<p>Wholeheartedly agree, Epiphany.</p>
<p>Some random observations:</p>
<p>Even in my high school’s gifted program (consistently top 20 in nation for the past few years mind you), there’s a huge divide between the ‘Asian nerds’ and the ‘white kids.’ There’s much more overlap than in the regular, non-gifted program, but it’s at times disheartening. Many students (at the risk of sounding racist, I’d have to say it’s whities) fall behind in math and physics, the engineering fields that may very well be the most important in the future.</p>
<p>It’s evident in the mentality of much of the Asians here that they want to succeed (or are pushed to by their parents) in hard sciences (math, physics, chemistry, etc) and are more likely to enroll in IB/AP courses in those fields. On the other hand, the most popular IB elective among ‘white kids’ is Business and Management. The class itself is fine, but they choose it because it’s easy (and the teacher’s known as super chill). Obviously there are exceptions both ways.</p>
<p>Interestingly however, my relatives and their friends in China never take Calculus in high school - it’s unheard of. My school has consistently 3-5 freshmen take AP Calc, and many sophomores; this is probably somewhat common among ‘elite’ schools/students. Does this mean Americans are better at ‘difficult’ math? My personal opinion is that Chinese students in high school are more focused with more ‘abstract’ math (eg AMC, AIME, USAMO material) and go much more into depth than do their American counterparts.</p>
<p>^ not true, my cousin in RURAL China (not the shanghai and Beijing’s with the gifted/privilidged kids but in actual villages) flipped through my calc textbook this summer (around BC level) and asked if it was for hs? And then added that he was surprised we were so behind. I know that for some schools, kids take calc as sophomores and even freshmen (people do that at my school too, I almost did) but honestly, as a WHOLE, hs finishes with TRIG, calc is considered college level.
Whether it should be or not since calc requires conceptual thinking most people don’t have until later teens is another issue…but the fact is that China is not behind on “higher level” math. Believe me, by 3rd grade, math in China starts being an entire grade ahead of the US. That’s in 3rd grade. It’s true that other things can be sacrificed for academics, but the raw facts say there are issues w/ the US edu system.</p>
<p>It’s already been pointed out; however, it should be reiterated – most Scandanavian as well as many other countries “track” their students from a young age. Consequently, their so-called “excellent” test scores are very skewed. We test a vast array of ability levels including kids who have just come over to the states and have no mastery of the language (let alone much of the educational foundation that their peers do). Naturally, the scores are going to be lower if you test EVERYONE as opposed to merely those who have performed well since a very, very young age. Would you want your child pigeon-holed for the skills they demonstrated in elementary school? </p>
<p>Secondly, students in the majority of these countries do not spend an inordinate amount of time on team sports, volunteerism, and other ECs; thus, they have significant more time to devote to pure academics. Our students can’t simply come home and practice the piano for an hour or so when they come home after school at four and then hit the books. They have sports practices until six, clubs and other activites after that…they often don’t start homework until 9 or so, and many rarely get to bed until 2. (Yes, not all are this driven; however, it’s true for many of America’s high achievers.)</p>
<p>Lastly, if our educational system is in such dire straits, then why on earth do we have so many internationals trying to get into our schools? This is a source of contention for many. </p>
<p>In short, although it’s far from perfect, I’ll take our current system with its flaws ANY day!</p>
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<p>You have several thousand colleges, some appeal to foreign students. Foreign students also like UK and Australia. A big part of the attraction is to learn better English, not just to learn subject-based material that can perhaps be taught as well or better in their own country.</p>
<p>If US colleges are so advanced, based on your wonderful school system (clearly #1 despite those pesky PISA results), how come all those foreign students can come in and do well even in a second language?</p>
<p>US students going overseas to study seldom go into full time regular classes taught in another language.</p>
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<p>You are wrong. In Scandinavian kids are “tracked” much less than the US kids with all kinds of gifted and magnet programs, honors classes etc. Most of the Scandinavian countries, especially Finland, has no divided classes for anyone before 10th grade. There are some electives before that, mainly if the kid wants to study only two foreign language or three or four and if they want to study more crafts or domestic science or sport. But the main academical classes (science, math, native language, two compulsory foreign language, social science, most of the art classes) are same for everyone. After nine grades there are more possibilities, either three year vocational track (contains vocational studies and some academical studies), three year academical track (reminds IB diploma program a lot) or combinations of the two (four years, has all the same vocational classes as vocational track and most of the academical tracks courses with little less electives like art and music instead of vocational track’s academics.) Many vocational tracks are more selective and require higher GPAs than many academical track schools. Kid can go to university from every track and many academical track students go back to vocational schools after academical track. Many bachelors programs favour kids from the relevant vocational track to academical track kids. </p>
<p>But this is irrelevant. The PISA study is done for the 15-years-old group and those are not tracked to anywhere in any Scandinavian country.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with jc40 that an inordinate amount of time is spent on ECs. High school is where you strengthen your fundamentals and build the academic foundation for the future education. That is not the time to go and save the world. But there is a lot of pressure to do extreme voluntary work that takes time away from studying. In India, for example, college admissions are based purely on academic achievement. Yes, there might be people who argue that this prevents holistic development of a child but the American system makes the student a jack of all trades but master of none!</p>
<p>The USA has 316 million people, 48 million of whom do not speak English in their homes. There are several thousand different school systems in the USA, public and private. They instruct students in over forty languages. I wonder how Findland would handle that?</p>
<p>Yet somehow, American high schools produce nearly 20,000 of the higest performing 15-year-olds in the world. Of course, it is not just the schools’ curricula and faculties, it is very much culturallyy based from inside the homes of these individial children. </p>
<p>It may be parenting, but the schools have to have something to do with Americans producing leaders in every field of endeavor known to man, with the possible exception of soccer.</p>
<p>Sreesri:
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<p>I’ll take an over all developed “Jack of all Trades” after high school than “master of one” because of the following reason:
- Jack of all trades can survive much better in real world than master of Math/Science/Art after high school.
- An over all groomed high school student might be exposed to more ethical values because of volunteering activities.
- An over all groomed high school is socially more acceptable than a master of Art/math/science.
- A Jack of all trades after high school can become master of more than one after undergraduate and graduate degrees.</p>
<p>In my view US high school system stressing the need for overall development is much better system than India/China stressing on one single exam.</p>
<p>You need to understand that we need more Educated people in this world not literate one (master of one field).
When it comes to creating Robots it will be required to have a master of one small activity (e.g. Bolting a Car Door) but when it comes to raising humans it make more sense to raise Jack of all Trades.</p>
<p>Is “master of one” good? Yes, but he/she needs a manager, “jack of all trades”.</p>
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<p>you do realize this is total self-indulgent BS, don’t you? unsurprising, coming from a jack of all trades yourself.</p>
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<p>Also BS. This is how you get jack-of-all-trades, anti-intellectual politicians and leaders who are science-shy and fact-shy. To be proud of this is also to be proud of how the nation is going downhill under partisan gridlock and pointless “national debates” (LOL). </p>
<p>Beneath this liberal artsy, jack-of-all-trades rubbish is an intellectual laziness to delve deeper into a subject because let’s face it, it’s much easier to know a little of everything and pretend to be smart than to know a lot about one particular field and actually develop your analytical skills. Throw an average American into a Ph.D program and he or she will come crawling out bawling and begging for mercy. International students are overwhelming top American graduate schools (fact - in my two years of college so far none of my TA’s have been American) and they will be the leaders and innovators of the future.</p>
<p>Well if you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, why bother with studying at University level?</p>
<p>“Jack of all trades, master of none”…feel free to read as:</p>
<p>“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”</p>
<p>And like it or not, developing countries like China - especially China, whose top leaders and officials are engineers, scientists, economists, not ********ty lawyers and bankers - will overtake the U.S. in due time because they are embracing and specializing in math and science and technology while American kids are dissing them as “uncool”. Well, go ahead and continue to be jack-of-all-trades - we’ll see how far along you can take this BS.</p>
<p>Being a manger also requires special skills that have to mastered. In fact most good, well respected managers are the ones who have subject knowledge expertise and then they go on and pickup management skills on top of that. Also you need fewer managers and so an entire school system cannot be geared towards generating managers. We are still talking about high school here!</p>
<p>Those Chinese engineers won’t be able to overtake the USA until they are educated enough to figure out that “liberty” thing that has been kicking their a$$ for a while. Oh yeah - and call me when they get a man on the moon - and we did it with slide-rules.</p>
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<p>The depth of your miseducation never fails to amaze me. The reason they’ve been kicking YOUR ass is precisely because of their LACK of liberty. Mao may have been a horrible capitalist, but starting from Deng onwards, the authoritarian regime has always been about smart economics - and because they have absolute power they are able to push through massive economic reforms and policies at will. All this while maintaining one of the most open and dynamic economies in the world. This is government intervention at its best and smartest. Not to mention that the average person or child is way smarter and more hardworking. There are good things to be said about allowing smart, benign elites to drown out the average person.</p>
<p>On the other hand, America is currently ruled by a moronic electorate which can’t agree on (or understand) even the most economically-sound reforms and bills. There are enormous waste and huge inefficiencies in the healthcare system, the government, and in long-irrelevant union-infested industries like the automobile industry. Unemployment has persisted around 10% because of structural deficiencies in the economy - why? Because of the inertia in politics and the people’s resistance to correcting these deficiencies. This is hugely disappointing. I would prefer American superiority, and I personally don’t like the fact that an immature bully like China is going to become so powerful, but they will overtake America and this is a fact.</p>
<p>screwitlah:
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<p>That’s why I’ve problem with literate but uneducated people. We need to educate more and in a broad manner. If you can’t provide any argument then don’t just refute something as self-indulgent BS.</p>
<p>LaContra:
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<p>A high school is not a place to become master of one. You need to be a Jack of all trades, harnessing your skill in the undergraduate at college and becoming more proficient at graduate level, eventually becoming master of one or many with experience or with a Phd.</p>
<p>That is why we have Phd programs otherwise we can make HS graduate as the leader of their respective fields.</p>
<p>what you wrote can’t charitably be considered an argument, not even technically. all you did was state a series of laughable opinions on why it’s better to be a jack of all trades i.e. yourself. it’s astonishing you can’t tell the difference.</p>