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Note to President Obama: Want to Fix the Schools? Look to Portugal!
President Obama already knows that the nation's schools are failing a large number of young Americans. One-third of all students drop out before finishing high school. It's a terrible record, and it's even worse in inner city public schools, where only half of blacks and Hispanics graduate from school. This is not a legacy that would make anyone proud: More young Americans on a proportionate basis drop out of school today than at any other time in our history.
This problem is undoubtedly complicated, but one of the reasons why many American youth are unmotivated and not learning well is that they're bored in school. They're grown up in a fast paced, challenging digital world, with the Internet, mobile devices, video games and other gadgets. They watch less television than their parents did and TV is typically a background activity. They are a generation doesn't like to be broadcast to and they love to interact, multi-task and collaborate. Yet, when they get into the classroom, they're faced with stale textbooks and lectures from teachers who are still using a nineteenth century innovation, chalk and blackboard.
American classrooms need to enter the 21st century. Thousands of teachers agree. Earlier this year, several important educational groups urged the president and Congress to spend nearly $10 billion to improve technology in the classroom, and ensure teachers know how to use computers most effectively.
To show the way, I suggest the president take a look at a modest country across the Atlantic that's turning into the world leader in rethinking education for the 21st century.
That country is Portugal. Its economy in early 2005 was sagging, and it was running out of the usual economic fixes. It also scored some of the lowest educational achievement results in western Europe.
So Prime Minister Jose Socrates took a courageous step. He decided to invest heavily in a "technological shock" to jolt his country into the 21st century. This meant, among other things, that he'd make sure everyone in the workforce could handle a computer and use the Internet effectively.
This could transform Portuguese society by giving people immediate access to world. It would open up huge opportunities that could make Portugal a richer and more competitive place. But it wouldn't happen unless people had a computer in their hands.
In 2005, only 31% of the Portuguese households had access to the Internet. To improve this penetration, the logical place to start was in school, where there was only one computer for five kids. The aim was to have one computer for every two students by 2010.
So Portugal launched the biggest program in the world to equip every child in the country with a laptop and access to the web and the world of collaborative learning. To pay for it, Portugal tapped into both government funds and money from mobile operators who were granted 3G licenses. That subsidized the sale of one million ultra-cheap laptops to teachers, school children, and adult learners.
Here's how it works: If you're a teacher or a student, you can buy a laptop for 150 euros (U.S. $207). You also get a discounted rate for broadband Internet access, wired or wireless. Low income students get an even bigger discount, and connected laptops are free or virtually free for the poorest kids. For the youngest students in Grades 1 to 4, the laptop/Internet access deal is even cheaper -- 50 euros for those who can pay; free for those who can't.
That's only the start: Portugal has invested 400 million euros to makes sure each classroom has access to the Internet. Just about every classroom in the public system now has an interactive smart board, instead of the old fashioned blackboard.
This means that nearly nine out of 10 students in Grades 1 to 4 have a laptop on their desk. The impact on the classroom is tremendous, as I saw this spring when I toured a classroom of seven-year-olds in a public school in Lisbon. It was the most exciting, noisy, collaborative classroom I have seen in the world.
The teacher directed the kids to an astronomy blog with a beautiful color image of a rotating solar system on the screen. "Now," said the teacher, "Who knows what the equinox is?"
Nobody knew.
"Alright, why don't you find out?"
The chattering began, as the children clustered together to figure out what an equinox was. Then one group lept up and waved their hands. They found it! They then proceeded to explain the idea to their classmates.
This, I thought, was the exact opposite of everything that is wrong with the classroom system in the United States.
The children in this Portuguese classroom were loving learning about astronomy. They were collaborating. They were working at their own pace. They barely noticed the technology, the much-vaunted laptop. It was like air to them. But it changed the relationship they had with their teacher. Instead of fidgeting in their chairs while the teacher lectures and scrawls some notes on the blackboard, they were the explorers, the discoverers, and the teacher was their helpful guide.
Yet too often, in the U.S. school system, teachers still rely on an Industrial Model of education. They deliver a lecture, the same one to all students. It's a one-way lecture. The teacher is the expert; the students are expected to absorb what the teacher says and repeat. And students are supposed to learn alone.
Teachers often feel that this is the only way to teach a large classroom of kids, and yet the classroom in Portugal shows that giving kids laptops can free the teacher to introduce a new way of learning that's more natural for kids who have grown up digital at home.
First, it allows teachers to step off the stage and start listening and conversing instead of just lecturing. Second, the teacher can encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the teacher's information. Third, the teacher can encourage students to collaborate among themselves and with others outside the school. Finally, the teacher can tailor the style of education to their students' individual learning styles.
It's not easy to change the model of teaching. In fact, this is the hard part. It's far easier to spend money, as Portugal did, to put Internet into the classroom and equip the kids with laptops. ( By now, half of high school students now have them, as do four in 10 middle school students.)
Yet Portugal has been careful to invest in teacher training to capitalize on the possibilities of the laptops in schools. They're also thinking of creating a new online platform to allow teachers to work together to create new lessons and course materials that take advantage of the interactive technology. Through this collaboration, the Portuguese school system will create exciting new online materials to educate children. Lots of ideas are already making their way into Portuguese classrooms, says Mario Franco, chair of the Foundation for Mobile Communication, which is managing the e-school program. There are 50 different educational programs and games inside the laptops the youngest children use. The laptops are even equipped with a control to encourage kids to finish their homework and score high marks. If they do, they get more time to play.
It's too early to assess the impact on learning in Portuguese schools. Studies of the impact of computers in schools elsewhere have been inconclusive, or mixed. One key problem is that simply providing computers in schools is not enough. Teachers facing a classroom of kids with laptops need to learn that they are no longer the expert in their domain; the Internet is.
Yet Portugal is on a campaign to reinvent learning for the 21st century. The technology is only one part of that campaign. The real work is creating a new model of learning.
I believe this could help the U.S. revive students' interest in school and perhaps keep them in school long enough to graduate, and even go to college. It would be a substantial investment. It's estimated that the total cost of giving a computer to each student, including connection to networks, training, and maintenance, is over $1,000 per year.
Yet after seeing the promise of the exciting classrooms in Portugal, I'm convinced it is worth it. Your child should be so fortunate.
Don Tapscott's is the author of 13 books about new technologies in business and society, most recently Grown Up Digital. He is Chair of the nGenera Insight think tank, and an Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Twitter @dtapscott.
Follow Don Tapscott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dtapscott
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Education must change. The existing model is failing in all fronts and must be refactored into the 21st century in order to promote a new sociological framework for all of us to life freely. Education is not a self contained vessel of dusty knowledge made by old beard man inside a room ready to be passed into the next generations. This reductionary vision is what lead to misguided activities within society that try to mine the efforts of governance. Socrates is under attack by those beard man and woman who are trapped in the never-ending cycles of self defeat. In fact, the very presence of these types of cultural currents in the present is a clear proof of the need to change the path of Education for the future to work, because the current examples of persons that mold our society today are forged out of the old system... and are not quite what they were supposed to be.
Its almost as we don't know how to educate anymore, perhaps we never did. In many ways its astounding that we could create a country in these conditions, but we did. Portugal will always find a way to break away and move into the next step to the right way. We must shop the shame, we must stop the Fado. Today we can be a flag of truth to the world. We can sail away again into America and show them that the old country still has some tricks left.
Portugal is also innovating at the university level, through creative partnerships with major U.S. universities. The CMU-Portugal agreement, one of three such arrangements, has enabled us at the University of Madeira to field a world-class dual-degree program with Carnegie Mellon University that draws students from around the world as well as Portugal and has helped us attract dynamic new faculty. This daring initiative, highly criticized in some circles because it channeled money from the Portuguese government to U.S. institutions, has, in fact, proven to be a boon for Portugal higher education. It is helping to better educate a new generation of researchers and professionals and is contributing to transformative change--at least here in Madeira. Our Laboratory for Usage-Centered Software Engineering (www.labuse.org) has already attracted more than 2M euros in new research funding as a consequence, with more on the way. Our students are mastering technology and building skills that will serve them and Portugal well in the future. In a down economy, many are being hired even before they graduate.
It is the spirit of Portuguese innovation, not the content, that needs to be emulated. Portugal, as elsewhere, has its shortcomings in education and is saddled with antiquated systems and bureaucracies that can make it difficult to advance. But here there is also a willingness to take risks in order to move ahead, which is why I commute from Boston to Funchal to be part of this.
I have reed the comments made by some Portuguese people, as usual they are pessimistic and defeated ahead, that is part of our people ways and culture, always come the voices telling the bad news, but always some one or some group endures and win, that's our history of independence for almost 900 years.
This article is very interesting and as a teacher of middle grades, 10 to 12 years, i say it is a big step indeed. Can we see the results yet? no, but we will see results in a few years. For the first time this next school year, starting in September, i will have an interactive board in my class room, i can use my personal laptop, and bring the class materials to class, plugged into the board and work those material there. For me as a Visual Education teacher it is a major revolution in quality and in the possibilities that are now available to use in a class room. We must learn with all this, it is a "New Learning" as Roberto Carneiro (former education minister), announced more than a decade ago, but this is the right way, smart investment, involvement of the telephone companies in the process, and then it is up to educators and schools and families to adapt to a new reality.
I see kids in school, they are happy with this, they use it all the time now we must be smart to make them use it in class.
Some more facts:
- No universitary student is included in this program. Who needs more a laptop? A 6 years old child or an unniveritary student?;
- The battery autonomy is no longer than 1 hour. Do you think that Portuguese schools have plugs to every laptop? In the library of my university it took 5 years to install it since the students start to massively use laptops:
- I also would like to ear you speaking about who produce the laptops. For your information there was a direct agreement with a Portuguese company. It's like this that we're going to be more competitive?;
- "create exciting new online materials to educate children" - this one is good! First they have to learn how to translate, from Spanish to Poruguese, the contents that they have in the actual "educational material"! - this was denounce by a deputy in the Portuguese Assembly;
- One more point about Portuguese education: do you know that in Portugal we can finish our graduations on Sundays? Well, not everyone, but our prime-minister could (you just need to be a 40 years old politic with some friends in some private "university") !!!
As you know, here you didn’t your homework, which would see a representative sample of schools if you wanted to speak about Portuguese schools. Our "technological shock" was only used to contain the Portuguese budget deficit. After the deal with the operators of mobile phones has become the responsibility of students and teachers to purchase computers. Thus the government stopped spending money on computers to equip the schools. The price of computers has a low entry (150 €) but users must pay the use of the Internet, and in case of intensive use monthly payments becomes unsustainable.
We didn’t have interactive smart board in every classrooms. 4 or 5 classrooms in a school may have this equipment.
More:
1. To install the access points to the wireless network the government decided to build a second network of Internet access in all schools, regardless of the investments already made. Often the Internet is too slow or your signal so weak that not enough to classrooms;
2. The Magalhães computer is manufactured by a company selected by dubious criteria, was full of misspellings, and some no longer work. Poor households that get free, they are selling them for 50 €.
Do you know the major crime of the Portuguese school, named New Opportunities?
- Speaks about Internet and technology of communication without computers;
- Don’t teach any subject: All traditional sciences were banned: Math, Geography, Biology, Economics, Physics....
- Finally, students don’t have grades. So, they have a great success and EVERYBODY
Continuing the post
Finally, students don"t have grades. So, they have a great success and EVERYBODY IS HAPPY.
You don’t need this kind of noise at America.
Students in Portugal don't have grades? what do you mean by that, it is not true.
In Portugal you have the pre-school for 1 or 2 years, the 1º ciclo, 4 years, with exam in the last, even this exam it is not to pass grade but it is for analysing the system and in the future may have a different importance, 2º ciclo, 2 years, exam in the end as i refer before, 3º ciclo, 3 years, the same in exams in the end, called "provas de aferição", secondary level, 3 years with exam, then University according to Bologna agreement 1º, 2º and 3º degrees, licenciatura, mestrado e doutoramento.
So what is wrong with the Portuguese education system comparing to USA, i don't see many differences as a system. Of course there are differences in the way the system works but not in the design of the system itself.
If you want to say it didn't work in USA, you must find some other arguments to support it.
Interesting insight into Portuguese mentality: Lisbon consistently rates as the safest large city in Europe (Gallup, EU, UN's UNICRI polls) and yet is the city wherein residents feel the least safe. That paradox reflects, among other things, an unfortunate inability to appreciate and celebrate the good around us.
Relatedly, the Portuguese government's first steps to improve access to technology has been thoroughly bad-mouthed by the very people who complained loudest about lack of access.
Improvement in Education will take time and first step will not fix everything. And, although I'm absolutely not a fan of Engº Socrates, I give him credit for taking that first important step.
There are many glitches to be resolved, not the least the financial misdeeds regarding Magalhães production and the ISP stranglehold, but the fact -- the important fact, and not to be confused with minor issues regarding the mixup of Socrates/Cavaco's names -- is that Portugal's access to technology has leapfrogged.
For that, a bit of praise from the populace would not go amiss. For regaining the Portuguese ability to persevere in the face of insurmountable odds is our ultimate battle, re-learning to celebrate each small victory and pushing hard towards the final goal; that change of mindset is the true solution to what ails us today, in education, in productivity levels, in entrepreneurship.
Pity that the accolades for our attempts to actually DO something -- instead of just pay for more studies and moan about the problem -- come from across the world.
Hi deborak,
You must surely be right - the populace, as you so aptly put it, is nothing but a self-loathing, uneducated mob.
You are so right - they no nothing, and they make such efforts to fight those who try to push them forward.
You are right.
Most populaces are like that.
They fail to see the obvious, they fail to appreciate the vision of their leaders. Their great leaders, I must add, for History has shown us in great detail that wherever there is an unappreciative mob there is also a dedicated, hard-working, altruist, and seldom understood leader.
You are right.
We are to blame.
We should be thankful. We should be quiet. We should apologize.
Shame on us, the populace.
See Don Tapscott's Profile
Thanks for the great discussion. The facts in the article are correct. Regarding the criticism that I'm simply proposing to dump technology in classrooms, the article says the opposite, arguing that we need a change in the relationship between and among students and teachers in the learning process.
The new model (Portugal is in the early days of figuring this out):
".. allows teachers to step off the stage and start listening and conversing instead of just lecturing. Second, the teacher can encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the teacher's information. Third, the teacher can encourage students to collaborate among themselves and with others outside the school. Finally, the teacher can tailor the style of education to their students' individual learning styles."
Sure beats having a teacher talking at you.
If we don't reinvent learning for relevance and effectiveness in the 21st century someone other than the schools will do this. That would be unfortunate.
You say "The facts in the article are correct."
Have you read my comment? 3rd down. I know my English isn't very good, but I believe you get the point.
I think you should have visited more than one school and those should be chosen randomly. You would've find a completely different scenario. By appointment you saw what the government allowed you to see. You ought to know better.
Sorry, Don,
Key facts in your presentation are incorrect.
And this is not a matter of discussion. It's a matter...of fact.
You have accepted at face value all the PR talk that has been presented to you - you should know better.
You have created a text around a fable. You should know better.
You have - apparently - not had the flexibility to both check all the fact people mention here and to change your position. You REALLY should know better (it is difficult to accept your words on 'the new collective force' if you insist on owning the truth...all alone...).
The only facts you have correct in the article are the ones about the importance of technology in classrooms and the powerful tool this is to teachers and studentes if used properly.
A true reporter would have found the complete truth of ALL the facts and not fall for the portuguese government propaganda. But you are an author and a expert and that's why the so called specialists cannot be taken too much seriously. It's only their informed-enough opinion on a subject they want to support and the consequence of this particular article (inspite the best intentions) is showing portuguese government as highly competent in modern education. Absolute lie!
Only a few notes as enough has already been said:
"Yet Portugal has been careful to invest in teacher training to capitalize on the possibilities of the laptops in schools." - Please check the "careful" training in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_kLTRfRJ0 . True video !
"You also get a discounted rate for broadband Internet access, wired or wireless." wich have a monthly fee never less than 15€ and a fidelization contract of 1 year after wich you start paying 25€ monthly for a 3G connection with about 2Mb speed average (and when it works!) and a "huge" 1Gb traffic every month after wich you have to pay a fortune for extra traffic with the bill toping 100€ or more every month for a normal internet use.
More on the internet, just use it wisely!
In, the facts in the article are not correct.
You say "Just about every classroom in the public system now has an interactive smart board, instead of the old fashioned blackboard.". This is not true. There is only one or two smart boards per school (which has dozens of classrooms). To my knowledge, no one uses them regularly.
The technology in classrooms is an important part of the Portuguese initiative but it is not the whole story. As you Don points out, the whole initiative provides access to the world of collaborative learning via access to the Interent and interactive programs. It is a very different setting and learning environment that what has prevailed until now.
Part of the "tool box package" from the Portuguese governement includes e-learning programs installed on the PCs. E.g. Mingoville, an virtual interactive English learning program for kids, is standard on all laptops for kids in 1-4 grade.
The description Don gives of the classroom buzzing and the activity level of the students when using the Internet in classroom is the same picture we have from different schools around the world using our program. When the kids get the opportunity to immerse themselves into a subject interactively and online, they improve their learning immensely.
This is about changing how school used to be - this is about how we want our kids to be tought in the future. The possibilities of involving and engaging kids 100 % in the learning process are there. We just have to figure out how to use them. There is always room for improvement but isn't that part of the process towards changing and reinventing public education and learning everywhere? And it is not a question of who does the reinventing but a question of somebody actually doing it.
It is interesting to me to see so many comments criticizing Don for focusing only "tools" and "throwing technology" at the problem of education. Anyone that follows his work knows that it is really focused on innovation, more than anything else. His track record has shown him to be a keen observer of cultures, processes, politics, technology, and other sources (and uses) of innovation.
That his article focuses on some of the details of the Portuguese tech ed acquisition program is but a catalyst for discussion. But, I would venture, from following his prior work and his regular writings (www.wikinomics.com is another good source!), that Don would be the first to say that tools/technologies are but one piece of the solution.
Among his own private ventures - nGenera Corporation, which stands for "next Generation era" and where I work - the focus is on organizational solutions which combine technology, inspiration, leadership training, capacity- and skill-building, implementation services, and measurement. One of the things that Don and nGenera are doing to put "our money where our mouth is" involves increasing our partnership activities and investments of time in key edcuational initatives. Examples include http://netgened.grownupdigital.com. More announcements to come.
I'd like to hear what some of the more astute observers in Portugal or elsewhere (yo, NYC!) would say about what is working on the non-tech part of the solution: capacity-building, leadership formation, process change, etc. Thanks.
Most of the criticism is directed at Don's lack of knowledge and his reluctance to accept he got his facts wrong (no doubt from very proficient PR people).
The focus on tools is Portugal's government 'strategy'...and Don happens to think it is a good one.
How can you say this is a good example?
We don't have the experience yet to prove if it is a good measure against drop-outs and, after reading the fine print at the contract for those computers, you can clearly see that it costs you a lot more than the initial 150 euros.
Besides that, there are lots of people using the laptops in a fraudulent way.
And, like Sara Castro said, there is a total lack of quality and education standards now-a-days. I mean, kids are getting lots of slack at school and finish the 9th grade knowing as much as nothing, and the parents are blaming the teachers instead of the Gov that made the rules.
Sometimes I think they're purpose is to make education as bad as it is in Brazil (but with PCs everywhere).
We are becoming stupid, but we have broadband yeeee
Ultra-cheap? Far from the truth!
I know what I'm saying, I'm a teacher in Portugal.
To teachers and more than half the students, these are the actual numbers: http://tiny.cc/o67F0
initial payment: €150 or $207
36 mandatory payments (to mandatory internet access) of €17,87 or $24,66
grand total: €793,32 or $1095
These laptops can be bought in stores by anybody, for under €500 (some €400).
Of course you don´t have the internet included, but do you really want the included internet?
1GB of download traffic per month after witch it gets suspended, (with an average of 1Mbps speed). If we really use the internet with all its services, we can easily surpass this in a day or two.
Some of my students said that they couldn't go to my blog to study, because they didn't have enough download credit.
By the way, the great concern the kids have, is if the GPU is powerful enough to support the latest games.
Continuing:
I had to buy a laptop but not one from the government program. I already had internet and I needed more than the speed and traffic limit offered. If I did, I had to pay 2 ISP!!
This was a great deal for the ISPs in Portugal. They bought laptops for €250 or €300, and sold them for €800 (albeit providing a ridicule internet access).
They only lost money with the laptops sold to the most needed children (way less than half), but the profit from the teachers and other students more than covered this.
And this is even a greater deal for the ISPs if you think that they shouldn't be in it for the profit.
They had to pay something (a lot) for those licenses. Not only they didn't pay anything, they even turned the situation into profit.
A funny thing, just one hour ago I received this message from a student who had his mother in an adult learning program (by the way, if you knew these programs you wouldn't recommend them to your worst enemy): "Hi teacher, my mom just received her laptop. Not bad since classes ended more than 2 months ago!" (I translated, of course)
Yes, I believe "education needs to rethink itself", but PLEASE, don´t look at Portugal to learn what to do, but what not.
If he won't look to Portugal's solution for schools, mabye he could look at their decriminalization of drugs and end the war on drug users which bleeds so much money from a budget that needs to address education and infrastructure.
Can you believe it, it's the one time the Libertarians are supporting the UN and the current US administrateion is ignoring it.
Dear President Obama,
I guess you can see from the portuguese teachers' comments on this post from Don Tapscott that changing education will not be easy.
The education revolution that is now under course in Portugal has faced serious opposition from teachers who really preferred the status quo and who are very well capable of destroying the reputation of their own country to keep their selfish interests above the common good.
It's not just technology. Prepare for battle!
Let us hope President Obama finds a way to change US Education WITH the cooperation, WITH the participation, and WITH the contribution of US teachers.
Let us hope he does not do it AGAINST them, vilifying them, insulting them...or, as Alexandre does, blaming them for the lack of success of ill thought out policies.
Teachers and students please! I´m a student in Portugal and I can assure you that all the new mesures regarding computers and techonology are a huge façade, I mean the kids use the computers to play games, for God´s sake!
Unfortunately, our Government is more concern about statistics rather than actually improve the quality of the schools and the quality of education.
Sounds like our government here...collaborative learning and technology are all important in education however they are not the end all be all. In order for us to help our kids we must diffrentiate our instruction and ensure that the learning styles of each student are being accomodated. Mind numbing testing and endless criticism of teachers, parents and administrators needs to cease. I think it is important that a student is engaged and once they buy into the importance of managing knowledge a great deal of the problem would be solved.
The hell with Portugal, look to NY, Mayor Bloomberg wrestled control from the UFT here and the schools are doing great!
Oh yes, that article recently about the city taking years and years to handle complaints about teachers really proved that didn't it?
Portugal, Finland, Ireland. How is it they are smarter than we are about schools?
Maybe, because they're not soiling their linens at the prospects of paying a few more dollars in taxes. I live in Ohio and everything here is about property taxes. Everything here hits the ballot. My excellent suburban school district recently passed a levy, but it was uncomfortably close. 48% voted for ignornance. We need to be more appreciative of value, not price!
Very cool!
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