{"id":98285,"date":"2025-01-06T14:06:39","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=98285"},"modified":"2025-01-06T14:06:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:06:39","slug":"opinion-louis-volante-don-klinger-and-joe-barrett-discuss-the-future-of-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2025\/01\/opinion-louis-volante-don-klinger-and-joe-barrett-discuss-the-future-of-education\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Louis Volante, Don Klinger and Joe Barrett discuss the future of education"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Louis Volante, Professor of Educational Studies at Brock University; Don Klinger, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education and Professor of Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation at Murdoch University; and Joe Barrett, Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Brock University, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Roman mythology,\u00a0Janus was the god of doors, gates and transitions. Able to see in two directions, Janus was associated with passages, beginnings and endings.<\/p>\n

In January, the month named for him in the western calendar, it\u2019s fitting to consider how, in many respects, compulsory education systems require new beginnings in terms of envisioning broader objectives for their student populations.<\/p>\n

While students need to read, write and do arithmetic, the \u201cback to basics\u201d approach to promoting educational excellence,\u00a0formulated hundreds of years ago by the Prussians, will no longer suffice.<\/p>\n

Schools and societies have seen seismic technological, environmental, cultural and social changes. Kindergarten to Grade 12 systems must embrace a more multifaceted vision of educational excellence that includes the promotion of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills.<\/p>\n

These \u201ctwo faces\u201d \u2014 cognitive and non-cognitive \u2014 helps prepare students for their futures, not our past.<\/p>\n

Cognitive versus non-cognitive skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

Achievement in traditional subject areas like English and French, mathematics and science has long been recognized as important for students\u2019 cognitive skills. Many parents, teachers and policymakers become concerned when provincial or national test results suggests deteriorating or stagnant performance in these curriculum areas.<\/p>\n

Yet even the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is now quick to point out that cognitive achievement is necessary, but insufficient, for student success. The OECD, which runs the\u00a0largest and most influential international test\u00a0of reading, science, and mathematics \u2014 the Programme in International Student Assessment (PISA) \u2014 is also considering the value of other kinds of learning.<\/p>\n

A recent working paper published by the OECD,\u00a0Beyond Literacy: The Incremental Value of Non-Cognitive Skills, points out how a broad category of non-cognitive skills predict important life outcomes such as\u00a0educational attainment, employment, earnings and self-reported health and life satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Growth mindset<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-cognitive skills, sometimes called \u201csoft skills,\u201d include attributes such as \u201cgrowth mindset.\u201d This refers to a general belief that success is based on hard work and dedication, and is less related to innate and fixed qualities.<\/p>\n

A person with high-growth mindset would agree with the statement: \u201cMath doesn\u2019t come easy to me, but if I try hard, I will be successful.\u201d Interestingly, countries that have relatively\u00a0higher levels of growth mindset also tend to do better academically.<\/p>\n

Emotional intelligence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another frequently noted non-cognitive skill includes\u00a0social-emotional learning\u00a0or what is sometimes referred to as emotional intelligence. The latter allows students to self-regulate and ultimately become more resilient in the face of adversity and changing times.<\/p>\n

Although there are various factors that shape a child\u2019s emotional makeup,\u00a0social-emotional learning can be developed in classrooms\u00a0with the right supports.<\/p>\n

Physical health and well-being<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, physical health and well-being is also a critical non-cognitive ability, one that is often overlooked in Canadian education systems.<\/p>\n

As our research with colleagues suggests, provincial systems devoted relatively little policy attention to the development of physical health during the\u00a0initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic\u00a0as well as during the\u00a0recovery phase.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, this\u00a0disturbing trend\u00a0existed well before the outbreak of COVID-19. In some respects, we are now facing an impeding\u00a0epidemic of mental and physical health\u00a0in our schools without the benefit of adequate interventions.<\/p>\n

Ideals and practices<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each province in Canada is fully autonomous in developing and implementing education policies, as well as outlining the main purposes of education.<\/p>\n

In Ontario, for example, the provincial\u00a0Education Act\u00a0says \u201cthe purpose of education is to provide students with the opportunity to realize their potential and develop into highly skilled, knowledgeable, caring citizens who contribute to their society.\u201d Other provinces provide similar education guidance that underscores the importance of developing students\u2019 knowledge, skills and attitudes.<\/p>\n

What is clear from these various legislative mandates is that provinces have seemingly endorsed a holistic view of student development. Unfortunately, goal statements that align with holistic student development may look good on paper but are rarely realized in practice.<\/p>\n

Teacher education programs, for example, vary significantly within and across Canadian provinces and American states,\u00a0with limited attention devoted to mental health-related certification standards, including socioemotional learning.<\/p>\n

Fragmented approaches<\/strong><\/p>\n

Provincial approaches to assessing non-cognitive skills\u00a0are also fragmented, suggesting more innovative and integrated assessment systems are needed. It is hard to address a problem without the benefit of reliable and valid data sources.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0less than half of Canadian children\u00a0meet daily physical activity requirements, despite mandatory policies in provinces such as Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Given the close association between\u00a0child and adult obesity\u00a0rates, lack of attention to physical activity will have lasting negative consequences.<\/p>\n

Research also\u00a0suggests no new mental health policy developments occurred in half of Canadian provinces\u00a0in the aftermath of the pandemic. It appears provincial education systems\u00a0have been lagging in targeted policy developments\u00a0and implementation efforts related to non-cognitive skills.<\/p>\n

Clearly, there is an urgent need to embrace, in concrete terms, the dualities of cognitive and non-cognitive skills within our schools. Sometimes being two-faced can be a good thing.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis Volante, Professor of Educational Studies at Brock University; Don Klinger, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education and Professor of Measurement, Assessment and Evaluation at Murdoch University; and Joe Barrett, Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Brock University, recently published a piece in The Conversation about the need for compulsory education systems to adopt more multifaceted understandings of educational excellence in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,6],"tags":[6805,32,98,10798,3028,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98285"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98293,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98285\/revisions\/98293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}