Yesterday, 12/07/10, a number of news channel reported on the recently published world rankings for students on reading, math and sciences. First of all, congratulations to Shanghai China for taking the top spot in all 3 categories. Source: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf Next, it's unfortunate that US education system continues to not be competitive around the world. I am very concern with the education system in US, considering what will happen to my future children. Gave it some thought about the issues with US education and here's what I come out with 1) Schools in US is not about education. It's more like a popularity contest. Whilst the children of the other countries are working hard, the children in US are worried about what to wear to the next prom, etc. 2) I think Facebook and Twitter are partly to be blamed. It seems like US students are more concerned with a) getting more friends / followers on Facebook. 2) updating others (friends) what the heck they are up to. Frankly, who gives a shit what you are doing and where you are?? 3) Maybe the popularasians community can tell me, but does schools in other countries have to worry about school shooting and teenage pregnancies? 4) then there's always the possibility of sucky teachers like ... [youtube]OdREEcx0-Qc[/youtube] WHAT A MESS UP COUNTRY!!!
Point 2 is true, it prob applies to some places in the UK. Many are on FB 24/7 (okay, exagerrated but you get me)
If point 2 is true, how come Canada performs in the above-average in all categories? it's not as if we canadians spend less time than you on facebook and stuff lol As for shooting and teen pregnancy, I guess Canada sees less of that (albeit they do occur), due to laws regarding firearms. Furthermore, pregnancy in general is highly influenced by the level of education, and the education system. I am unsure of the american educational curriculum, however Canada's educational curriculum puts very high emphasis on sexual education, which might be the cause of less teen pregnancy. Although, with shows like "16 and pregnant", I'm fairly certain the rate of teen pregnancy will rise substantially. There's this girl on my facebook that posted "I'm watching '16 and pregnant' and it makes me want to have babies". I facepalmed, and deleted her off my FB list.
Alot of schools / colleges / universities are even on Facebook. It may be the hip thing to do; but, shouldn't schools/colleges/universities pay more attention to educating rather than being hip? I don't understand the need for schools / colleges to be on Facebook or Twitter. Why does an educational institution have the need to be in social network?? What do you think is the suckiness of US education system?
I can understand retailers, etc. They need to market their name and product out there to boost their sales. But, as for educational institutions; I would imagine the better quality your educators are, the better quality students you produce, I would like to think students are dying to gain entry. They wouldn't need to sell their intakes on FB or Twitter.
Schools use facebook and twitter to alert students of events and such. I get a bunch of messages in my facebook inbox promoting events our encouraging students to go out and vote. For example, they sent out 2 messages about the bone marrow drive we had a while back. They use facebook/twitter because that's what students use and it's an easy way to reach out to students. I like it. Also I agree with what Dan said about putting a lot of focus on sex education. I remember in grade 6-8 there was a great emphasis on sex ed and I guess that helps to educate students about pregnancy and such before they enter high school, which is when most teen pregnancies tend to occur.
thought id just contribute to this discussion I have friends here who just did the SAT (as well as their uni admission tests here).. and they have said that the difficulty of it .. is a lot easier than what we have here (NSW, Australia). Arguably, NSW has one of the best high school co-curriculm in Australia, and I do remmeber reading.. if not one of the better coo-curruculm in the world (but dont quote me on this) 1- i think every country would have this.. i know many people who dont really care about high school education - there are many options to get a job, and for them education isnt as important. And again, not eveyrone here works very hard, it comes down to a lot of factors- school environment, culture etc. 2- most of my friends have or use FB.. but reading the above comments, our school doesnt endorse it or anything like that... our school doesnt use it to send messages about upcoming events. however, as a year group, if there was something important coming up, someone would send messages to our year group about this. 3. School shootings, no. I guess.. here we're very lucky that guns are banned after a massacre in Tasmania some years ago... and its relatively safe here. there are occasional school knifiings and wat not.. but nothing to do with guns tbh/ Teenage pregnancies.. very rare .. unless its particular suburbs as evo mentioned.. normally their education/upbringing isnt as good. Also, there has been sex education taught to an extent in PE class n watnot.. I only know 1 person who got someone pregnant 4- every school will have sucky teachers haha. Public, Private; no difference IMO. crappy teachers everywhere.
lol its not like your better at life for having better scores at reading math and science. the end result can be a total cock sucker. and if you think thats a good outcome of a "proper" education then its your opinion.
FB makes people go on it regularly (students) and they don't bother revise. They play games, talk, stalk...ahhh lots of things.
The 4 points you had applies to every country, so while its true, it still doesn't explain why the US is ranked so low. Others here have highlighted the problem of social networking sites, but I think all other countries have their own respective FBs and twitters-although I do agree they are a big problem, other countries also experience this. Without disagreeing with what you have pointed out I really think there are other factors (like what BigM said) that may have contributed to the lower performance of US students or even other western countries. 5 out of the top 10 nations are of Asian countries and so I'm going to just put out some points here base on that and generalise. I don't know if any of you notice, but these 5 countries are heavily influenced by Confucianism. I don't want to get into the history or idea etc of Confucianism too much because its simply too late where I am from to research and list everything but seeing as how most of us here are of Asian background, I assume we are somewhat expose to it even though we were born or raised in western countries. One idea of Confucianism is the importance of education. I'm sure most of us have witness the stereotypical "Asians are smarter than white" or "Asians are nerds" or "Asians are good at maths"etc but honestly we all know these aren't true. Personally the reason why I think Asian students generally perform better overall than their schoolmates is because there is a greater emphasis on education from our family and because we simply give a 'damn' (sorry for lack of a better word) about it. The standard expected from our parents might be the main idea at play here. We were brought up with the idea that education is the key to success, going to university is extremely important for our future, university will get you a good job. I haven't experience it personally, but I know Asian parents who punish their kids harshly simply because their grades weren't top notch, yet, I have never heard of similar stories from other parents of different race. I mean the importance of education is so ingrained into us (member who are of Asian background) that I am certain that most of us here want our kids to do well in school and if possible go to a reputable university in the future. I really am just generalising here because Asian countries dominated the top 10 but ultimately Confucianism is what molds the Asian culture and essentially its translates into Asian student's attitude to studying/education.
ab 289, all of your arguments are dumb. I feel like our issue has a lot to do with distribution of wealth... The movie you posted is stupid, but it does ring true. One of the reason our public school systems fail is because of lack of funding. Have you ever even been to an inner-city public school? I doubt it from the way you've presented yourself here. I have had two jobs in inner-city school districts. The kids I worked with were really smart, but a lot of them honestly didn't have the resources to put a lot of effort into school. Many of them had issues at home that they were struggling with (40% of my kids were on welfare). When your home life is falling apart, completing a homework assignment is one of the least of your worries. Don't be such a privileged prat. Not everyone has the time to spend hours on facebook like you or worry about their prom dresses. Get out of you little ivory tower. Maybe you'll actually learn something if you do.
Asians in the USA have risen to meet the same wealth level of Caucasian people, the same time the Lation population has remained the same throughout the same time period.... intriguing? very.
I used to think that the failing US edu system has to do with the shortage of funding; however, being back in school now, I feel the failing isn't due to funding. The mentality of US kids these days have changed. They are being distracted the moment they were born into this world - tv, computer, ipod, nintendo, etc ... all these technologies that used to be hard to come by can easily accessible. Brand name, drugs, guns, and sex (school, mass media) are plastered all over the places. Kids don't use their brain much these days .. math = calculator unlike Asia where people calculate in their head really quickly.
Calculating in your head is a waste of time. There are calculators for a reason. I am horrible at arithmetic, long division especially. Calculators make it easy on people like me who don't have the best memories for their times tables. The funny thing is that simple math takes me forever, but when I have a calculator I can do calculus really easily.
As a matter of fact, I am the product of public schools without the distractions when I attended school. And maybe because I'm Asian; where my parents are actually concerned with my education. Sure, I admit I'm more privileged than alot of people where my parents were able to move to a better school districts so that my siblings and I are able to attend better schools. It's true the less privileged have more things to worry about than completing his/her homework. However, I refuse to believe the stats is totally the highlights of the less privileged. This is the numbers for the country as a whole; not just the inner-city public schools as described by you. How much more funding does the teachers need? Where do you find a job that pays so much but you get 3 months of vacation a year + public holidays??? Stop using the funding excuse and stop being like the lady ... using the kids as a tool to get herself more money. I say, show me the performance; then ask for the money!!! Maybe we have teachers like you; it is no wonder the US kids are not able to count. Technology is there for a reason; but, you do need to know how to work out the problem. It's part of building your problem solving skills. If everyone can just input the numbers in calculators, there won't be a need to study. Everyone just need to know how to push buttons. Using your argument, no one needs to do study or do anything; everything can be found on google / computer. That's why the computer is there right???
I doubt that you attended an inner city school that was pressed for funding. Students who go to public schools can be just a privileged depending on the district their schools are located in. Kids can be distracted by any number of different things. You can't blame facebook for low tests scores. Also a focus on race and equating it to intelligence pretty much makes you a racist. There is nothing inherent about any race that makes them smarter than any other. Race itself is a social construct, if you want to get into the nitty gritty of it (but I won't spend my time talking about critical race theory here unless you really want me to). There may be priorities that are reinforced by some cultural groups, but there isn't in any way a direct correlation with race and performance. To respond to your second point, that's not my argument at all. I know how to reason out and logically solve problems. This skill is much more useful than memorizing my times tables.
I guess you're a total idiot without a calculator then .. what the hell are they teaching you at school?
Forgive me, but I can hardly subscribe to a justification of dismissing an entire methodology simply because it's beyond one's ken. While I agree that calculators do have a place and is a tremendous boon to the math and sciences; the innate ability to concretely conceptualize with high accuracy is a learned skill that some are more accomplished at than others. IMHO, such skills are valuable personal assets and should not be disregarded.
