I just watched an awesome documentary called 2 Million Minutes. The film juxtaposes the lives of 6 high-school seniors: a boy and a girl from a suburban high-school, a boy and a girl from a school in India and a boy and a girls from a school in China. All of the students are high end students at their own school, but in the film we see that they lead very different lives.
The name "2 Million Minutes" comes from the fact that their are approximately 2 million minutes in four years of high-school. The film shows that students from America on average spend about half as much of their 2 million minutes studying than do the Chinese and the Indian students. The film also points out that students from America are much less driven than students from India and China: one of the Indian students said that he only ever goes to school and home. As you can imagine, the test scores show the effects of these increased study hours. The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), puts out a standardized test score around the world every year called the PISA test. The numbers show that students from Asia are outscoring American students by huge margins.
So the question is, 'are American kids falling behind in the world?' In many ways, I have to concede, yes they are. As one person mentions in the film, students in America are the only students in the world who don't think they are in competition with the rest of the world. As the world becomes closer together, as it becomes easier to allow some guy in India do a job from his computer that an American used to do, we American students will have less job opportunities than we have had in the past. And if those foreign employees are willing to put in more hours for less pay, and if they are smarter than Americans, companies are going to stop choosing America.
Why are we such weak students in comparison with the rest of the world. There are two main reasons. One is that the Indian students and Chinese students see doing well in school as their golden ticket. Both of those countries have huge populations but both have a much smaller number of respected universities. India actually has more universities than America, but in India, everyone wants to go to the India University of Technology (IIT). That one school sees 500,000 applicants per year for it's 10,000 spots. No school in America has a .02 percent acceptance rate, that's ridiculous (Harvard has an acceptance rate of 6 percent).
The second reason why students in China and India do better than American students is because American students have a different definition of success. In America, most people value the concept of balance. We would look down on the kid that only goes to school and to home. We would say 'sure, you're smart, but the real test would be if you could get good grades and balance extracurriculars."
A lot of people in America will start focusing more on school in college when they realize that the stakes are high and if they don't get good grades, they might not get a good job. This is not true across the board though because their are plenty of students who go to college and just party the whole time, a lifestyle that our movies and TV shows often promote.
This cultural trend of "balancing school work and play" will probably remain in America for awhile. But I know when I grow up, I will be telling my kids that the only way they are allowed to spend time "balancing" is if they get good grades. I will probably have to compete, at some point in my life, for a foreigners job. I will not want my kids to be as ill-prepared for the world job market as many of my American classmates are now.
While you make good points concerning the amount of time spent in school in various countries, I find fault in your conclusion that American children are behind. That conclusion rests on the precondition that success requires good test scores. Does scoring better on a math test mean that you are better equipped? Certainly for some jobs this is the case. But more generally, is a school that teaches to a test superior to one that teaches you how to think? Personally, I think that the recent trend of the American school system to teach to the test more is actually worsening our education even if attempting to improve test scores. We must remember the principle economic sector America is now relying on-service. America has become an innovator and not a manufacturer. To come up with an idea for a new iPhone app, you don't need to score well on a test. Of course, to create the app a high degree of education is needed. But learning math that a computer can do or memorizing biology doesn't prepare you better for the real world.
ReplyDeleteI think that the American school system is failing, but I wonder if we can say that the school systems elsewhere are really succeeding, simply based on test scores.