Amanda Ripley and The Dumbing Down of American Kids

Amanda Ripley, without any obvious qualifications other than intelligence, a liberal arts education and a desire to write about important topics, has generated a book and some worthwhile discussion about how Americans raise and mis-educate their kids.

I have not read her book about The World's Smartest Kids--I have only read the NY Times review and seen her interviewed on the News Hour. 

The important thing, in this global economy, is she has presented news from abroad--she tells us something about how other countries approach education. Poland, which has a diverse economic picture, with many impoverished children, has managed to improve test scores on what may be meaningful tests, to the point where they are far better than the United States. Finland, has soared to the pinnacle without assigning more homework, in fact less homework, than we typically do in the most competitive US schools. South Korea, always a top performer, scores high at the price of making childhood a misery for its children, and the return on all that effort is no better than the more efficient and thoughtful approach in Finland.

In all these systems, "teachers' colleges" have been eliminated. Teachers are drawn not from the bottom half of inferior educational institutions but from the elite of the educational system.

Of course, there are questions about exactly what each system accomplishes, about whether you can actually speak of the educational system in Finland as a whole, any more than you can speak of the educational system in America, with all its variability, but at least she is shining the light where it deserves to be shined: abroad.

Let us look at what other people do, rather than focusing inwardly.

One thing she notes, when pressed, is in other high school systems from Finland to Poland to Korea, there is no football team, no pep rallies, no cheerleaders, none of the "distractions" which characterize American high schools. Which is not to say there is no joy in those high schools--it simply is not institutionalized joy.

Whether or not our system is actually a better experience, in high school, is questionable. Most of the Phantom's friends do not remember high school fondly--although that may have to do more with memory than with the actual experience. The Phantom had to return to his own high school twenty years after he had graduated, to interview a student who was applying to his college alma mater. Approaching the school, the Phantom felt a bleak cloud settle in--high school had been a dark, sad time, filled with disappointment and failure. But once he walked into the hallway and saw teenagers in the same school colors, excited, flirting, between classes, the Phantom felt an old, unremembered rush and said to himself--Wow! I had such a great time here.

Many of us have the feeling we are not doing well here at home, in high schools,  no matter where in the US is home. Most of us do not have much basis for this feeling--memories, observations of our own children passing through. 

Let us inquire elsewhere. Let us be humble. Let us learn from others.