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A new documentary film comparing six high school students from China, the U.S. and India calls for reform of the U.S. education system in favor of the more rigorous Asian education systems. Two Million Minutes, a film developed by American venture capitalist Bob Compton, points out that students in China and India work much harder than those in the U.S., score consistently better than American students on international student comparisons, and now pose a threat to American students' job prospects in the U.S. In the movie's trailer, one American high school student gabs about sororities while her Chinese counterpart is featured fiercely practicing her violin.
The film was met with scorn at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, where Compton screened the film in an attempt to effect academic change. One professor, education theorist Howard Gardner, stated that the U.S. had nothing to learn from Third World education. As a proponent of "multiple intelligences" (rather than a single intelligence able to be evaluated by standardized tests), Gardner believed that Two Million Minutes only looked at the math and science side of education.
"His point was: How can you have a great educational system when you don't have freedom of speech?" Compton said [in the LA Times].
Many in China are also skeptical: Blogging for China reminds readers that "there are many in China deeply unsatisfied with the Chinese education system" and points us to the overzealousness of Chinese parents in pushing their children to become academic superstars, particularly during the furor over China's 3-day university admissions test (gaokao).
Video interview by WSJ Chinese of Bob Compton right after the jump:
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Both academic systems have serious issues.
As a product of American public education myself, I would note that my high school experience was amazingly easy. I rarely had more than 2 hours of homework a night, never studied more than 3 or 4 hours for a big test, and still ended up in the top 10 of my high school.
Of course I ended up getting my ass kicked my first two years of University.
But I see my Chinese colleagues who have to be trained to do anything that's not by rote, and intially lack creative solutions and the ability to do anything original. And the way that I think about high school is the way they think about university - 4 straight years of not much at all. In conversations they usually say the hard part was high school - university was pretty easy for them.
In the US, we have a lack of vigor and a decreased emphasis on science, math - and even stuff like literature, arts, history and government education is pretty lacking. Here in China, the learning by rote system packs a more advanced understanding of science and math, but doesn't really create a true creative class - who are the real drivers of an economy.
It wouldn't hurt the US education system if it emulated the way that pigeons teach their offspring to poop. The US education system produces an enormous quantity of overfed, overstuffed, f'ing morons, with nothing but Viacom between their ears and a staunch belief in fairy tails (major religions; take your pick).
Evidently in vera's country they let students major in "Xenophobia" and minor in "Gross Generalizations."
Until China learns to embrace creativity, logic, and free thought, the West really has nothing to learn from its educational system. Moreover, the all-or-nothing, one-day college entrance exam is ridiculously unfair.
Yes, saying that one system is inherently better than another is false on its face. What would be better is to utilize the positive points of the major systems, for instance the incentive to create and "think outside the box" that is encouraged for American students, with the best aspects of the Chinese system. A blending of the two worlds, so to speak.
Anyone who uses the phrase "fairy tails" to criticize another country's educational system, I got three words for you, and they are pot, kettle and black.
"fair tails" was used to refer to religion, not education, T.
I knew fairies had little gossamer wings, but I didn't know they had tails. They never did in any of the tales I'd ever heard, at least, but that could be due to my inferior US public-school edumacations.
But back to the actual matter of education. It seems both China and the US have moved over recent years away from a public model, in which all children are guaranteed a free education, toward a pay-as-you go model that makes it increasingly difficult for poorer citizens to ensure their children get decent educations (or any at all, in parts of rural China, I hear).
I think the larger problem is the excess of faith in the fairy tale of the market being the ultimate mechanism for ensuring an optimal society.
In the US, Republicans have been trying to dismantle public schools by arguing for vouchers and "choice," private (usually religious) schools and charter schools (the entire effort historically aided by a race-baiting politics since the desegregation battles of the late '60s and early '70s). In other words, they mask their social agenda by arguing that the market is the best way to deliver quality schools to the most people.
And China's seen a turn toward a more privatized economy in which poor rural families struggling to stay afloat can't afford to pay for the books and fees their kids need to go to school. And, of course, different levels of service for poorer schools and wealthier ones, as the "tofu construction" and collapse of so many Sichuan schools in the recent earthquake demonstrates.
So it's all Milton Friedman's fault (joke, but not a joke).
Of course, this is a matter of access less than what's taught and how it's taught, but without access in the first place, seems the rest of the argument becomes rather moot for a large segment of each nation's population.
Ah, yes, by saying the US Education produces morons who believe in "fairy tails" you made that abundantly clear.
Funny, that it's the most fair way is usually the main argument made by Chinese for the gaokao.
I got up to grade 4 education in China and then went to Canada, I am now in university. One thing I am pretty sure about is I have NEVER done a single day's homework until midway through first year university. Yes Chinese students are extremly linear and lack the ability to think out side the box, but from personal experience, my high school friends who can't even understand trigonometry isn't going to be doing much thinking outside the box.
Math and Science is what makes the United States what it is, the Cold War era investment in education was why US now lead the world in technology. By the look of students I see today, by the time they grow up, all those doing technology work in the US would become immigrants, while the locals become workers in the "service industry" aka making burgers.
Many, many Chinese students take the Ielts test every year in order to study abroad. If you speak to the average Chinese student they regard their education as greatly lacking - but this if for university education only.
They still think that their middle & high school education is better than the West. I'm not sure if this is because of the sheer amount of hours they put in (knew one Chongqing student who studied approx 18 hrs a day)or the general standard of education they receive.
However, it's interesting to not that despite the rote learning the systematic input of information into their brains how little they remember. Challenge an average Chinese person about Chinese history, geography or some other subject. It's surprising how they stumble trying to recollect the facts.
Both Eat and West can learn from each other. One thing that must be respected among Chinese students is their sheer diligence towards school life. They work hard and accept that as part of life. Western students are too busy 'discovering themselves' or having some kind of cause rather than preparing themselves for real life.
Sorry for my carelessness, boys. In talking about "fairy tales," I was referring to the fact that so many Americans are religious, and believe in angels, heaven, hell, leprechauns, tin-men, hobbits, witchcraft, centaurs, ghosts and fairies (and yes, some with tails) as presented in some ancient tome of myths, legends, and whimsies. They are rattlesnake-handling, abortion clinic bombing, polygamist soldiers on a mission to make the rest of the world's poor crazy like them in exchange for food and medicine.
Anyhow, my point had little to do with education other than upon graduation, many still live in this fantasy land, and thus we have presidential candidates pandering to groups who believe in this crap, attempting to illegalize abortion, teaching "intelligent design" in schools, etc. In this way, it's diversion, embarrassing and disgraceful.
Yeah, there are a lot of things to criticize Chinese system: the quasi-militarism, the indoctrination and falsified history, the tunnel-vision that mostly turns out little drones who are chomping at the bit to be an appliance-like automatons for the rest of their boring, boring, boring lives. But I'll leave it at that.
Anyhow, that's the view from flatland! Have a nice day!
America's system of turning out scientists/mathematicians/scholars that can innovate is badly out of date (check out The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman). China, India, etc. are on track to combine their strong math and science upbringing with the creative processes that America has. They are afflicted by huge populations and a ton of red tape, but just keep watching... my opinion is that they will get "there" sooner than we think.