The Smartest Kids in the World?

I just finished a very interesting non-fiction book, The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way, by Amanda Ripley.

Of the books I’ve read about education, and why the United State education system is not up to par with other developed countries, this book offers (by far) the most succinct and persuasive explanations. The author, a journalist, uses PISA scores to compare/contrast the educational systems of three other countries (Poland, South Korea, and Finland) with U.S. education.

For reference, in the 2009 test:

the United States was 31st in math, compared with South Korea (4th), Finland (6th) and Poland (25th).

the United States was 23rd in science, compared with Finland (2nd), South Korea (6th) and Poland (19th).

the United States was 17th in reading, compared with South Korea (2nd), Finland (3rd) and Poland (15th).

The author argues that poverty, diversity, class size, use of technology, and even amount of money spent matters less than

… … … DRUM ROLL … … …

Rigor.

What is that?

“Listening to the stories of Kim and Eric, I started to notice one fundamental theme. In Korea and Finland, despite all their differences, everyone – kids, parents, and teachers – saw getting an education as a serious quest, more important than sports or self-esteem. This consensus about the importance of a rigorous education led to all kinds of natural consequences: not just a more sophisticated and focused curriculum but more serious teacher-training colleges, more challenging tests, even more rigorous conversations at home around the dining room table.

“In these countries, people thought learning was so important that only the most educated, high-achieving citizens could be allowed to do the teaching. These governments spent tax money training and retaining teacher talent, rather than buying iPads for first graders or mandating small class sizes. It wasn’t that public respect for teachers led to learning, as some American educators claimed after visiting Finland; it was that public respect for learning led to great teaching. Of course people respected teachers; their jobs were complex and demanding, and they had to work hard to get there.

“One thing led to another. Highly educated teachers also chose material that was more rigorous, and they had the fluency to teach it. Because they were serious people doing hard jobs and everyone knew it, they got a lot of autonomy to do their work. That autonomy was another symptom or rigor. Teachers and principals had enough leeway to do their jobs like true professionals. They were accountable for results, but more autonomous in their methods.

“Kids had more freedom, too. This freedom was important, and it wasn’t a gift. By definition, rigorous work required failure; you simply could not do it without failing. That meant that teenagers had the freedom to fail when they were still young enough to learn how to recover. When they didn’t work hard, they got worse grades. The consequences were clear and reliable. They didn’t take a lot of standardized tests, but they had to take a very serious one at the end of high school, which had real implications for their futures” (116).

Fascinating, yes?

The author goes into details about teacher training in the United States. It isn’t pretty. At all.

She also talks about parenting, how authoritative parents and parents as “coaches” are more conducive to learning & rigor. Versus authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, and parents as “cheerleaders”.

She discusses how “involved parenting” in the schools looks like bake sales and other fundraisers for sports teams [or class events like senior trips, in my experience] or contributing to the “school’s culture, budget, and sense of community” (110). Further, “theser was not much evidence that PTA parents helped their children become critical thinkers” (110).

What did help? Reading to little kids. Talking about school, books, and issues, “showing genuine interest in what they were learning” for big kids (112).

What do coach parents do? “While American parents gave their kids placemats with numbers on them and called it a day, Asian parents taught their kids . . . systematically and directly, say from six-thirty to seven each night, with a workbook” (110). Korean parents “spent less time attending school events and more time training their children at home: reading to them, quizzing them on their multiplication tables while they were cooking dinner, and pushing them to try harder. They saw education as one of their jobs” (110).

She also talked about the usefulness of “exit exams” – standardized testing at the end of high school, and lots of other interesting things you’ll have to read the book to find out because I’m out of time to summarize.

One final bit I typed in though, about sports and education – a combination that frankly has at best mystified me (as a student, teacher and/or parent) and at worst been incredibly frustrating as parents, students, peers, taxpayers, etc. seemed to care more about sports than actually educating children.

“Sports were central to American students’ lives and school cultures in which they were not in most education superpowers. . . . Without a doubt, sports brought many benefits, including lessons in leadership and persistence, not to mention exercise. In most U.S. high schools, however, only a minority of students actually played sports. So they weren’t getting the exercise, and the U.S. obesity rates reflected as much. And those valuable life lessons, the ones about leadership and persistence, could be taught through rigorous academic work [and/or music education], too, in ways that were more applicable to the real world. In many U.S. schools, sports instilled leadership and persistence in one group of kids, which draining focus and resources from academics for everyone” (118).

“The lesson wasn’t that sports couldn’t coexist with education; it was that sports had nothing to do with education. In countries like Finland, sports teams existed, of course. They were run by parents or outside clubs. . . In isolation, there was nothing wrong with sports, of course. But they didn’t operate in isolation. Combined with less rigorous material, high rates of child poverty and lower levels of teacher selectivity and training, the glorification of sports chipped away at the academic drive among U.S. kids. The primacy of sports sent a message that what mattered – what really led to greatness – had little to do with what happened in the classroom” (119).

Thoughts? (to anyone who got this far!!)

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