Education

Keynote
Our failing schools. Enough is enough!
Geoffrey Canada
C1C2
Discussion
1 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 You are going to watch a TED Talk called Our failing schools. Enough is enough! by Geoffrey
Canada, an educator from New York. What failings in education do you think Geoffrey Canada
will talk about?
2 What are some of the big challenges within education in your country?
3 How optimistic are you about the education system in your country? What are some of the
improvements youve seen recently? What improvements would you like to see?

Key words
2 Read this summary of Geoffrey Canadas TED Talk, Our failing schools. Enough is enough!
Match the words and phrases in bold with their definitions (111).
Geoffrey Canada is President of the Harlem Children's Zone, an inner city schools educational
initiative to help children break the cycle of poverty. He believes that the dropout rate in many
schools is needlessly high because there are things that educators could do for students who are
struggling if people started questioning educations business plan. The current plan does not
make any sense, according to Geoffrey Canada, because it stifles innovation and ignores data
that indicates where children are losing ground. The evidence from research and the evaluation
of childrens learning is often ignored, and some people in education get angry if trying
something different is suggested. Charter schools are an experiment that many people point to
as proof that change in education doesnt work. However, Geoffrey Canada argues that just
because one experiment failed, we shouldnt stop exploring alternatives. Finally, he points out
that fixing education would not cost the country an enormous amount of money. The
government spends billions of dollars on issues the country cares about, such as national security,
while solving some of educations problems would cost a pittance relative to this, he says. The
stakes are too high to wait to solve the critical issues in education.
1 the things that you risk gaining or losing ____________________
2 the number of students who leave school before their education is complete
____________________
3 stops something from developing ____________________
4 schools in the USA or Canada that receive some public funding but operate outside the normal
public school system, and are more independent than normal state schools
____________________
5 measurement of quality, by examinations, for example ____________________
6 in a way that is not necessary as it could or should have been avoided ____________________
7 finding it difficult to learn ____________________
8 extremely important ____________________
9 becoming less successful, or falling behind ____________________
10 an amount of money that is too small ____________________
11 a general term for poor areas of large cities characterized by few educational opportunities, high
unemployment and high crime rates ____________________

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 Education
Our failing schools. Enough is enough!
3 Work in pairs. Discuss how similar the situation in the United States sounds from this summary
to the situation in your country.

Comprehension
4 Watch Geoffrey Canadas talk on TED.com. Choose the correct option to complete the
sentences according to the speaker.
1 Why is Geoffrey Canada angry?
a He doesnt think education should be run like a business.
b Nobody knows what the solutions to the problems in education might be.
c Schools are failing children but too many are not doing anything about it.
2 What is the point Geoffrey Canada makes by talking about banks?
a Banks, like schools, do not serve their customers well.
b Banks, unlike schools, acted on their past mistakes.
c Banks, unlike schools, have been happy to adopt technology.
3 What does the research show about poor childrens knowledge and skills?
a It drops during the long holidays.
b It has got worse since 1975.
c The best time to test it is in September.
4 What is one reason innovation isnt tried in education, according to Geoffrey Canada?
a Education authorities cannot afford it.
b Not enough research has been done.
c Science is being ignored.
5 What advantage do children from wealthy families often have that children from poor
backgrounds usually dont have?
a They often have greater stimulus from older brothers and sisters.
b Their parents understand the benefits of good health services.
c They tend to have a richer experience of language before they start school.
6 What is the main reason Harlem Childrens Zone provides health services as well as education for
poor children?
a Because its easier to get funding for health projects than education projects.
b Because they believe all children should have the same opportunities.
c Because research shows that healthy children learn better.
7 What is one reason that testing is failing?
a Teachers find out the results of tests too late to act on them.
b Good testing is too expensive.
c The information that it provides about students is not useful.
8 What is Geoffrey Canadas point about charter schools?
a They dont work.
b They are an attempt to innovate in teaching.
c They are not based on good science.
9 What does Geoffrey Canada believe is the answer to failing schools?
a We need to welcome more technology in education.
b We need to evaluate the support being given to young people.
c We need to keep innovating, using scientific research as the basis of ideas.

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 Education
Our failing schools. Enough is enough!
The big idea
5 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 Geoffrey Canada compares education to a business and asks whether the business plan that
schools are following makes sense. How useful is it to see education as a business?
2 Geoffrey Canada says: So technology has changed. Things have changed. Yet not in education.
Why? Why is it that when we had rotary phones, when we were having folks being crippled by
polio, that we were teaching the same way then that we're doing right now? How fair is this
assessment of educations development in the last few decades? What has changed in teaching
in that time? In general, have those changes been for the better?
3 Do you agree with Geoffrey Canada that children benefit from attending pre-kindergarten groups
(03 years old)? Why? / Why not?
4 Geoffrey Canada says failure shouldn't stop you from pushing the science forward. Can you
think of times in your work when you or your company have experienced failure but have been
determined to push forward?

Language focus identifying and solving problems

6 Read the extracts from the TED Talk. Underline the verbnoun collocations and other verb
phrases that describe identifying problems or doing things to solve them. There may be more
than one collocation in each extract.
1 you need information, because you work at something, you think its working, and you find
out its not working.
2 They get angry if you do something different. If you try something new, people are always like,
Ooh, charter schools. Hey, lets try some stuff. Lets see ... Lets try something different.
3 The high stakes is today, because you can do something about it.
4 some folks will do the right thing.
5 And I had to because I had to raise the money.
6 And if you come up with a plan to change things, people consider you radical.
7 What about introducing technology?
8 we have to make sure that we provide the support to young people. Weve got to give them all
of these opportunities.

7 Use the phrases you underlined in Exercise 6 to complete these sentences. More than one
phrase may be possible. You may need to adapt the phrases in some sentences.
1 I know he hasnt always been reliable, but we need to trust now that hell __________________ .
2 If the current exam isnt testing what its supposed to, then lets _______________________ we
havent tried before.
3 The school held a meeting to ___________________ for how they were going to raise the funds
needed to fix the roof.
4 Its no good just suggesting we _______________________ without specifying what hardware we
buy and how we use it in class.
5 Technicians started to repair the online learning management system as soon as teachers
_______________________ .
6 There must be a quicker way to _______________________ than that. We need to pay for new
materials before the new academic year.
7 Most educators recognize that class sizes need to be reduced in order for teachers to be able to
_______________________ that children with learning difficulties need.
8 Teachers realized the tests were having no effect on learning, so they decided to
_______________________ . They let students grade their own papers so that they could learn
from their mistakes.

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 Education
Our failing schools. Enough is enough!
Speaking
8 Work in groups. Make a list of issues in your area of education, e.g. testing and evaluation,
timetables, classroom management, dropout rates. Try to identify specific problems. Then
discuss which of these are a priority to improve.

9 Choose one of the priority issues from Exercise 8. Write a short business plan including at least
one innovation that might help to solve some of its problems.

10 Compare your business plan with other groups. Whose business plans
are the most optimistic?
put faith in teachers?
put faith in something else, e.g. technology?
are most likely to improve learning outcomes?
provide support to children from poor backgrounds?
are the most innovative?
appear to be based on solid research?

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