<p>Both of my American-born kids have been inside of classrooms in other countries, and were asked at some point to lead or teach a class; my son did so in an southeast Asian country. Both kids expressed frustration as to the unwillingness/inability of the students in those classrooms to think for themselves or participate/contribute in a meaningful way to the class. Basically their experience was that the students are trained to memorize whatever is given to them, but they don’t learn to think or puzzle things out on their own. The memorization ends up leaving significant gaps of knowledge. </p>
<p>For example, my daughter was asked to take over an English class on a day the regular teacher couldn’t be there. The students had been assigned to read and learn a passage that happened to describe the layout and furnishings of a room. So my daughter (with her touchy-feely, American-style educational background) decided to give a very simple assignment – she asked the students to draw a picture or diagram illustrating the room described in the passage. In her eyes, pretty easy – but the students were totally at a loss. They had never been asked to do anything like that and they freaked out. They were prepared to recite, word-for-word, the entire passage, if need be – and certainly to read it aloud in class – but to draw a picture of what it represented? (For that, they would have had to know what the words meant, which obviously was not something they were usually accountable for). They also demanded to know how she would grade them – they were much more concerned about the grade outcome then on demonstrating knowledge… </p>
<p>Similar situation for my son. He had written a simple English word on a blackboard, like "good’', and asked the students if they knew any other English words that meant almost the same thing. It seemed like an easy enough exercise, both to get the kids thinking and to help them build their English vocabulary – but again, the students were not generally asked by their teachers to generate their own ideas. </p>
<p>My daughter also spent a week in China where part of the agenda was touring Chinese schools – it seemed like there was a move afoot with “experimental” schools to emulate the American model. </p>
<p>I realize that the overall standard for American schools does tend to be pretty low. But I don’t think that the solution is for parents of very capable kids to demand that they do A+ work, because one aspect of American education is that a lot of time is wasted with busy work and extra credit that doesn’t really enhance learning or understanding. If grades were based solely on mastery of the material, that would be one thing – but grades are often based on completing assignments that are well below the ability level of the kids at the top of the class. So the kids at the top aren’t really served by working for a grade – they are better off if their parents can arrange for enrichment activities to extend their knowledge and experience. It’s the kids on the lower end of the spectrum who are hurt by our poor standards, and they aren’t the ones whose parents are at home supervising their homework. </p>
<p>One of our local t.v. affiliates profiled Chua’s book on the evening news – they spent all evening teasing the segment as being a comparison between “Chinese” and American parenting (the angle from the WSJ article – but when the segment came on they actually chose to challenge the stereotype. They interviewed a young Chinese-American mother (she spoke with an accent, so probably not American born) – she had three very young children and she said she didn’t agree with Chua’s approach and had all her kids attending a Montessori school because she liked the free exploration encouraged in that environment.</p>
<p>I also made similar choices for my kids. I feel that my kids learned how to think independently and creatively, how to express themselves, how to work well with others-- and somehow or other they managed to absorb enough information to do reasonably well on standardized tests. In hindsight I am very glad i took a laid-back approach to school and kept my kids in public schools – there’s a lot more to transitioning from childhood to adulthood than academics.</p>