

⑤ Learning technology is going to improve education

Despite the enormous potential of technology to contribute to student learning, it is not enough on its own. Our research shows that for technology to fulfill its promise, many other factors must be in place such as: qualified teachers, appropriate curricula, an adequate software and a specific frequency of use. Technology is just a tool. The way how this tool is used will determine its effectiveness.

The publication entitled The IDB and technology in education: How to promote effective programs?, shows that the most successful programs are those in which trained teachers or facilitators have participated as guides to show students how to use the technology to boost their learning.

Tell us what other myths you think might affect our strategies to foster learning.

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The power of socio-emotional skills

I just read a fascinating new study published by the OECD: Skills for Social Progress: The Power of Social and Emotional Skills (2015). This study empirically substantiates much of what I have been writing about in past posts and provides considerable food for thought. This post summarizes some of its most interesting findings.

Skills beget skills, as the Nobel laureate James Heckman famously said. But not all skills are created equal. Different skills have different impacts on different outcomes.

From a cross-national perspective, three socio-emotional skills – those associated with capacities to achieve goals, work with others, and manage emotions – most consistently improve social and economic outcomes. These skills are closely related to cognitive skills. Success in school and life demands both. You can’t have one skill set without the other. Cognitive skills may get you into a good college or a good job, but it will be the socio-emotional skills that get you through college and help you improve life satisfaction.

Unraveling the association between cognitive and socio-emotional skills is tricky. And it is here where the Report makes some novel contributions. I find one to be really interesting: socio-emotional skills may activate cognitive skills. For example, in Korea, a child in the highest decile of socio-emotional skills is 7-8 percentage points more productive in producing future cognitive skills than her peer in the lowest decile. The higher a child’s level of socio-emotional skills at age 14, the greater the gains in her cognitive and socio-emotional skills by age 15. Current levels of socio-emotional skills (in this case, in 14-year-olds in Korea) matter more than current levels of cognitive skills in developing future cognitive skills (at age 15). “Children who are confident, responsible, and believe in their capacity to affect the future are more likely to achieve higher academic standards than those who are already smart (page 74).”

By shaping behavior and lifestyle, socio-emotional skills enhance outcomes along any number of dimensions – academic, social, economic. It makes sense. Take again the academic. Socio-emotional skills leverage cognitive capacities by allowing individuals to take fuller advantage of learning opportunities. Smart, but emotionally instable or socially detached kids, may not be able to make the cut where impressions are first made and learning trajectories are set: in school. Children that are calm, respectful, and emotionally stable are more able to sit, pay attention and be engaged in learning. These kids receive higher “learning investments” from parents and teachers. It’s kind of the squeaky wheel gets the grease phenomenon applied to education: kids that show interest, promise, and are motivated to learn get more investments – whether these investments include extra time from teachers or additional learning resources or opportunities from parents. The end result? More schooling and better grades.

There’s more. As I have mentioned in the past posts, socio-emotional skills are more malleable than cognitive skills. Although the evidence base remains shallow, early deficits in socio-emotional skills can be more readily compensated in later years than early deficits in cognitive skills. Socio-emotional skills are particularly malleable from early childhood through adolescence. And they can be taught – by schools, families, and communities. The most promising programs appear to share several characteristics: sequential, active and focused on real-life. In addition, as data from other projects like PRIDI make clear, a nurturing environment – that is, quality relationships between adults and children – also matters.

The evidence is compelling. It just needs to be more consistently put into practice.

The full report can be found here.