I have some questions about Asia, Europe, and American Education...

[battleknight24]

Although I have said this before and I will say it again, I do believe that public schools in the United States need to improve, and we need to challenge our students more. But so many people talk badly about American schools by saying "students in such and such country in Europe and Asia score higher on exams and get higher grades in their classes then American kids at the same grade level and age.

But...

1. Don't many of these countries that have high scoring students have higher dropout rates than the United States, especially at the Elementary and Junior High Level? If this is true (and I don't know it for a fact), then it would make sense for their exam score averages to be higher than American kids, since the best students probably don't drop out.

2. At earlier ages, don't many students in Europe and Asia start taking specialized classes? I read in many books and magazines that the best students continue on through high school, receive their diploma, and go on to college to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, businessman, etc, and the students who don't do as well (or have no desire to pursue many more years of formal education) are trained for vocational professions. So (if this is also accurate) doesn't that mean that a higher percentage of good students are attending high schools in those countries and taking standardized exams?

3. China has been in the news a lot recently, with many saying that not too long from now, they could become a world superpower in serious competition with the US. Do you believe this is true? Is it a little overblown? Way overblown? Or is it just way too early to tell if China will become a future economic superpower?


Give me your thoughts,

[rpannier]

1. I live in Korea

and the answer to your question on Korea is yes at the high school level. Students take a battery of tests toward the end of their 9th Grade year. The best scores get into the University High Schools, Second tier go to "Commercial High Schools" and the lowest third go to "Trade/Technical Schools"
But...throughout their education they spend more hours at school, at Academic Institutes (Hakwons) which provide special training in one or two subject areas: Math, English, Reading, etc.
Parents pay a large amount of money for educating their children. I have two children in private elementary school. I pay 16k US a year for each child. I pay for 3 Hakwons for each of them. I shell out 1200 a month. So, I pay around 35,000 a year after I buy books and uniforms.
In addition many younger children also do Taekwon-do, play soccer,etc.
And lastly, many Korean children start kindergarden at 5 years old: That's 3 or 4 years old to us in the west. All Kindergardens are private and cost between US 300-600 a month.
And yes China could easily become an economic superpower in 10-15 years.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. From what I've observed of Japanese schools, the

situation is similar in many ways.

The important thing to note is that elementary and junior high education are very thorough. By the time they finish ninth grade, Japanese students have the equivalent of Algebra II, they've learned 2000 kanji, and they've had three years of English.

From what I understand from people who've had kids in the Japanese school system, the kindergartens and elementary schools are excellent, rigorous but not mean or grim.

However, the pressure is laid on in junior high school, since students are not automatically guaranteed admission to the nearest public high school. Admission to senior high is by examination, and it becomes an art to figure out the best high school that each student can hope to gain admission to. As in Korea, there are academic high schools and commercial and vocational high schools. The commercial and vocational high schools work closely in coordination with local industries. Students who fail to gain admission to the senior high school of their choice may either try again next year (spending a year at home studying and going to cram school) or have their parents shell out for a private high school. (Although it varies from community to community, most public high schools are more prestigious than most private high schools.)

Anyway, if they go to an academic high school, all subjects are required, except that they get to choose an artistic elective.

Teachers are required to have majored in the subject they teach, and only the best students are allowed into teacher training programs. It's a high-prestige profession and one of the highest-paying jobs a new college graduate can have.

Yes, as in Europe, students aiming for medicine or law go directly into medical or legal curricula straight from high school. However, they probably already have more general academic knowledge than the typical American college graduate.

My closest personal encounter with the Japanese educational system was on the university level, and the rigors of high school life were evident in the way that my fellow students seemed like complete burnouts. Unless they're trying for graduate school, they tend to view college as a four-year vacation. Course assignments are ridiculously light. The classes that I audited at one of the most prestigious women's colleges in the country had weekly reading assignments that I, a foreigner, could finish in half an hour, and while papers were assigned at the end of the term, we had a month to work on them after classes ended.

In daily life, I've never found a store clerk who can't make change or anyone who can't write my real name in katakana (phonetic characters) after hearing it pronounced. One writer said that Japan has the best average students in the world.

Certainly there are problems, but I think that the biggest advantage that Japan has over the U.S. is that parents value education. It is very common to give a child entering first grade a desk as a present. Parents tread studiousness as a good thing, not as a social handicap. (Some take this too far and end up with incredibly nerdy children, but most do not.)

Japan has always emphasized education. Even in premodern times, the Buddhist temples sponsored the equivalent of elementary schools, and the government first instituted public compulsory elementary education in 1870, which is ahead of several countries in Europe.

As far as your questions are concerned:

1. In Japan, school is compulsory through ninth grade, and most kids go to the nearest public school. A test of Japanese eighth graders, therefore, would catch the same general cross-section of the population that a test of U.S. eighth graders would.

2. Most students go to some kind of high school, even if it's not academic. Japan has a 90% high school graduation rate. If you were going to test twelfth graders, though, you'd have to make sure to test from a broad range of high schools, because they do differ in their prestige and rigor.

3. China has come an incredibly long way since Mao's death in 1976. Judging from news report, it has developed almost unbelievably since I was there in 1990. However, development has been very, very uneven. You have people living luxuriously, even by international standards, in million dollar condos in Shanghai, and at the same time, rural areas where people are living on the edge of subsistence. I don't know how China can really achieve economic superpower status unless the blessings of its economic growth are more evenly distributed. But if they really get their act together, watch out!

That's just my opinion, based on travels and reading.

[rumpel]

3. The whole educational system is different. I went to a

German School in Japan. My parents both taught at Universities. So I can tell you about both systems. I do not know anything about China.
As for the German School, there is something called Abitur. 13 years of schooling from 1st grade. Every student strives to make the Abitur. The last year is comprised of study but also of tedious exams. These exams are not only written but also oral and every student has to go through the exams to pass the Abitur. I understand it is similar to the French baccaleaureat.

In any event, these tests are certainly not multiple choices, every subject consist of a thorough paper, and then followed by days of oral exams in every subject. Once you have passed the Abitur, you are able to apply to any Univeristy, of course it depends on your score which school will consider you.

The term "dropout" that is used in this country is far from what it is and programs offered in Europe. You can, as a student decide early on, exactly what you would like to do in you life. Say a concert pianist, a master furniture artist or any other occupation. You would finish primary education at the end of 9th grade, and apply for specialized schools in that field. Certain occupations require you to have 11th or 12 grade primary education. There is nothing wrong with that and no stigma attached to it. In fact many end up being "masters", who are highly respected in society and earn a ton of money. So it is far from what people refer to here as drop outs.

My daughter went to private pre-school and then to the best scoring public elementary in the LA Unified. Comparing the curriculum for each grade the school district is offering here, with what we had 30 years prior at the German school it seems quite laid back and lack substance and challenge. I was never able to compehend a teacher, telling me, "It is ok if she fails, they will do the same thing over next year." We never had a second chance, if we failed in 2 subjects you were automatically to repeat that grade.

When my child went on to Middle school, the principal at the orientation, basically said: "Until now it was all play, an extension of kindergarten, from now on there will be lot's more required of the kids". I was taken aback but for the first time realized the stance the education system was taking in the US.

As for the Japanese system, it is far to impersonal, it is drilling of subjects into kids, and killing any individual creativity. You are not allowed to speak back or mostly voice an opinion,especially opposing what is taught and or comment off curriculum. The German School, encourgages discussion. We were talking World politics in 7th grade at the coffee shop for "hanging out". But it may have also been different times. Both my nephews graduated (had Abitur) from the same German school and are now attending University in Europe. One is majoring in International Law, the other Ecology.

My kid is refusing to study, it is music video's and other TV, magazines and boyfriend,and who said what to whom, who is doing drugs and who hangs out with whom. When she does submit work she get's A's an B's. But you ask any of these kids if they can point on the map where Sumatra is it is only the "geeks" that are able to answer that. Parents complain that children have so much homework, they have to study more than 40 minutes.
Teachers are scared to dicipline them, because they may be sued for verbal abuse, and ask parents to be the teachers aide, just so they can tell children to be quiet and sit down during class.

And this is where we are with education in this country.
The whole environment towards education is poisoned. Look at what is happening to science, administration manipulates, evolution is labeled as bad and unchristian. And if it does not fit the agenda, any study is done by "some" academics.

I would much rather have a classmate who was a geek and wins a Nobel Price, than have a classmate who has access to gazillions of money and power and becomes president.

But as it is, in this country money rules, and instant effortless money on top of that, and this disease is spreading unfortunately worldwide.

One must remember, education is not available to everyone everywhere. There are teachers carrying school supplies and a blackboard up a mountain to teach children in a remote village every single day. Kids here have to be told it is not an entitlement or chore it is a priviledge.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I agree that American attitudes towards education are "poisoned"

Parents don't want their children to work too hard, but they want them to get good grades, and since public schools are locally controlled, communities that want easy schools end up with easy schools.

I don't know where this attitude came from. Perhaps it is a legacy of the frontier days, when it was more important to know how to build a log cabin or drive a team of horses than to know how to read. It's certainly nothing new. When I was in high school almost forty years ago, one of the English teachers was driven out because he made the students read and discuss difficult literature. Sad to say, instead of telling their children to appreciate the opportunity to study under a demanding teacher, the parents agreed that he should be fired.

By the time my younger brothers were in high school, the school board and teachers had given in to the parents' demands and made the curriculum easier. When I was in twelfth grade, every student had to write a thirty-page research paper. My brothers (three and five years younger) did not have to do this. We had no free time during the school day. My brothers had "modular scheduling," with several short free periods scattered throughout the day.

I do not blame the teachers. They are at the mercy of the school boards, and the school boards are elected by local residents. If the local residents want a rigorous school system, as in most university towns, the schools will be good. If the local residents are average Americans, who value sports and social activities above learning, the schools will merely go through the motions of educating the children and youth.

I know teachers who have taken early retirement because No Child Left Behind has made the schools even worse. Now the entire focus is on passing those tests, and teachers are pressured into dropping any content that doesn't lead to high test scores.

I'm quite pessimistic about American education. To improve it, we would have to change the whole culture.

Your comment about the Japanese educational system encouraging conformity is accurate. Students are given a lot of facts, but they are not taught how to argue or defend a position, and they are not given any instruction in expository writing. (As a Japanese-English translator, I am often confronted with absolutely incoherent writing by supposedly well-educated Japanese adults.)

Still, I do not think that the Japanese lack creativity. Japanese companies have done wonders inventing things (the Walkman) and adapting others' inventions (the VCR) to make them successful international. On a more personal level, I have been impressed by the level of individual creativity in the visual arts, as in a citizens' art exhibit in a small city or in the manga and anime clubs at universities. As a life-long choral singer, I have also noticed that Japanese people are not shy about singing in public, even if their voices are not particularly good, while Americans usually refuse to sing unless they are extremely good.

Each system has its pluses and minuses.

As far as the Chinese system is concerned, my only direct knowledge comes from school visits on a group tour of China in 1990. I do know that only a small percentage of the population goes to either high school or university, but in a country of one billion people, that's still a lot of people.

During our two weeks in Beijing, we stayed at a teachers' college that specializes in training foreign language teachers. I was impressed with the conversational ability of the students in both the English-langauge and Japanese-language sections and with their enthusiasm for their studies. They lived eight to a room and often had only one change of clothes, but we would see them studying in empty classrooms or outdoors at all hours.

Considering the difficulty of the Chinese written language (3,000 characters for basic literacy), it was also impressive to see so many people reading.

As I mentioned in my previous post, development in China is extremely uneven. The students at the other teachers' college we visited complained that their first three years after graduation would most likely be spent in out-of-the-way villages with no electricity or running water and with just benches, tables, and a blackboard in an unheated classroom. (To see what such teaching situations look like, rent the movie Not One Less.) Yet we visited a well-equipped "key school" in Beijing where the students spoke to us in pretty good English.

Chinese students have a desire to learn and the will to succeed. If their government ever solves the problem of allocation of resources, they'll be unstoppable.