Collective Learning

August 29-31st, 2007

For the last couple of days we have been learning about the educational system in Kazakhstan and how it is different or similar to the education system of the United States. There is a Minister of Education, but he is a much more powerful figure than our Secretary of Education, literally setting the curriculum and education policy for the entire country. No Child Left Behind may have been nationally mandated, but its effects are not always clearly evident on the local level.
Classroom dynamics are also very different. In American Schools, students often discuss issues with their teachers and are encouraged to challenge their teachers. This is definitely not the case in Kazakhstan, where a noisy classroom, even if the noise is from animated discussion, is seen as a chaotic classroom, and the teacher’s authority is not to be questioned. A teacher will give a wrong answer to a question before admitting that he or she does not know the correct answer. The ideal seating chart for a classroom in the States might be a circle, but in Kazakhstan the desire for neat orderly rows is so great that in some village schools, desks are even bolted to the floor.
The most interesting thing that I learned about Kazakhstani education however, is their view of educational ethics. In the United States, cheating is condemned and harshly punished. In the lower levels, students will usually get a zero on the assignment and face suspension, and at University may even face expulsion. Cheating is not an issue in schools in Kazakhstan. That is not to say that it does not happen, but rather that nothing is done about it. Kazakhstani educators seem to favor an educational approach I like to call “collective learning.” They want everyone to be successful, not just the ones that are the best and the brightest, and the students feel the same way. Students do not feel that they are competing against each other, and so will help their peers out with the correct answer, even in the middle of the test. I guess you might think of it as “a rising tide lifts all boats,” as long as the information is in the student’s head, it does not matter how it got there. Another important reason for this view on cheating is that whereas the American student is punished for not knowing the answer or making the grade, in Kazakhstan, the teacher is punished if a few of their students are not passing the tests. Rather than assume that the students are simply not working, it is believed that the teacher is simply not doing an adequate job. I guess they have a fair point, when everyone shares the answers; there is no reason for any students to fail.