On Education and Incentives

I always liked school as a kid, probably because I did fairly well in school. I thoroughly loved college, but perhaps more for the freedom and social aspects of it. Looking back, I grew a lot in college intellectually, so amid all that fun, TU was able to get through to me-which is grand. After teaching two years in China and now working almost two years with the Education Ministry here in Costa Rica, I can definitely say that I'm a big proponent of education and enjoy working in the industry/sector. Likewise, I've become very interested in it, and while still just getting my feet wet, have tried to read and inform myself about various aspects of the educational process. Even more than what I've read, my experiences in the classroom have informed my opinions on the process.

One big part of the educational process are incentives. I think it's quite obvious that if we simply let those individuals who wanted to study and learn something do so, the amount of people getting educated would be very few, and perhaps would be much older than age at which we are currently educated. Instead, as in so many other parts of life, incentives are used. Kids have to go to school or they or there parents get in trouble. Employers require a high school degree to gain employment or universities require it for admission. From there, each grade must be passed with satisfactory marks to move up the ladder. If you don't think this incentive is very strong, go to classroom, hand out an assignment and wait for the first question. It won't be "when is this due?" or "does this need to be typed?" or "what sort of answers are you looking for?" but in my experience, it will most certainly be "is this graded?". Providing grades, which are the key to passing and climbing the ladder to a diploma, are by far the biggest incentive to getting kids to learn. Probably because of the end goal, but also because we like to compare ourselves to others, we like to see concrete analysis of a level of achievement, and because grades are so easy to understand, they become the main measuring stick for parents as well. Some people have a problem with the importance that grades play as an incentive in the educational system-but I think that if a teacher correctly aligns the items, skills, and attitudes that he's trying to teach with the assessment, there shouldn't be many problems.

It's this alignment that had my head spinning during a conversation which occurred quite a while ago. I checked the facts with a few coworkers, and they all agreed that what my teacher told me was true. I was having a discussion with the high school teacher I'm assigned to work with about improving students speaking ability. One of my suggestions, and what brought about great success in my classroom in China, is to assign students dialogues to read and questions to ask each other and then respond to. I suggested to the teacher to then float around the classroom and grade students on their participation as well as their speaking progress. She informed me that this wouldn't work because she had to warn students in advance every time she was going to evaluate them. Each specific student needs to be warned and only a limited number of students can be evaluated at any time-meaning that only a few evaluations can occur each trimester. WHAT? Like I said, I checked this out, she was right. Needless to say I was in a state of shock for a second-then asked more details to understand this ludicrous regulation. I of course don't know the origin of these rules, but I imagine the idea was to 'protect' students from unannounced evaluation. Of course, the way I see it, this essentially 'protects' them from learning. Unfortunately, the message this sends to students is that they don't need to come to class ready, they don't need to review what they've learned, they can do (about) whatever they want in class and they won't suffer for it in their grades. As you might imagine, this turns out to be precisely what happens. A critical observer might wonder, if you can't grade students on whether they speak English in class, and you can only grade them if they know in advance and know what they'll be expected to say, how are you able to get students to speak English in class? Teachers with good motivational skills and good classroom management certainly can achieve success, but based on the all important incentive of grades-students most definitely aren't speaking English.

I can't remember if I've mentioned before the regulations about tests within the Costa Rican education system before or not, if I have, excuse the repetition. Teachers are only allowed to give six tests a year-rather-must give six tests a year. One mid-term and one final for each trimester. These tests must fit very precisely within the Education Ministry's regulations-the number of questions, the type of questions, and the portion of the test devoted to each type of question. It's shocking, at least to me, that every test from every class looks almost exactly the same. It's this regulation that has allowed me to talk to high school seniors, about to take the nationwide essay test required to graduate, that have never had to write a graded essay in their six previous years of high school! Additionally, teachers must list the subjects covered by the test during class time at least one week before the test. None of the "study what you think is most important" (aka developing decision making and priority weighing skills) and most definitely no pop quizzes to check if students are paying attention in class and certainly no weekly or twice weekly mini-quizzes to make sure students are progressing through material or developing skills. Nope, none of those incredibly important aspects of assessment. While I'd say frequent checks and assessments (be they basic and informal) are important for learning almost any material or mastering any skill, I think they are especially important for language learning, as it a skill that requires practice to maintain, and most definitely a skill with so many different levels, that it's important to always hark back to the basics as one moves up levels.

Being frustrated about the Education Ministry's policies is most definitely a common part of any TEFL volunteer's service. Yet, I highlight these deficiencies not only because I find them curious and worth sharing, but to help illuminate the fact that helping and training teachers often runs into roadblocks that are not my fault nor the teacher I'm helping. It's problematic, and indicative of a system in need of revision when the regulations prevent two people both trying to improve the learning environment from carrying out said activities. And certainly not limited to Costa Rica and its educational system.