Expectations in Japan

TIMSS and PIRLS

The TIMSS tries to create objective measurements that can be translated across the world, regardless of context or culture. They devised an 11 context questionnaire scales which they then combined into 5 robust school effectiveness measures.

3 measures of effective school environment, Schools Are Safe and Orderly Schools Support Academic Success

2 measures of effective school instruction. Students Engaged in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Lessons

According to the TIMSS study, one of the most stable findings in education research is impact of students’ background on achievement, especially parents’ level of education and occupation or earnings. Whether home environment stimulates early development of literary skills also important, so an additional measurement of a home background control model included 2 additional measures- home resources for learning, and an index of students’ ability to do numeracy and literacy tasks when they started school.

Since the TIMSS AND PIRLS looks at the relationships among countries, it has found that few countries (with the exception of Singapore and Finland) score highly in all 3 areas- science, math, and reading. However, most score higher in two areas over other countries. Considering that the measures look at 3 different areas, school environment, school instruction, and home environment, it can be inferred that culture is the largest driver of student performance- the demands and expectations of the culture and what it values are the largest drivers of student success in those three areas. This correlates with personal experience. As an English teacher in China, my experience was that the students can read and write well enough, but their ability to interpret what they read and perform critical thinking on it is sorely lacking. This is a result of the focus on obeying the instructions of the leaders of the communist party- those who ask questions are creating disruption, and harmony is valued above all else. Students only needed to be able to recite the party line on whatever subject or question they were asked, and so most assignments are simply research assignments in which students quote famous leaders, and thus critical thought is suppressed. As a result, their reading ability suffers. While this observation cannot be confirmed due to a lack of data in China, there are similar cultural factors in Japan and Taiwan, and the data shows that while students perform highly in mathematics, their reading levels are quite weak in comparison. (TIMMS and PIRLS 2011 pp. 20) The TIMSS doesn’t have English data for Mainland China, Japan, or Malaysia, so I am unable to confirm personal observations with the data, but my experience in teaching mathematics shows similar trends in which cultural priorities dictate student achievement. Japan is particularly strong in mathematics, and I would attribute this to a parental focus. Parents see mathematics as a key way to distinguish intelligence, as the simplicity of correct and incorrect answers tends to lend itself a clear marker for success or failure. In my discussions with the English teacher of my third grade class, Mr. Beese and I compared the number of parent emails about their students. We noticed that even among the “helicopter” parents who are constantly monitoring their child's performance, there is a remarkable different in the amount and content of emails depending on if the subject was Mathematics or English. While there are numerous variables that will not be discussed or analyzed, (E.G. race, parents education, income bracket, knowledge of teacher and duration of teacher’s time at the school, command of the English language) it was clear that in general, parents felt much freer to critique the progress of their children in Mathematics than in English. They were far more involved in making sure their students performed, and as their mathematics teacher, I have received more than double the requests for special assistance in the form of extra homework and exercises for struggling students, as opposed to my English counterpart. From this and other experiences, it is clear that parents value their child’s mathematical abilities far more than their English abilities. This is reflected in the students academic performance, where last quarter 11% of English students were failing their international Cambridge exams, while only 4% were failing mathematics. This mentality is reflected in the PISA 2012 mathematics performance, where China and Japan both had strong average PISA scores in the top 5 of countries analyzed. (PISA 2012, pp 10)

The academic expectations of my school reflect one of the greatest weaknesses of the students, in that there is only a minority of the staff who are properly trained teachers- the school is only seven years old and originated as a homeschool program ran by several parents. As a result, the academic expectations for the younger grades are abysmal. Upon showing another teacher my rubrics(for feedback) I created for a math project that I wanted to give to my 3rd graders, he told me that I was already doing more than the previous teachers in providing clear and organized rubrics. When students began turning in their assignments this Friday, more than half my students in each of my three classes failed to turn anything in at all. I had given them two weeks to do something, and so they had waited until the day before it was due before working on it. This created numerous problems, mainly in being unable to collaborate with their partners and highly rushed projects which didn't match the rubrics at all. The simple fact is that students had no experience with managing their time outside of school for projects, they had no experience in reading the rubrics to anticipate what grades their work would get, and they were terrible at managing social conflict that arose during the work- many groups broke up within the last 2 days with students leaving to work alone. The school has terrible expectations for the students, and that was reflected in their submissions. The expectations of the school are completely exam based- so most of the things I am trying to teach, are not being taught or reinforced by my coworkers, making much of what I do appear to be a waste of time, because I'm going it alone. It is causing me to rethink my way of teaching, as I am considering just adapting to my coworkers style of focus on exam based work. My attempts to reorganize my classroom into groups and clusters of tables is also facing slow progress because students aren't used to working together- the only style I have seen in the other classrooms is the exam style of rows and columns of tables. This means that there are no explicit expectations for how students should communicate with each other when working together, and as a result, there are numerous disruptions and problems every time I require group work. I am beginning to adapt some of the lessons I have seen in my course studies such as the teachers explicit posters of "seeing and hearing" where she models what good group-work looks and sounds like.

In summation, the greatest driver of student performance in any classroom across the world is the home environment. This is clearly reflected at my school, which has very low standards and expectations, but children are still able to perform at an acceptable because of the influence of their parents. The next biggest factor is classroom environment, whether it encourages failure, group-work and collaboration, or discourages it. This clash of culture from the Japanese side and my own style and desire for a more relaxed atmosphere is causing a lot of problems to the degree that I am considering bowing to peer pressure, and teaching a style I disagree with and disapprove of, as consistency is extremely important, and my dissonant environment and style aren't meshing well with the larger school culture. The final factor is the individual teaching and styles associated with it, which is counter-intuitive considering the emphasis we place on the quality of teachers all over the world. The reality is that students won't suffer too greatly from a poor teacher so long as they have a positive home and school environment.

Michael, M. (2013). Timss and pirls 2011: Relationships Among Reading, Mathematics, and Science Achievement at the Fourth Grade—Implications for Early Learning. [online] Available at: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0BzYfzjQoASL_MjJNY1U4eGY1SVE.