Recently, Carolina presented at a conference for teachers in Wales, Theory to Practice Conference organized by @ImpactWales, and had the pleasure to hear a talk by Lucy Crehan. Lucy is an education consultant and expert, particularly when it comes to education systems in different countries. A couple of years ago she has made the bold decision to visit different countries with high-performing education systems in order to find out what they are doing. She spent time in Finland, Singapore, and Canada (to name three countries) and experienced first-hand what schools in these countries are doing and what education systems in UK or US, for example, could probably learn from them. She has written a book about it, Cleverlands, and in today’s digest, we give an overview of her findings by presenting different resources that have reviewed and summarized parts of the book.

1)      Touring the Clever Countries by Benjamin Riley, @benjaminjriley

In this article, Benjamin Riley, the founder of Deans for Impact, gives an overview of his personal take home messages after reading the book. It is a good starting point to get an idea of the findings and what to expect from the book.

2)      Learning from the World’s Swottiest Countries by The Economist, @TheEconomist

This article provides an objective perspective of the book by highlighting differences to other books which tried to achieve the same: Provide an intercultural perspective on education. They rightly point out that “Cleverland” provides data from research in conjunction with the personal experience of the author.

3)      Cleverlands Book Review – One Teacher’s Quest to find the ‘Who’ and the ‘How’ of Education Systems at the Top of PISA by Elisabeth Royde via Chartered College of Teaching, @CharteredColl

This is a book review guided by six questions: What is your overall impression of the book? Who do you think would benefit most from reading the book? What will they learn? What did you think about the quality of the writing? Please consider the tone, structure and ideas. Does it suit the audience? Please discuss the research used to underpin the ideas. What evidence does the author use? Is it robust and up-to-date? What did you learn from reading the book? What ideas/approaches/practice will you change or adopt as a result of reading this book? Could you share a quote from the book that particularly resonated with you?

4)      Surprising Truths from Global Classrooms with Lucy Crehan by The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), @RSAEvents

This is a short video of Lucy Crehan presenting some of the ideas of her book. It gives you a good overall feel for the work and enthusiasm that went it researching and writing the book. From her presentation, you can see that she finds a clever way to combine anecdotes with actual data and research findings.

5)      Lucy Crehan: Cleverlands by Mr Barton Maths Podcast

Last, but not least, a podcast episode with Lucy Crehan by Mr Barton Maths Podcast, a highly regarded education podcast – if you are not already following it, it may be time to do so. This long episode will provide you with a lot of food for thought about education systems and you will start thinking about ways you can use this for your own practice.

Every Sunday, we pick a theme and provide a curated list of links. If you have a theme suggestion, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Occasionally we publish a guest digest, and If you'd like to propose a guest digest click here. Our 5 most recent digests can be found here:

Weekly Digest #103: Note-Taking Strategies

Weekly Digest #104: Media Multitasking

Weekly Digest #105: Summer Reading Programs

Weekly Digest #106: Learning to Manage Your Own Finances

Weekly Digest #107: Spiral Review