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Christine
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Has anyone read The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got that Way by Amanda Ripley? The reviews on Amazon sound interesting and our library system has almost 200 holds on 72 copies of the book. Is it a worthwhile read and does it shed any light on learning?
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Christine
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SeaStar
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Thanks for the heads up, Christine. I hadn't hear of this book until your post, and so I requested it from the library. I am now about half way through it, and it is blowing me away.
Smartest kids in the world (according to the PISA test)? Finland. Korea.
To become a teacher in Finland... six year program with a built in masters. One full year of student teaching that is handled like a medical residency.
Only 20% of applicants are accepted to their programs. Teachers are highly respected and well paid.
This was not always the case. In the 1970's they gutted their educational system and completely reworked it. Now they are so happy/confident with their system they have phased out standardized testing.
In Korea, kids are going to school from 8 AM to 11 pm! Yes- it's insane. HIgh test scores, but at what a price.
Anyway- I'm only half way through, but I was glad to see that the number one thing that influenced test scores for the better (according to research) was having parents who read to their children. Children who were read to at home and discussed books/movies, etc with their parents scored up to 15 points higher on the PISA test for their age levels (that placed them about a year ahead of their peers).
So... my kids should be Einstein, right? 
If nothing else, this book is a fascinating look at education around the world.
One heads up- one of the students in the book- an exchange student to Finland- is Eric, who is 16 and had just "come out" to his parents. I thought including that info was basically unnecessary, and it caught me off guard. I'm not sure why the author thought it was relevant. Maybe that will be revealed later.
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jawgee
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SeaStar wrote:
| In Korea, kids are going to school from 8 AM to 11 pm! Yes- it's insane. HIgh test scores, but at what a price. |
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That's no exaggeration. We had a Korean exchange student last year and not only do they go to school until almost midnight, they also go on Saturdays, at least in the morning.
I asked her when she spent time with her family, and she admitted that she really didn't, especially during the week.
She turned 16 when she was here and there was one day that she received a call at 4:00 in the afternoon from one of her friends from home, when it was 4:00 AM there. Her friend said that a group of them just got done studying for their high school entrance exam. They studied through the night for WEEKS hoping that they wouldn't be tracked to a vocational school.
There's a lot of pressure for students to perform in Korea.
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SeaStar
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So what did she think of school in America?
It must have seemed considerably easier- or maybe just a lot less stressful.
One thing that the books really notes is how sports and schools are totally separate in most of the world, whereas in America, sports rule. It makes me wonder- how did sports ever get to be such a gigantic deal, and when did the school systems become the primary venue for them?
It's also very interesting that most of the schools in the world spend far less money per student then the US. No fancy electronic whiteboards, no ipads for every first grader- it's a very basic setting in most places. Message- all the bells and whistles don't produce better students.
I'm just getting to the part about the high school in Ghettysburg and the principal's despair over how everyone is content to be mediocre.
It's both fascinating and depressing... also giving me a lot to think about in terms of the "scope of all things".
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knowloveserve
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Very cool. I just requested it at the library.
I always remind myself in the homeschooling realm, I'm not aiming for a batch of little Einsteins. (I dislike the emphasis everyone always places on homeschoolers being premature geniuses) I'm aiming for a batch of little saints!
I'm perfectly fine with mediocre academics if our virtues are exemplary! (St. John Vianney, pray for us!)
As it is… we are are still buttoning down the hatches on the virtue front.
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SeaStar
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That is a good reminder, Ellie. My goal is heaven, not Harvard.
At the same time, the stats on the quality of life of college grads vs. noncollege grads vs. HS drop outs are sobering. The author's research also shows that kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. I have to remind myself that the virtue of diligence readily applies to schoolwork.
Towards the end of the book the author offers this advice, which I find very helpful:
"Remember that rigorous learning actually looks rigorous. If the kids are whizzing through a worksheet, that's not learning. That's filling in a form. Kids should be uncomfortable sometimes; that's OK. They should not be frustrated or despairing, they should be getting help when they need it, often from each other."
So often, if I have a kid who is uncomfortable/frustrated/stuck/stumped/whatever, I tend to feel that it's my own fault- that I have failed somehow in my role as a teacher. It's hard to see my kids struggle, and I tend to jump in too often, just to keep the school day rolling. My ds, especially, is Mr. Drama. At times I find myself stepping in to help just to make the noise stop  .
So I have to work on letting them be stretched and challenged more and, yes, even letting them fail sometimes.
Anyway- I would love to hear your thoughts when you've read the book. I would also love to get this author's take on the homeschool life.
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SeaStar wrote:
At the same time, the stats on the quality of life of college grads vs. noncollege grads vs. HS drop outs are sobering.
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Not that I'm reading the book. But I'd be careful to check out the dates for when the stats were collected. There's an awful lot of college graduates that aren't making any more than noncollege grads AND are paying back student loans. The costs of college when there simply aren't jobs out there is making a lot of people rethink college as "necessary".
Oh and on quality of life.. those living with parents may have a higher quality of life than their net income would allow.
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jawgee
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SeaStar wrote:
So what did she think of school in America?
It must have seemed considerably easier- or maybe just a lot less stressful.
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Yes, less stressful is an understatement. We live in an area with a "competency-based" grading system, and we had lots of teachers grade her as "Competent" just because it was easy.
There were only one or two teachers who actually challenged her and worked with her to help her succeed. Most nights she had NO homework.
There's lots of layers to this, but I did come away knowing that I don't want my kids at that high school (and it's the same school I graduated from!)
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Christine
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Thank you for the review and the warning, Melinda. There are still tons of holds at my library. Once this baby arrives, I don't know how much time I will have for reading. I appreciate all the insights. Like Ellie, I want "a batch of little saints". We're aiming for Heaven not Harvard. 
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Christine
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SeaStar
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The book was published in 2013, and from what I can tell the 2011 stats
came in part from a book called "An Economy that Works". At that time unemployment for college grads was 4%. The rate for non college grads was about twice that. For those who dropped out of high school: 14%.
Non college grads were more likely to get divorced and raise children on their own- even more likely to die younger than college grads. And it was all much worse for those without a high school diploma.
There really aren't many jobs out there for teachers because teaching programs in many states regularly graduate hundreds more teachers than there are positions to fill. The oversupply is part of the problem that has led to mediocre teachers being hired. One of the teachers in the book was hired as a math teacher but was not even required to major in math. And he really only wanted to be a football coach anyway.
But what astonished me was this: in the heart of the recent recession, the Bama Pie company (supplier to McDonalds and other restaurants) went overseas to open a new factory. Hundreds of new jobs were created for the folks in Poland when plenty of people in the US were out of work.
So why go overseas? The Bama Pie company could not find enough workers, even at the lowest levels, skilled enough to be hired. Many applicants - with high school diplomas- could not even read or do basic math. So the company had to look elsewhere. How sad is that?
Again.. I don't know how homeschool students fare in all this. I don't have a math degree, and yet I am teaching my kids math.
The stories in this book have really shaken me up. Is college the answer?
I don't know. But less education certainly seems not to be the solution.
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JodieLyn
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SeaStar wrote:
There really aren't many jobs out there for teachers because teaching programs in many states regularly graduate hundreds more teachers than there are positions to fill. The oversupply is part of the problem that has led to mediocre teachers being hired. One of the teachers in the book was hired as a math teacher but was not even required to major in math. And he really only wanted to be a football coach anyway.
But what astonished me was this: in the heart of the recent recession, the Bama Pie company (supplier to McDonalds and other restaurants) went overseas to open a new factory. Hundreds of new jobs were created for the folks in Poland when plenty of people in the US were out of work.
So why go overseas? The Bama Pie company could not find enough workers, even at the lowest levels, skilled enough to be hired. Many applicants - with high school diplomas- could not even read or do basic math. So the company had to look elsewhere. How sad is that?
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That is very sad. But I also see an awful lot of kids who simply don't work at any job. I'm amazed at how many people act at least pleasantly surprised if not down right shocked at my kids actually working. I certainly don't see it as unusual. I worked hard when I was a child/teen and see a lot of good from having the kids do jobs and do them right.
Will sending a kid that can't read out of highschool to college actually help? They're just passed up the line because we can't hurt their little psyches and tell them they've failed.
Or do we now have to send our kids to college just to prove they have the skills that a hundred years ago were learned by the 8th grade? Or maybe do employers need to realize that some kids aren't good workers no matter their education and others are good workers no matter their education and start paying attention to things other than what education someone has when you're just looking for someone to train for a job anyway.
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Erin
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Melinda
Thanks for explaining about Finland, fascinating.
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Erin
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SeaStar
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All your points are questions asked in this book, Jodie- you would enjoy reading it!
The CEO of Bama Pies said she had money to provide technical training for anyone she hired- but she needed to start with workers who could read and do basic math.
OKlahoma is a highlighted state in this book, and I went to public middle school in OK.
Man- I experienced everything the author highlighted! I had some great teachers, but I also had the teacher who sat and tied fishing lures while we did mindless copy work.
There is a message of hope in this book- everything: studies, interviews, research- points to the fact that the problem is not with our kids and what they can learn. It's all gone wrong in how they are being taught.
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: The Smartest Kids in the World
