PISA, Cuisine and the Taste of Culture

Here they are again: Ohh, so dreadful. Bad results in PISA tests. So? Let’s remember a couple of things first:

• • PISA was first created over 30 years ago in the US. I learned even at the time that it had been ‘tailored’ to meet the US-American system of teaching – and learning.
  • Also, the humanities and social sciences have proven by this time that learning and understanding is based on the culture you grow up in.
    That is a crucial difference!
  • The customs that exist in a culture in regard to learning and teaching make understanding even more different:
    • It has been shown that in India for example, same as in Iran, most probably among others, mathematics are taught quite differently from other nations and cultures:
      • Understanding mathematics and its ideas as well as the approach to solving its equations or downright unsolved riddles are focused on a solution with the right result.
      • In other parts of the world the focus is on the ‘right’ way of reaching the result, such as patterns of problem solving.
  • Remember how differently people greet each other?
  • How people treat children or seniors differently?
  • Ever tried their cuisine?

If you think of all these aspects you cannot possibly believe that the PISA studies are in any way applicable or apt to really realistically compare and evaluate.
Just as ‘off limits’ as the famous leaning tower of that Italian city, called Pisa…

Additionally, we just have put a pandemic behind us, with severe restrictions to personal and public life, over years. How can that not show its effects, especially with children who were/are still developing and growing?

And, most important of all:

Why would we want to?
Make all the same?
Is that at all possible…?

I for one am happy about all the rich differences of cultures around the world. If you love to travel, that’s probably why…

We are not all the same and that is great.

Forget about PISA.