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I think neither the ruthless testing culture glorifying route learning (as in Turkey, China, Japan) nor the, anything goes, "every child is special", "education

by Jun8 15y ago

I think neither the ruthless testing culture glorifying route learning (as in Turkey, China, Japan) nor the, anything goes, "every child is special", "education is more than scores" approach is the correct or complete answer (I suffered through the first, entered a life-determining exam when I was 12, and experienced the second for 9 years in the US, while TAing during my PhD). If you haven't, please watch Waiting for Superman, the parts about the inner city schools is the main point, but there's a small section on how even suburban schools are falling behind. Unfortunately, due to globalization US kids, whatever their thoughts about education are, are up against Indian and Chinese competition, who went through the testing machine.

briandear 15y ago
No danger from the Chinese kids. I tutor rich Chinese students in SAT and they routinely get hammered by the SAT Critical Reading and the Writing sections. They'll ace the math, but until their language and critical thinking skills improve, there isn't much danger there. The testing machine culture of China (and Korea, Japan) doesn't reward critical thinking, so as a result, those students are far behind their American counterparts once they get out of the memorization paradigm. Only 1 of my students scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT and she spent years in the US and didn't go through the Chinese educational system. Most of my Chinese students tend to score around 1800-1900 total, with scores in the 700s for math and the 500s for critical reading and writing. I don't have any data on the Indian students..
- Jun8 15y ago
  Good point, although I meant, perhaps a little tangentially to the post, kids getting schooled in China and India (i.e. 0'the generation, those coming to teh US for higher eductaion). In the tech sector, they are gobbling up jobs, as we all know. Yet in higher ranking positions, especially the number of Chinese fall off dramatically, most probably due to the factors you cite.

by Jun8 15y ago

briandear 15y ago

No danger from the Chinese kids. I tutor rich Chinese students in SAT and they routinely get hammered by the SAT Critical Reading and the Writing sections. They'll ace the math, but until their language and critical thinking skills improve, there isn't much danger there. The testing machine culture of China (and Korea, Japan) doesn't reward critical thinking, so as a result, those students are far behind their American counterparts once they get out of the memorization paradigm. Only 1 of my students scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT and she spent years in the US and didn't go through the Chinese educational system. Most of my Chinese students tend to score around 1800-1900 total, with scores in the 700s for math and the 500s for critical reading and writing. I don't have any data on the Indian students..

Jun8 15y ago
Good point, although I meant, perhaps a little tangentially to the post, kids getting schooled in China and India (i.e. 0'the generation, those coming to teh US for higher eductaion). In the tech sector, they are gobbling up jobs, as we all know. Yet in higher ranking positions, especially the number of Chinese fall off dramatically, most probably due to the factors you cite.