What are the differences and what changes would have to be done?
How would AI help?
In an attempt to not get too far afield, let me take the 2nd question first. That AI is here and that students are using it is a given. Schools can acknowledge that and use it as a “teachable moment” by encouraging students to bring in the AI results they’ve used and then teaching them how to verify that the information is correct. This is the heart of teaching critical thinking skills.
The concern that AI is used to produce book reports, term papers, research papers, and even artwork for class assignments, etc. is a valid issue, however, it reveals a mistaken belief that these forms of assessment, called “summative assessments,” exhibit the best practice for teaching in learning. This not the case. “Formative assessment” provides better outcomes. In this approach, the teacher makes one-on-one contact with every student, hopefully during every class session, checking on their progress and offering constructive feedback to direct them to the desired objectives of the lesson plan. By the time the final project is produced, whatever it is, there should be no question that it is the student’s own work. Incorporating AI results into this provides the opportunity for the student to “evaluate” the quality of the information that the AI has produced and the ability to evaluate is a much more complex objective than regurgitating what was read in a book or heard in a lecture.
As for the first question about the differences, there are many. One, is that teachers in many other countries must meet very high standards in order to enter the profession. While the statistics are complex and really need to be analyzed to fully understand the nuances, in America, teachers generally represent those with lower SAT/ACT scores than other professions. In other countries, teachers are assigned a master teacher who guides them through their apprenticeship, much the way it is done in the trades, moving from apprentice to journeyman to master. In America, new teachers are given keys to the classroom and have to fend for themselves.
Perhaps the major difference is that in most other countries, school is about its academic mission. Social activities, clubs, and sports are not part of that mission and if the student wishes to participate in them, it is done in clubs after school. For me, this is a big change that would improve the American system but it’s simply not going to happen because “we have always done it this way.” As a classroom teacher, I was annoyed by the emphasis put on sports, how students were excused from my classes to participate in them, how classes were canceled so we could have pep rallies, and how more money was spent on a single sport than the math or science departments. Trophy cases line the hallways celebrating athletic achievement with little to celebrate academic ones. This all sends a message as to what is important and students respond to that.
OK, I could go on but it’s really off-topic so I’ll leave it there.
