historytechdoc
Offline
Country of origin United States
Country of current residence Netherlands
recent forum
- De Facto School Hours Standard 890 NOT 1040!(sun-n-fun)historytechdoc - the correct spelling is 'clickit' Thank you sun-n-fun! I'll try to get 'it' right next time., 06/12/2007 06:25
- De Facto School Hours Standard 890 NOT 1040!important educational issues remain unsolved. It is not only here in this dialogue that any bare consensus of the most important educational parameters can not be agreed upon nor can much be gained by a cursory comparison of countries' regulatory hours gathered by the OECD. What the 2007 OECD report tells does tell us, is that not all governments agree on the same number of hours that should be required to acquire an unspecified level of education for 7 to 14 year olds. What this report does not tell us are the following: * There is no known international standard for academic achievement based on classroom hours even for 14 year-olds at the top end of the OECD age scale. What each country expects its children to know by the age 14, varies according to each countries cultural norms and expectations of achievement, or even political demands. * There is no information available to tell us how to compare the basics of reading and writing based on classroom hours because, for instance, that would assume that all languages have an equal number of hours required for teaching. It might be possible to take a single subject such as English and use comparative TOEFFL test score or the like compared to the number of hours English was taught to come up with some national comparison, but local languages would not likely be comparable. * Comparing classroom hours for children above 14 years of age, presents an even greater research dilemmas, due to an even broader range and variety of educational curriculums, than found at the basic educational level for youngster 14 and under. * There appears to be no common definition or objective way of measuring 'quality of education'; classroom hours as a 'quality' standard is simply too problematic and non-comparable across international borders to reveal any credible findings as I think we have found out in our dialogue here in Expatica. Upper school students forming 'rebellious' [LAKS term] pressure groups only make the formulation of adequate school hours more difficult to resolve. The minimalist classroom hours demanded by groups such as these, should not be given into. Instead Netherlands criteria should be based on what our future learning needs will be, balanced by reasonable expectation of our children's capacity to physically and emotionally carry out. A warning signal that too much has been demanded of our students would be any significant suicides directly related to school pressures, which apparently has been the case in Japan for sometime. Some students can handle academic pressure better than others; we need to make sure that those students are given opportunity to excel. Parents' expectations should also be reasonable. Not all children have the determination and capacity to become University Students. The model in the U.S. where an uncommonly high percentage of graduating high school students, as compared to former decades, are headed for college or university. This has tended to water down the achievements expected from and perception of a university education from what it once was. In effect, this has created a surplus of college graduates with no salable skills, highly in debt from student loans and unable to find good paying employment., 06/12/2007 06:22
- De Facto School Hours Standard 890 NOT 1040!Clicket: "You are refering to a different study than the one I have been referring to all along - I have been quoting the OECD PISA study (Programme for International Student Assessment). I gave the link for that too." HTD: All along? Check again and you'll see that I started this link with the OECD's 2007 reference, and with good reason to focus in on their updated study instead of an using outdated source. The priority for citations usually goes with the lead poster. By 'all along' ignoring my lead citations does not give you superior priority as long as you refused to refer to my initial source first. I found that 'googled' source by myself without the assistance of any previous citations elsewhere in the Discussion Forum. Clicket: "If you have to resort to being patronising I most certainly will not bother reading anything else you post either." HTD: "Being patronising? Now that's a real stretch for someone who has consistently acted (and made nasty personal accusations) without having indicated in any meaningful fashion that they have read relevant hyperlink references beginning this post in the first place." Clicket: "Its obvious that every survey must have limitations and the OECD has never tried to hide that." HTD: Oh, so now it's 'obvious', bravo! In your last post it was 'made up stuff' and 'dreamed up'. And I mentioned before that OECD had mentioned their limitation first and did not in the faintest imply that they had attempted to cover it up. Clicket: "You dont respond to questions and when you do you dont offer any evidence to back them up (the Finnish weather?) and you conveniently ignore other relevant posts. You have offered no evidence as to why increased classroom hours would be beneficial in the Netherlands, you only attack my posts. I have continued to offer good reasons for not forcing schools to supply 1040 classroom hours per year, which many have already proved they are unable to do, what do you have to offer in response?[/quote] HTD: Hogwash. I assume that you are referring to posts concerning 'Quality' in education. Here's what I said earlier concerning those: "Quality is usually more difficult to find objective criteria for measurement, but should include as you suggest: longer class room hours, as well as smaller class room sizes (ratio of teachers to pupils), well trained and experienced teachers, etc." (Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:51 am) And just one of my comments referring directly to the 'class room hours' problem made earlier than either your posts (Pikora only cited your quotes in this dialogue by the way): "Then there appears to be other underlying issues, such as pupils sitting in classes without teachers. From my daughter's experience in her upper school this really is not a '1040' issue, but rather a budgeting or management issue that does not provide or insist that substitute teachers are put into classrooms when regular teachers are absent. Classes have been cancelled on a regular basis in her school, but there the kids are free to leave their school. So no complaints from them about sitting in teacherless classroom. However, for me, as a parent, I am not happy about neither myself nor the school not knowing where she and the others are when this occurs. Neither would I be happy about having them simply sit in an unsupervised room either (certainly not an atmosphere conducive for homework study). In these cases I would rather that they be sent to their school's library or study hall, set up for these instances WITH adult supervision. The real solution is for school direction to be made to provide substitutes with few exceptions rather than the rule." (Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:27 am) There are other places as well where I have discussed these topics, but when posters ask me to respond to questions that I have already given what I think is an adequate response earlier in the same dialogue, I see no need to have to repeat myself and only confuse the dialogue further. If either of you had quoted any of my posts, such as those mentioned above, then I would have gladly responded. It would really be nice if for once you would admit that you missed these details (and so many others as have already been pointed out), so that we could go on with this discussion. You keep on characterizing "Finnish weather" as being non-relevant to this dialogue; you pretend to think that only issues that are important to you have relevance to the number of school hours children can attend. As I have mentioned, it is not only weather alone (long-term freezing temperatures, deep snow and icy road conditions) but also distances to 'local' Finnish schools in sparsely settled areas of Lapland (part of Finland by the way) where schools are few and far between as well as a lack of trains and other forms of infrastructure and transportation that make holding longer classroom hours impossible. Until you have ridden your fiets to school in minus 30º weather on a continuous basis as my colleague has done, I wouldn't dismiss weather conditions as having no effect on class room hours as you enjoy doing. I find it rather inhumane to expect school children to spend much more than 5 or 6 hours in school if they have to spend almost that long, up to 4 hours or more just getting there. Right now the daylight hours in Lapland run from 10 o'clock in the morning till 3.00 o'clock in the afternoon. With 6 hours of class room hours that means that children in Lapland can be going back and forth to school in entire darkness. How do you think Finnish mothers feel about their children being out so long in this weather and often quite far away? It's not easy and takes a tough people to adapt to these conditions. Have you ever ridden a bike in -30ºs for over 5 km on a regular basis? If not then, I wouldn't so easily brush off those who have. Or perhaps you enjoy people reacting to your comments in a disgusting manner? I doubt if you are convincing many people that do understand these extreme conditions and must wonder how you can dismiss this item with such ease! I think that you cast doubt on every thing else you have to say by doing this. As mentioned, Finnish children spend more time at home staying inside because of these extreme weather conditions, which you chose to ignore, (even though you use them as an example of having a highly perceived educational standard). And (hopefully) for the last time, yes quantity does not equal quality, but quality does need some (extremely hard to measure precisely) quantity of school hours as well. Quality is almost a totally subjective thing and very difficult to measure with objective standards such as class room hours or any other criteria of that sort for that matter. So one really can't argue one way or another, except in the extremes, whether more or fewer school hours can improve or diminish school quality. That's why we have a Second Chamber to listen to what students, teachers, and parents have to say on this matter. That's the best that we can expect until more research is available. Certainly, insisting that substitutes be provided when regular teachers are absent should improve 'quality', but that's a 'zero-sum' game argument of either having a trained educator in each and every class period or not. One would have to argue that the students do not need teachers at all, to show that providing a substitute does not have at least some marginal impact on school quality. But by the same token providing closer local schools and warmer transportation systems in sub-freezing conditions also should have some marginal favorable impact on school quality in Finland as do providing substitute teachers on a regular basis here. My Finnish associate did add that from her schooling experience, substitute teachers were generally available and there were very few times where neither the regular teacher or a substitute showed up for their class room lessons. So as even clicket pointed out before in this dialogue: "...it's not simply a matter of throwing more classroom hours at students, there are many more factors involved in supporting a top quality educational environment". (Clicket, Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 2:09 pm). So why can't weather and distance to schools also be factors worthy of consideration? One simply has to evaluate each country's conditions on their own merit before making wide-sweeping conclusions based simply on government school hour regulations! We simply need more research directed at the relationship between classroom hours under which condition that positively impact on the 'quality of education', before we are able to judge whether more or fewer hours provide the answer for improving the Netherlands overall competitiveness needed for our children's future., 06/12/2007 07:14
- De Facto School Hours Standard 890 NOT 1040!It's very hard to debate anything with you clickit because you simply refuse to fully read my posts. Now if you would carefully go back to my second post on page 1, you will find my reference, which reads: "Education at a Glance 2007 OECD INDICATORS". The hyperlink for this citation is: http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9607051E.PDF "Table D1.2a. Instruction time per subject as a percentage of total compulsory instruction time for 9-to-11-year-olds (2005) [page] 370 Table D1.2b. Instruction time per subject as a percentage of total compulsory instruction time for 12-to-14-year-olds (2005) [page] 371" Perhaps you don't know or understand how to follow a hyperlink or website locator, so I'll tell you. First you copy the full line that starts out "http://213.253.134.43/oecd...etc. on to the top line in your text that usually begins with: http:// or www. Then when you press enter or return you'll be taken to that webpage. There you will find that first page is entitled: "Education at a Glance 2007 OECD INDICATORS". Now you can find my quotations starting on page 370 or 371 and you can see for yourself that I have properly quoted the all the items that you accuse me: "Do you really just make all this stuff up?" or that it's "dreamed up". Please note that my statistics are taken from a more recent OECD report dated '2007' while your PISA report is dated '2006'! Believe it or not there is more than one OECD report on this issue. Now my opinion is that after writing their 2006 PISA report they received so much criticism that they apparently decided to reissue a new report with all the disclaimers that I quoted. So I suggest that you include in your vast repetoire of educational reading this updated OECD report as well, so that we can discuss this issue further with the most recent data. Clickit: "According to the OECD Report itself; "More than 400.000 students in 57 countries participated in PISA 2006, which involved a two-hour test with both open and multiple-choice tasks." Yes, agreed this part of the PISA 2006 would be considered 'field work'. However, the compilation of regulatory class hours cited in the OECD's 2007 Educational Report would not be, since it would not require anything more than the notation of class room hours required by each country's laws and would normally be available by looking up each countries legal requirements in their national legal publications. One would assume that the OECD would have asked for specific legal citations to corroborate these stats. The referred to notation of required school hour, juxtaposed to those actually attended, would be considered as a form of library research and not field work. Had they tried to assess the number of school hours actually attended by pupils then it would have required field work indeed. So clickit once more you have erroneously leaped to judgments with charges of "making up stuff" or "dreamed up" citations without having read the details cited from the OECD 2007 report in my posts. You continously are willing to make totally unfounded and careless accusations--non-stop! Have you no pride?, 05/12/2007 06:37
- De Facto School Hours Standard 890 NOT 1040![quote="clickit"][quote=historytechdoc]"...and I am very well read indeed regarding education. Again you seem to be stacking odd ideas together and coming up with conclusions based on absolutely nothing related to reality. Back to school hours - Finnish schools have the least number of classroom hours or any developed country (OECD) yet they are consistantly ranked at the very top in educational outcomes." I read your post, you talk about Finnish weather, not the content of their school curriculum and teaching methods. The OECD reports on education are very well regarded by the way, they have far more credibility than one 'Finnish colleague'. Perhaps you should also read and reply to Pakora's post, you know, in order to avoid a 'monologue'...[/quote] Nice editing clickit! Did you neglect to read the preceding paragraph or just choose not to include it in your quote? Because if you had you would have included that it would have been clear that the OECD puts a very strong caveat on their own statistics and dismisses themselves such general conclusions which you have conventionally chosen to ignore from the same OECD Report that provides the stats for Finland et al: "Evidence and explanations: What this indicator shows" Intended instruction time is an important indicator of students’ opportunity to learn as well as the public resources invested in education. This indicator captures intended instruction time as a measure of exposure to earning in formal classroom settings as per public regulations. It does not show the actual number of hours of instruction received by students and does not compare learning outside of the formal classroom setting. Discrepancies could exist across countries between the regulatory minimum hours of instruction and the actual hours of instruction received by students. There is some research showing that factors such as school timetable decisions, lesson cancellations (Box D1.1) and teacher absenteeism may mean that the minimum instruction hours are not reached." In simple language the OECD is saying that there are important factors that were or could not be taken into consideration in their survey. You continue to dismiss and come to conclusions that even the OECD would not dare to make based upon the above given limitations of their research. Furthermore, independent first-hand witnesses that make obvious points about the very harsh climate condition in the Finnish winter are objective and can be confirmed by most 8 grade students who have done their geography lessons. 200 days of of zero degrees or less winters in Lapland is a confirmable fact. Monographic sources have taken precedent over second hand readings ever since Francis Bacon at the time of King James I persuaded scientists to better rely upon the 'Book of Nature' instead of textual second hand accounts. Once again the OECD report clearly states that they have omitted many important factors in comparing individual countries. By the way bragging about how much that you think you have read is only one person's opinion and not a given fact nor of any consequence in any way convincing in a serious debate! The real problem here is that the OECD study only relied upon very general superficial statistics taken from the little data (economically obtained centrally reported statistics without field research) that is actually available on this research topic. They have clearly and fairly labeled this weakness so that objective observers would not make the kind of conclusions that the LAKS student have sophomorically arrived. In summary, the OECD stats by their own admission can not take into consideration sufficient factors, especially ones that at are at the heart of the Dutch debate, such as teacher absenteeism and lesson cancellations, to make any of the sweeping conclusions and generalizations that you wish to read into this report. Therefore, if there in effect is insufficient comparative analysis to arrive at any general conclusions based upon objective criteria, such as legal class room hours, then there certainly can not be sufficient information available to make any comparisons about 'quality' in education, since quality is a far more subjective theme than quantity. This does not mean that such a study, especially for the upper school, would not be welcomed, it does mean that, perhaps due to the underlying complexity of study from which scientifically meaningful conclusions could be reached, the OECD's current priorities or financial resouces to conduct such a study have not been available. , 05/12/2007 11:40
recent forum
- What exactly was the point of this study by Ruigrok | NetPanel and Expatica.com? And how much did it cost?
Truly a ridiculous question posed in this study! Supposedly aimed at 'proving' some underlying disloyalty or prejudice on the part of those either having or desiring Dual-Nationality. Why was not the question asked whether one could be happy if either country won, or even better for one to be happy with whoever is the best athlete.
A split of 56% vs. 44% tells very little in any case, without knowing how long an expat has been living in a foreign country, or what their expectations are of being rotated to another region or back to their home base. It takes time to become familiar with local national athletes and if one is on a two-year rotation, it really doesn't give one enough time to neither know the local culture nor its sports champions.
As far as the current 2008 Olympics are concerned, this whole event has been mainly a hugh (staged) PR event for China to gain prestige and a commercial venture for all its suppliers.
For me the importance of Olympics is for a lot of young people to get together better know each other; not only to compete, but become more tolerant of each other's cultures. Otherwise, I'll be glad to see it pass away for another 4 years.
This event has pushed aside some really long-term important news in Georgia and Pakistan, etc. Expats show more loyalty to homeland athletes, 25/08/2008 11:40 - Three cheers for these parents in Bussum! Dutch schools are no longer able to provide the type of basic education that improves the chances for our children to succeed in life after their school years.
Not only have the standards for Dutch teachers drastically deteriorated, but the teachers themselves have virtually no tools with which to discipline pupils who constantly disrupt schoolrooms. The Dutch Ministry of Education has been experimenting with schools' policies and procedures since at least the 1970s and now we have a basically dysfunctional school system from kindergarten through graduate university programs and all levels in between.
Down here in Zuyd Limburg hundreds of feed-up parents have enrolled in better-run schools just across the border in Belgium. Ironically, the Limburg newspapers keep on running columns asking why!
What is needed are smaller classroom sizes, better educated teachers, easier ways for schools to expel unruly pupils and students, no vacant classrooms without substitute teachers, no more first-name basis for teachers after kindergarten, and more respect for those with hard-earned academic titles.
So-called unions of high school students have also helped to degrade our educational system by constantly demanding fewer school days and exams. The Ministry of Education has too easily given into their demands. Now we are growing an ever increasing inventory of under-educated children, who will not have the education and skills necessary to succeed and maybe not even survive in an ever increasing globalized economy.
Is it no wonder that The Netherlands suffers a 'low-brow' reputation when it promotes such wide disrespect for teachers and university trained personnel? Other countries ask when one travels in the NL and no one seems to have a doctor's title there, except for physicians who are mostly only doctorandi (masters degrees without dissertation). Furthermore, parents and children have no idea what the last name of most of their children's teachers are.
Time the Dutch system stops being so uncritical of itself and more self-examining. Comparing our schools only with Dutch schools within a faulthy system provides no measure for future educational needs. All arrogance after all is just another form of social blindness. First private primary school opens in Holland, 13/08/2008 11:11 - Wayne, Deka is a German firm, not American. Dutch broadcaster Veronica told to cover up, 13/08/2008 09:10
- Deka would do their investors a better service by not wasting their money on expensive legal fees for such frivolous lawsuits. This may partially explain why some of Deka's funds have not performed as well as expected. Dutch broadcaster Veronica told to cover up, 13/08/2008 09:09
- Yes, I certainly agree with Tony McCuaig's post. As much as I was enthusiastic in seeing Obama win his Senate seat in 2004, I'm frankly concerned that he lacks both substance and experience to the extent that he could add more instability to the already fragile world political situation.
Obama talks 'Change' but how do we know that this is not code for a Second American Revolution? His obvious vagueness allows many voters the opportunity to fill in their own private scenario any way that they wish!
Sorry, but B.O. is just too cleverly packaged to be sufficiently believable and trustworthy to be the Democratic Party's next Presidential Nominee.
Hopefully, if he really can be objective about himself and the future of the U.S. and the rest of the world, Obama will be able to see that choosing for the Vice Presidential nominee with Senator Clinton as the Presidential one is in the best interest for us all. Obama Wins Democrats Abroad Global Primary, 23/02/2008 02:45
Best summer photo: ethnic beauty at T’nalak festival
Expatica reader Ronald de Jong captured this image at the T’nalak festival in the Philippines.
disscussion forum
- International News Official Language, by wanda_2005 05/09/2008 18:48
- Democrats Abroad Sarah Palin Is Your New..., by mvn 05/09/2008 18:45
- Dutch News Dutch trying to get Marocco to change nationality law again, by 100%Frisian 05/09/2008 18:40
- UK Forum What Food Do You Miss Here?, by emeraldlady1968 05/09/2008 18:24
- Discuss Dutch Culture Using mobile phones when cycling - Fine or not?, by The_Purple_Cow 05/09/2008 18:22
- South Africa Forum SA with Dutch passport but no clue where to start, by cloggieking 05/09/2008 18:19
- Housing PLACES TO BUY FURNITURE, by cloggieking 05/09/2008 18:15
- USA Forum Salaries in Amsterdam vs US (large cities), by newyorker 05/09/2008 18:15
- Ireland Forum All Ireland Hurling Finals?, by the wickerman 05/09/2008 18:06
- International News Obama Speech In Berlin., by Wild Rose Country 05/09/2008 17:40
