Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21583609-only-few-countries-are-teaching-children-how-think-best-and-brightest

by benfreu • 13 years ago

225 152 13 years ago

economist.com

sillysaurus22• 13 years ago

Growing up, I declined to participate in the educational system (primarily to avoid harassment at school) and instead spent all of my time learning to program video games at home. So I would sleep through class, go home, and try to write Pong. My academic performance was nonexistent, but I came out of it with a career. I was wondering, was anyone else's childhood experience similar?

Highschool felt at best a dungeon, and at worst a torture chamber. That was primarily due to my mindset. I didn't really know how the world worked, and it seemed to me like the system had been designed for the purpose of dragging me down to the level of the brutes around me. But unfortunately the experience killed my interest in wanting to strive to attend a good (or any) university, which I now deeply regret. Not due to loss of credentials, but rather due to missing out on the social experience of uni.

If it were explained to me that the reason I was in school was because an industrialized society needs a place to put children for 8 hours each day so their parents can work, it would've made so much more sense than trying to believe the lie that we were there to learn. It felt so obvious that we weren't there to learn anything substantial. By learning to program video games I'd gotten a taste of the amount of effort real learning took, and memorizing historical dates or doing trivial math problems definitely wasn't any effort. So maybe one solution to "How do we cultivate the desire to learn?" is to relax on the idea that school is even supposed to be a place for kids to learn.

kiba2• 13 years ago

It seems that America has a higher rate of maverick learners than other countries.

It may be due to availability bias that I would know more American mavericks more than Asian mavericks. However, in the manga and anime that I watch, I do not know of any of the maverick learner archetype. It seems to be a trope that the smartest student usually have the highest score.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

Largely because it is the only option ;-)

saraid2164• 13 years ago

It's also because America has a culture of encouraging mavericks. This is seen as more individualistic, ergo morally better. Every system set up in America is effectively doomed to perceived failure because you're not really considered doing well until you're circumventing or beating it in some way.

kevincrane• 13 years ago

I feel like I'm in the minority here (backed up by a similar discussion on reddit today), but I really enjoyed high school. I liked the classes, I felt like I knew what I was doing with life when I graduated and went on to college, and then there's the whole social thing that people seem hit/miss on. I made a ton of lifelong friends in high school, played on sports teams all 4 years, and evolved from a shy little kid to a reasonably social adult by the end as I gradually learned to come out of my shell.

Maybe it's just the people who comment on these types of articles are the kinds of people who also didn't like school, but I personally wouldn't change my high school or college experiences for the world.

dnautics2• 13 years ago

I liked my high school experience as well, but I went to this school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-B_Woodlawn

But I did attend elementary school in Japan (and had cousins who went to high school there at the same time I was) and while they may have achieved a proficiency higher than most americans, the freedom granted to me at my high school allowed me to do even better - and I was given a decidedly non-standard education emphasizing critical thinking and questioning of authority.

This served me exceptionally well in college, and on through grad school and postdoctoral studies. Perhaps this is a bit of an overgeneralization, but almost all of the East Asian postdocs that I encountered did not, outwardly, exhibit as critical a stance towards data and evidence as did american postdocs - with the generalizeable exception of the East Asian postdocs who did their grad school in the States.

p4bl0• 13 years ago

I have had the same experience of high school as you on the social level (well, except I didn't do sport). However, I felt really close to what sillysaurus2 said about classes. Beside, thinking by myself is clearly not something I was taught in class, but was rather taught to me by my parents' education, by my social interactions with friends, and by learning how to program during middle and high school.

_delirium• 13 years ago

I didn't hugely enjoy school socially, but I did find the classes, well, educational. I learned a lot of things on my own or from parents as well, but in high school I had basically a few hours a day set aside to studying stuff that I might not otherwise have studied, from math to U.S. history to art theory. I also got better at communicating an argument in short (2-5 page) essay form, which has been a useful skill later in life.

One additional aspect is that, while many classes were too easy/slow-paced for me, the fact that they weren't for everyone else made that a useful experience too. For one it was interesting to understand what people found easy or hard to get. For another I would often help other students with their homework, which was good practice in how to explain subjects understandably, basically in how to do tutoring.

azth• 13 years ago

Do you have the link to the reddit thread? :)

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

I have a somewhat similar, though critically different, story.

For much of school I wasn't very engaged in formal learning. I didn't hate it, but it didn't hold my attention, and the drudgery was boring. I would often not do homework and slack off on projects. As a consequence of this when I entered high school I was put on the advanced track on math and nothing else. To the everlasting credit of my adolescent self I realized this was a problem and I set about fixing it. I tested into the advanced English track for my sophomore year and I figured out how to get onto the advanced science track as well. I ended up graduating near the top of my class and I earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics after only 2 years of college.

Nevertheless, as much learning as I accomplished through school I achieved about the same level on my own. I read about what interested me. I read magazines (like Scientific American back when they were good) and even textbooks for fun. I was supposed to have taken a biology class in high-school prior to entering AP biology but I never could fit it into my schedule, so I didn't. And despite that I was still at the top of that class, often scoring the highest on tests. Because so much of that material was stuff I had learned on my own.

But I got lucky. If I had attended a different high school with different teachers or if I hadn't had the insight to realize that it was important to invest in my education or if my personality had been slightly different things would have turned out much different. I might have even dropped out. And I can't help but wonder how many other smart people have been ill served by the school system because they weren't so lucky.

Edit: as an aside, as I grow older I've become more and more disillusioned with formal education. I see the skills that the system instills in students and in many cases I'm of the opinion that those skills would be better not to have (the worst variety of competitiveness, concentration on minutiae and policy) while at the same time doing a poor job of instilling actual knowledge, problem solving skills, and so on.

thaumasiotes• 13 years ago

I didn't really know how the world worked, and it seemed to me like the system had been designed for the purpose of dragging me down to the level of the brutes around me.

A huge amount of education "policy" in the US is driven by the goal of closing the "achievement gap" between blacks and whites (for educational purposes, Asians are honorary whites).

Since when you improve instruction, high performers tend to benefit as much or more than low performers, gap closing is usually accomplished by enforcing a low ceiling for achievement generally.

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

You're reminding me of a High School I went to that has a large mural with the words "Don't mind the gap" and a bunch of different colored children on it.

normloman• 13 years ago

Please provide a statistically significant number of examples when effective teaching strategies were discouraged because they improved education for whites and blacks equally. Otherwise, I'm left to assume you made this up, because it sounds good.

comrade_ogilvy2• 13 years ago

"Enforcing a low ceiling" is a very bias conclusion, with no logical support provided here.

The school system as we know it is a mass education "factory" system. There is and always will be cracks for students to fall through. Furthermore, it is not clear that the system ever served top students very well -- I emphasize issues around the "ceiling" is not actually new.

How to deal with those cracks in the system is a complex topic. But that hardly matters for purposes of this discussion because...

The school system is under intense pressure to produce results in the form of standardized test scores. What are they supposed to do? They focus on inching up the scores of those below the median, of course.

That has exactly nothing to do with "enforcing a low ceiling". The school system simply no longer cares about the brightest students, while the taxpaying voters are clamoring for those average test scores to climb. Individual teachers would love to care, but they are generally not allowed to until those scores go up first.

hrktb• 13 years ago

I genuinely enjoyed school from primary sections to university, but now as a parent I feel more and more that the school is also there to act as a buffer between the parents and children and push society's values down the kid's throat, for better or worse. i.e. Sitting 8 hours a day in school is a way to make it normal to sit 8 hours a day in a cubicle. I don't know if I'd want my child to go through that and be able to do any corporate job he'd be qualified to, or try completely exotic ways but have him more limited in choice afterwards because he didn't get the 'training'

kappaknight• 13 years ago

Do you have Montessori schools near where you live? Look into those... =)

charlieflowers• 13 years ago

I feel that way too, so we're homeschooling our fifth grade daughter. BUT -- she hates it and fights us every step of the way, because she feels she would have more friends if she were in school like a "normal" kid.

And she probably would. If you're not on the "normal" track, it is hard to make relationships in the American culture today. Kids don't seem to meet and play in the yard like they used to.

So we're mulling this problem over. If anyone has found some solutions, I'd love to hear them.

austenallred2• 13 years ago

"Highschool felt at best a dungeon, and at worst a torture chamber." I had a largely similar experience, though my method of coping was a bit different. Simply put, day in and day out, I would try to manipulate systems as best as I could and raise hell.

Every teacher had figured out a system that they wouldn't deviate from. Spend the first two weeks of each class studying how the teacher behaves and befriending the students, and you're set for the rest of the year. From staging an "essayist uprising" in AP Literature complete with founding documents that closely mirrored the Communist Manifesto, to forcing use of sexual innuendo in every sentence in a class with a particularly senile teacher, to starting a "barefoot" trend (which was strictly against the rules but I hate shoes) high school was a huge game and a joke.

I feel I learned a lot from it, but almost never from the actual material. The pace was so mind-numbingly slow that I could spend my days plotting and sneaking out windows, while learning what really worked to influence people. Come test-time I could read the book for 15 minutes the day before class and do fine, or even just notice the patterns in the teachers' awful test writing and follow it throughout. High School, at least academically, was a complete joke.

ericd2• 13 years ago

I didn't realize how lucky I was to attend the public school I did. I need to write my diff eq teacher a thank you card for deciding to teach high school instead of doing engineering work for much better pay. Maybe someday I'll do the same for my kids' school, when I have kids.

Houshalter• 13 years ago

That's very awesome, though at the same time I feel like you would be a terrifying person.

Qantourisc• 13 years ago

Well you DO need a school to learn to read and write. Atleast for a few years. Otherwise their won't be much learning on your own :)

And about declining school: there are does that decline them trough reasoning, and other due to being lazy...

The most important thing to teach a child, any child, and you need to get this one right: self-reflection/evaluation: what am I doing, what effect will this have?

Get that one right, and you won't need to do a lot of parenting at all after you got that one down. (Well for my parents at least.)

pgeorgi• 13 years ago

I know lots of kids that knew reading and writing before they entered school. Second year level calculation, too.

Of course the writing is quite crude, but motor control improves with age not with schooling.

The main thing in common I could discern so far is that the parents encourage curiosity and use those skills themselves.

ballard• 13 years ago

Neat.

I was fortunate to attend an over-achiever public hs with half a dozen perfect SATs and full rides to Ha'var-d. The prevailing view was "legally-mandated prison, CWOT." The best thing was finding ways to take classes that allowed more time off campus and coding time in the computer lab (eg total anarchy.) I'd never have wrote a friendly TSR virus that included hotkeys for a calculator and an ASCII table if it was "EZ-bake oven" rote instruction. Also, private school (Challenger) for K-3 probably did some good.

rlpb• 13 years ago

You might be interested to read: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

benched• 13 years ago

I felt the same about school: mostly, I hated it, and it was torture to go. I did very well, mostly because my mother instilled a kind of fear of getting less than an A on anything, which my extreme personality ratcheted up to a fear of getting less than A+. I obsessed over test scores, and remembering information came pretty easy.

The only part of school I enjoyed was math. I absolutely loved learning and doing math. That I could do a problem with lots of complicated steps, many of which seemed almost creative, and arrive at a common answer, was like logical magic. And it complimented my budding programming hobby very well.

I started trying to program games almost as soon as I had a computer, when I was still very young. I remember it took a long time to understand for loops at first. Then it took a long time to figure out how to poll keyboard input the right way. Then it took a while to learn the ins and outs of BLTing, and so on.

I left college after only one semester. I still thought the programming thing would probably only be a hobby. Still, I made a game, and tried to sell it. But it only sold 500 copies, so I was discouraged. My adulthood got off to a very rocky start, not knowing what to do. I took me 2 years to realize that I could actually get a programming job with what I already knew. At first, I wouldn't have believed it was possible, not without college. But through a couple of lucky breaks, it happened, and I found myself a full-fledged software developer at a real software company at 21, with no formal education. 15 years later, I find myself in the middle of a pretty interesting, varied programming career.

Looking back, the only parts of school that served me were math, and english. I could have just studied those two during high school, I think, and come out just as well. Everything else was self study.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

Over here in Indonesia, most of the more prestigious schools follow the Singapore model. Kids do end up studying a lot, but on the whole it doesn't seem more than I did as a kid (in rural America). They tend to be pretty well-rounded, teach three languages (English, Bahasa, and Mandarin), and follow roughly the math courses I remember as a child though perhaps a year advanced by 4th grade.

In the US, schools seem to be succumming to two very serious trends. The first, and most basic, is in the school attempting to replace rather than support the family as the basic unit of education. You can't do this though. Education begins and ends at home, and what schools offer is largely a supplement for the home.

This leads directly to the second problem which is the worship of innovation. I get told by friends in the US about how math classes are teaching Fibonacci parlor tricks for multiplication (like lattice multiplication, which I know enough math to understand but only because I know a lot more math than the average parent). This joins the high tech toys in the idea that gadgets and trinkets can teach our youth but parents cannot. The innovation focus further devalues the home as the center of learning, and it leads to a highly institutional, almost assembly-line view of learning.

In the end, I don't see how American higher education can survive another generation without some major adjustments to our public school system (and probably society as a whole, to be honest).

kiba2• 13 years ago

The innovation focus further devalues the home as the center of learning, and it leads to a highly institutional, almost assembly-line view of learning.

I thought the whole world is about assembly-line learning rather than self initiated learning.

Ygg22• 13 years ago

Only the worst kind is assembly line learning.

joshuaheard• 13 years ago

"Education begins and ends at home, and what schools offer is largely a supplement for the home."

I think it is the opposite. I pay the school to teach my kid. I don't expect to have them come home and require me to finish the job. Can you imagine if you went to a restaurant and they said, we prepared the food, but you must cook it.

I work every day with my child on her homework, but it is not to teach her what she learned at school, it is to supplement her teaching with things you won't learn in the classroom.

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

But before your kid ever goes to school, there are habits regarding learning that are picked up. These begin at home. For kids of below-school-age this is the place where most learning takes place.

The question is whether learning is something that is to be compartmentalized off into school work, or whether it is something we weave into every aspect of life. If the former, one will never become very smart or very skilled. If the latter, then all school offers is an opportunity to learn, something that kids take advantage of based on habits acquired at home.

tekalon• 13 years ago

You're supplementing her book learning, but she is observing you to learn life skills and how to think. It's your job to teach her financial skills, how to cook, give her the best example you can no how to have relationships with other people. Encourage her to play with other kids but also how to communicate with adults. Teach her how to be responsible and mature.

There is more to education than book learning (ABCs and 123s). You are supplementing her book learning while the school is supplementing her life skills learning.

Also- Papa Murphy's pizza. They make the pizza, but you take it home and cook it. Tastes better than delivery.

akulbe2• 13 years ago

What if their values don't coincide with yours? What if they're teaching your kid evolution and you're a creationist? (or vice versa)

What if they're teaching your kid something that is just flat out inaccurate? How do you know?

My point is that perhaps you're placing complete faith in someone else, with little/no accountability from you or your spouse to make sure that the education your children are getting is both quality and accurate.

In my opinion, even though you have delegated the role of education to the school system... final responsibility for the outcome still rests with us (the parents).

boothead• 13 years ago

Is that in the international schools or local? We are thinking of moving our family back to Indo and one concern is the education... Actually compared to the likely quality in the UK we probably have nothing to worry about!

einhverfr4• 13 years ago

These are the "national plus" schools, so technically neither international nor local but somewhere in between.

Actually compared to the likely quality in the UK we probably have nothing to worry about!

Funnily enough the most elite schools try to follow the UK curriculum but there is not a consensus that this is the best education around.

akulbe2• 13 years ago

I cannot even begin to say how much I agree with this. For once, someone who puts the priority of education where it truly belongs... AT HOME.

This isn't to say that education outside of the home has no place. It's just that it is something to be delegated, and shared.

However, I would posit that what happens often (at least in American society) in terms of attitude... is parents drop their kids off at the school's doorstep and assume that it is the schools's responsibility to educate them, and give them character training.

In my opinion, this is nothing less than an abdication of your responsibility as parents.

clavalle3• 13 years ago

the company is struggling to find Okies with the skills to fill even its most basic factory jobs. Such posts require workers to think critically

Perhaps those educated enough to think critically put that skill to work before accepting a factory job making mass produced biscuits. My critical thinking skills lead me to guess that is not the most fulfilling, high paying, or upwardly mobile job even for Oklahoma.

aspensmonster• 13 years ago

Such posts require workers to think critically, yet graduates of local schools are often unable to read or do simple maths. This is why the company recently decided to open a new factory in Poland...

This was the solution? Seriously? Going through the hassle of opening up a factory on the other side of the planet across language and legal barriers all because the local population in Oklahoma didn't come shrink-wrapped precisely as ordered? Seems to me that a far more simple solution would be to train your work force, rather than externalize that responsibility. If the problems are really so systemic as they are claimed, then demonstrate some civic responsibility and see to it that your community gets its act together.

westicle• 13 years ago

I fail to see how that is a more simple solution. Teaching people how to think is both an educational and cultural challenge which far exceeds the trivial challenge of outsourcing work.

People have a wide range of different responsibilities (self, family, local community, humankind etc). I don't see why Polish people are morally any less deserving of jobs than Oklahomans. This company clearly thinks the Polish are more capable of doing the job. Who are we to say otherwise?

philwelch• 13 years ago

The point of public education is that all of us contribute to it (through taxes) for the common good and all of us reap the rewards of an educated workforce and electorate. If public education has failed, then you can't expect a business to make up for that singlehandedly when it's more profitable to get what they need elsewhere.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

This comment is so naive that it hurts. So the company is supposed to push through an educational reform and wait 10-15 years for their future employees to go through the system before it can hire them?

pnathan• 13 years ago

My critical thinking skills suggest that the factory work pays terrible. A common complaint by factory management is that they can't find work, but they pay people on the order of 12/hr for entry labor. Which is about the rate I was paid as an undergrad at a poor state university - the low man on the underpaid totem pole.

ACow_Adonis2• 13 years ago

I am sure that company wants those engaged in its lowest paid repetitive tasks to be critical thinkers.

They might sit there, thinking critically, and realise that skill-shortage is economic new-speak for "wage-shortage". Everyone wants a ferrari, no one wants to pay for it. This doesn't mean there is a ferrari-shortage. Similarly, every big business and corporation wants cheap labour, preferably labour that will take the cost of any necessary skills and training on itself, or have it paid for by government. When it cannot get it, the stock standard propaganda cry is "skill shortage", often even when unemployment levels amongst...say...university graduates... remains high.

Of course, despite this "shortage" they will not raise wages. They will not pay for training to up-skill people...because its simply spin.

Then the workers on the line might think critically and realise that the reason the jobs were outsourced had to do with simple wage levels and the relative supply of cheap unskilled labour in other countries, and nothing to do with education, skills, or training at all. They'd realise that the company was just repeating the usual propoganda, and probably be pretty pissed off.

I'm sure that's what companies REALLY want.

eru2• 13 years ago

You make it sound like there's something wrong with outsourcing?

walshemj• 13 years ago

Bang on a bakery does not require skilled workers they might have a few mechanics to service the line and a couple of technicians to do H&S related tests the rest will be unskilled.

though actually probably not the best analogy Ferrari do limit the number of cars they make and to buy one of the new hot ones you often have to be an existing customer.

clarkm• 13 years ago

I grew up near the Bama Pie headquarters in Oklahoma, and I think this story is misleading. It omits some important facts in order to push education reform (particularly the core curriculum) and advertise Amanda Ripley's new book.

Bama Pie is not a high-end, boutique bakery. It's a low-cost, mass production operation. Their biggest customer? McDonalds. Showcasing their move as an indictment on the US education system seems misguided, as it's primarily a case of cost-cutting outsourcing.

nawitus• 13 years ago

Students forego calculators, having learned how to manipulate numbers in their heads.

Not true in Finland.

arbutus• 13 years ago

From the outside, the state of education in the US seems really worrying. Hard to see the wage gap closing any time soon with the way it sounds like their kids are being educated.

kubov2• 13 years ago

Well, reading that as a 22 years old Polish male gives me mixed feelings. I was living in Poland and studying there for my whole life and basically I have experience basically in whole educational process here (preschool, elementary, gymnasium, high school and now pursuing BS degree at polytechnic) I can definitely say that polish educational system is not that great. Of course we have a lot of people contesting in computer science /maths /physical national Olympic which are very hard contests but it is still very small factor, those kids are often struggling with the same problems you would expect they have (harassment, bullying etc).

Polish educational system (especially nation wide maturity exams after high school and college education) are in my opinion decreasing. The maturity exam is getting easier and easier each year to allow more people just to pass. Sure, life is going to verify that somehow, but it also diminish value of this exam.

In my opinion people that are successful in polish school are only those who decide to not follow teaching process given at school but they work very hard on they own, in my opinion the main problem that is present here (and probably worldwide) is students assessment process, every student is taken to the lowest common denominator when it comes giving grades. People that (in scope of the class room) are doing fine, let's say B grade students think they are doing just fine and there are only few things to improve, similarly A students - they generally tends to think they have already reached the peak, when there is still unbelievable much things to learn.

CrankyPants2• 13 years ago

Thanks for the insight.

Every major publication runs a piece just like this every few years. The exotic countries and methods always differ somewhat, but the formula is always the same. It's the pseudo-intellectual version of the filler/cover-baitait articles on new ways to become heart healthy, or inventions that will change the world, usually done well in advance and saved for slow news-weeks.

Not that the subject matter isn't of value, but it's always oversimplified, and oversold.

CrankyPants2• 13 years ago

Sorry, typed that one out on a touchscreen and blew it. "baitait" = "bait"

V-24• 13 years ago

The peculiarity of Poland is that so many young people go to university - due to the fact that you don't pay for studying at public universities (well: the tax-payer does), however the majors they choose are the likes of philosophy, sociology, political science etc.

Interesting as these subjects are, they don't give anyone an easy start on a job market as tough as it is in Poland.

And the reality is that 1.5-3 milions (estimations vary) have left for Western Europe (since Poland entered EU in 2004) and Tescos in London can boast having the best educated staff, consisting mostly of graduates.

Even those who stay in Poland often see studying as a way to delay the moment of entering the job market, and this is hardly a surprise, given that this moment is typically unpleasant. By striving for an MA, they get a compelling alibi to be subsidized by their parents for 5 more years.

Many wouldn't educate themselves further if they had a chance of getting a decent job allowing them to move out, pay their bills and live without counting every penny.

flexie2• 13 years ago

Yet, here you are; following a website with a decent intellectual level and without much effort you are participating in discussions in a language that is foreign to you :-)

I have a feeling that although you most likely didn't go to an elite ground school or an elite high school you probably know a second and maybe a third foreign language as well, in high school you could do what Americans would call college level math.

How many Americans know the largest city in Poland? Can they name just 5 European political leaders from the past 100 years?

Don't underestimate the level of average Northern European education. We don't have elite schools, but our basic schools are quite alright.

V-24• 13 years ago

"How many Americans know the largest city in Poland?" - how many Europeans know on what continent is Mexico located? Or Kazakhstan (one of the 10 largest countries in the world, for that matter)? Or which Korea is which? Or who was who in the Balkan conflict - that's a bloody and recent war right in Europe.

Or does anyone remember that fellow? :) http://youtu.be/SmLwnSXNpFU

Sure that's just a random bloke (what about the public though? What are the odds?), but one could expect members of the parliament to be fairly knowledgeable, at least in the field of politics and current events. Italy: http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/iene/puntata/3673/i-parla... - the journalist asked them some not that tricky questions out of the blue.

They didn't know who Mandela was (or thought he was a president of Brazil), they didn't know what Guantanamo was (and ultimately made a guess it was located in Afganistan). Greenhouse effect? No clue. Darfur? (War in Darfur was the headlines back then). They're stumped. People who do politics for living.

Americans at least seem fond of accusing themselves of ignorance and are quick to acknowledge it, while Europeans, well, kind of do the same thing - in the sense that they eagerly stereotypize Americans as the ignorant ones :)

I'm not American (I'm Polish), but I'm tired of this cliche - whenever I hear someone babbling on about these ignorant Americans, it grinds my gears, not out of love for Americans in particular, just in the same way as all myths, urban legends etc. passed on as facts.

xux2• 13 years ago

Most people don't need to think. Thinking isn't necessary to live in today's world.

usernew1817• 13 years ago

right, that makes sense....

Ygg22• 13 years ago

Well thinking, allows people to see things under a different light. Under different light you look at state and say - What a piece of shit!

Tell me who is gonna call out governments on the stupid shit they do? The stupid? No, they are too busy drooling. It's the thinkers. They are always troublesome. The less of them, the better /devil advocate.

polymatter• 13 years ago

well, you don't need any creative thinking. you can easily scrape by life doing what you see other people doing without questioning it.

LionRoar• 13 years ago

Although sounding a little bit cynical, there is unfortunately some truth in it: if thinking was important then the smartest people could be found on the highest positions. Clearly that is not the case (with a few exceptions). So we can only conclude that thinking is not of great value and smart people are not really wanted (unless they make cool, nice, shiny toys). It's just a simple observation; the world around us is not based on the smartest solutions.

A documentary I saw about the human brain gave an explanation for this: the brain always looks for the easiest solution because it wants to preserver as much energy as possible (it has already enough to do in the modern world). It is just natural that energy follows the path of the least resistance.

And that is the reason we don't have Plato's State :)

xux2• 13 years ago

You make some good points, though I was thinking of something different.

Half of the world is just struggling to get by: job, food / water, security, etc.

Most of the other half doesn't need much thinking either; just try follow a generic life script: go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, die.

aresant• 13 years ago

A must read corollary to this is PG's "why are nerds unpopular"

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

kenster07• 13 years ago

Worse yet, the standard education indirectly discourages independent thought. It is difficult to reconcile the standardization of education with the wide diversity of students. There is simply no way everyone's intellect can flourish under a one-size-fits-all system.

patrikr• 13 years ago

Supplemental reading: Linus Torvalds's (from Finland) opinion of American schools: https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/J1NCgKQi55X

dnautics2• 13 years ago

Was I the only one who found no evidence in this article about 'teaching children to think'? There was some discussion about metrics (such as PISA) but that is not, to me, any sort of evidence about the ability to think.

davidvaughan• 13 years ago

No, you weren't the only one.

The only reality-based test mentioned in this review was whether Okies could get a "basic" job in a factory, and an assertion that this would require critical thinking skills (with the implication that such skills would be of the sort taught at school).

However, I think Ripley may give more in her book. An NYT review suggests she discusses how American school-leavers "lack the knowledge and skill to compete in the global economy". It's all a bit vague, I admit.

"Teaching children to think" is a much-used phrase. It could mean a great many things.

notahacker• 13 years ago

Anyone with any critical thinking skills should question the example of outsourcing manufacturing to Poland as an endorsement of Poles' critical thinking skills.

The alternate hypothesis - that the Polish education system is much more effective at producing drones who are efficient and motivated when performing menial tasks for low pay - has much to recommend it.

cicatriz• 13 years ago

The headline is misleading, but the article itself is more solid in this regard.

In fact, if you want children to be able to think, you shouldn't "teach them to think". You should teach deep knowledge and skills in a particular subject matter context:

"Maths classes tend to be more sophisticated, with lessons that show the often fascinating ways that geometry, trigonometry and calculus work together in the real world. Students forego calculators, having learned how to manipulate numbers in their heads."

High expectations can also be effective:

"Yet his most effective change was also his wooliest: he expected the best work from all of his pupils."

See http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2007/Crit_Thi...

rbehrends• 13 years ago

It's probably an allusion to Amanda Ripley's experience with taking the PISA test herself, described at the start of the book. To wit:

"Several questions like this one asked for my opinion, followed by rows of blank lines for writing my answer; that was odd. Since when did a standardized test care about anyone's opinion?

"Other questions reminded me of problems I'd encountered as an adult--having to decipher the fine print of a health-care policy before choosing it, or comparing the fees of checking accounts offered by competing banks. It seemed more like a test of life skills than school skills.

"All the math formulas were provided, thank God, including the value of pi. But I noticed that I had to really think about my answers. When I tried to speed through a math section, I had to go back and erase several answers."

"PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate; in other words, the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with information and subject to sudden economic change. What did it mean for a country if most of its teenagers did not do well on this test? Not all of our kids had to be engineers and lawyers, but didn't all of them need to know how to think?

"I still didn't believe that PISA measured everything, but I was now convinced that it measured critical thinking."

rquirk• 13 years ago

Oh come on! It's a classic case of out-sourcing, isn't it? Workers in Poland get paid a lot less. The min wage in Poland is €384 per month (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_count...) or $525 at current rates, while the minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hr (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...) - or for a 40 hour week that'd be $1160. I don't know what taxes would do to that, but we're looking at double the rate in the US.

If on top of that Poles are better educated, that's great. Plus Europe needs jobs. But I'm sure the primary concern is the bottom line. BAMA could staff the factories in Oklahoma if they could get away with paying the workers $4/hr.

grn• 13 years ago

I live in Poland, went to school here, and definitely cannot confirm the claims made in the article. Half of my education happened in the reform school system that the article mentions and almost everyone agrees that it's much worse that the previous one.

High school in Poland used to be a preparation for further education at university. It ends with a nation-wide exam called matura. The reform greatly reduced the number of other types of schools. It has two effects. First, it's much harder to find a skilled worker because there are much less workers trained. Second, the general level of education at high schools dropped significantly. It had to drop because otherwise many of the new pupils wouldn't pass the matura. Notions of a logarithm, exponential, prime decomposition has become foreign to pupils. No one has heard about a derivative or an integral for more than a decade.

Of course all the above is a generalisation. There are some great schools with teachers who really want to teach their subjects instead of just formally completing stages of the government-mandated education program. Unfortunately they are in minority. I'm really concerned about quality of education that my children will get in this country. Home schooling is an option though an expensive one.

qwerta• 13 years ago

I am from Czech Republic, which has educational system similar to celebrated Poland. "The holly cow" of reforms is to increase number of university graduates, if possible without spending extra money. On technical universities it means rationalizing and streamlining (for example before reforms to study IT I would also have to learn technical drawing). Also three years bachelor degree was practically non-existent.

In reality this eroded university degrees by one level down. Also unemployment rate among university graduates is rising. On other side unemployment rate among younger people is lower, since most of them are studying until 25.

There is shortage of qualified workers such as plumbers, electricians and welders. Those professions can easily make more money than software developers.

mtts• 13 years ago

You actually touch on a good point: because educational success of a country is measured in the number of university* graduates, governments incentivize universities to, well, produce more graduates, which they do both by lowering standards for existing fields of study and by creating new fields that attract a lot of students but which don't really teach anything worthwhile.

The result is graduates are far, far less well educated than their predecessors but on paper (including, I would presume, PISA) a much larger proportion of the population is "highly educated", making the government look good.

To give an example of lowered standards everyone here can probably relate to: up until about five years ago, students at the school for applied information science where I work were required to learn (a bit of) assembly so they understood how computers work at the CPU level. This requirement has now been scrapped, resulting in applied information science graduates who don't know the first thing about how computers actually work. On paper, however, our school looks very good, because, after all, it is producing a larger number of "knowledge workers" than before.

* this goes for schools for higher vocational training as well

zmk_• 13 years ago

Having grown in Poland, I have to say I was very lucky to be born in 1985 which was the cut-off year for the reformed educational system. I managed to escape it. It is widely agreed that the system brought nothing but deterioration in the level of education students receive pre-univeristy, esp. in maths/physics/chemistry. So much so that when I was still studying in Poland, I often heard that "new" students are at a level comparable to "old" part-time students.

He decided to keep all Polish children in the same schools until they were 16, delaying the moment when some would have entered vocational tracks.

This is misleading. First of all, education is obligatory until one is 18 years old in Poland. There is no such thing as dropping out of school before that age. The previous educational system was two-tier, with primary school lasting until 15 years old, and high school lasting the remainder 4 years (5 years for vocational high school, AFAIR). There were no electives in primary school, so the first real sorting of students based on ability was taking place at entrance exams to high schools (which had no obligation to accept a student based on their geographical location). What the reform implemented is it created a third tier in between primary (shortened by 2 years) and high schools (shortened by 1 year), the gymnasium. Gymnasiums do not have the sorting ability of high schools. With the end result being that what high schools were previously struggling to teach in 4 years now they have to condense into 3 years. So a lot of things are left out now. Plus the students they get at entry are also of lower quality -- I remember browsing through the first set of chemistry textbooks for gymnasium and being shocked that what the "old" system primary school students had to cover in two years was supposed to be covered in a lesser form in 3 years of gymnasium. So yes, the reform postponed the division of students into university/vocational tracks by one year, but at the cost of overall quality of education.

Marwy• 13 years ago

First of all, education is obligatory until one is 18 years old in Poland.

I was about to point out your mistake, but decided to actually check that fact, and you're absolutely right.

There is no such thing as dropping out of school before that age.

I must have slipped through the government's fingers. I'm not sure if it's a bad or a good thing.

jwr2• 13 years ago

I am Polish, I live in Poland, and I found the article's praise for our education system strange. My opinion of it is much lower. I regularly worry about teaching my children to think for themselves — because I believe this is something the schooling system actively discourages. I also don't think that recent reforms did much to improve education, and I don't see why anyone could think they did.

I would approach this book very, very sceptically.

anonemouscoward• 13 years ago

Everything the Economist publishes is motivated purely by politics.

Poland is the number one USA ally, offset against the EU, and, especially, Russia, the evil bad guy in this current cold war.

NickPollard• 13 years ago

Poland is part of the EU.

V-24• 13 years ago

Actually it's the USA that plays the role of a bad guy in the article, with its "grim education results". And not a word about Russia

mdda• 13 years ago

Perhaps you should read a bit more of what The Economist actually writes before making such a claim. They do indeed have a (stated) political viewpoint : The are a Liberal paper (in its original English sense, not in the sense that the word is used in US politics) [0].

[0] http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/ec...

jakub_g• 13 years ago

Recent graduate, I have the same experience. On the technical university I've met people who can't add two rational numbers correctly. High school programs in maths are setting lower bars every year. Since a few years ago, derivatives are no longer being taught in the high schools even in "extended math" path. And then you come to the university and have to catch up with incredible amounts of stuff to know what the physics professor is talking about.

hanula2• 13 years ago

I would say the same, it's quite a shock read such a statement. On the other side I value my education I had in Poland only because it was hard sometimes and I was looking into how to hack the system and outsmart teachers' questions/assignments (math especially). Education system I had ten years ago was focused on memorization, "soft" subjects and skills (languages, first language) while math and physics weren't valued that much. On a maturity exam in 1998 we had an option (for the first time for everyone in the country), to choose between old style exam (Polish and second subject) and new style with obligatory math, much more tests and subjects, everything you could easily pass if you just know how to think. Old style was all about evaluation of how much did you remember from past 4 years... I was the only one in the whole school to choose the new form, where everyone else picked up this dumb but safe archaic form. I could also say a lot about technical universities in Poland.. I didn't graduate actually, after spending over 8 years there, failing stupid, uninteresting subjects, fighting stubborn teachers. Had great scores in subjects that actually interested me. This education system forces you to learn unnecessary things, to remember results and less to know the thinking process. Angry and mentally ill teachers making you suffer for minor or no reason at all. I know plenty of fellow countrymen similar process made them stronger but saying our system is good is far fetched.

simonh• 13 years ago

I would say the same, it's quite a shock read such a statement.

You might find it interesting to read and comment on the actual article then. It dates the beginning of the recent reform of Poland's education system to 1997, just one year before you graduated, so it may be that a lot has changed since your time.

morkbot• 13 years ago

Apparently this is about PISA rating and Poland's "swift rise" in it - so:

1) it's verifiable

2) it's probably more about having good average than having some students be super-smart

3) it says more about PISA than Poland

polskibus2• 13 years ago

On one hand I'd agree with you, on the other Poles whine a lot and need a lot of appreciation from others to believe in themselves. I have worked with many people educated in other countries in similar age as mine. We compared our educational experience - many admitted that in terms of scope, PL education seemed much better - more in-depth courses, more interesting problems solved during studies, etc.

I'd say that you have to look at particular education levels and types of studies to get a good understanding on what's good and bad in PL education system.

jwr2• 13 years ago

I can't compare recent advances in educational systems, but I do have pretty good knowledge of at least what used to happen in high schools in the US and of schools and a technical university in France.

The conclusions I'd draw (and mind you, this is knowledge from ~15-20 years ago, and it is my knowledge and my opinions):

* Polish high school students indeed know more and are better at problem solving than most US high school students, * that said, there are high schools (public!) in the US that offer university-level courses and are excellent, * and university-level education seems to be much better in the US, * the US approach of "if the answer has one too many significant digit, it is wrong and you get zero points" is virtually unknown in Poland and comes as a shock to Polish students, who are often taught that "it is the approach that counts". I find the US approach much more realistic: it doesn't matter how you "approached" the design of a bridge, if the bridge collapsed. * French schools are quite similar to Polish ones, but: * mathematics taught at French technical universities (the best ones) is WAY WAY WAY above what a Polish high-school graduate would expect,

My main point is that it is very difficult to compare educational systems and draw meaningful conclusions. Dealing with society-wide aggregates doesn't tell you much about the outliers: best schools, best students, specific curriculums, or specific sciences.

My secondary point is that based on my experience I wouldn't say the Polish system is better than any other. And I don't see any sweeping changes that would improve the situation in recent years (the reshuffling of schools and age groups doesn't do much in my opinion).

collyw• 13 years ago

I have a number of good friends who are teachers, including maths, and they talk about it a lot. While you may not think your system is good, it sounds like the UK system is encouraging mediocrity.

For example, when I was at school 20 years ago, we had to memorise formulas for common thing ( speed = distance over time, and similar). Apparently the kids are given the formulas in exams now. There doesn't appear to be such a thing as a "fail" these days, just a "foundation level pass".

As such, I can see where the UK is failing, and see positive things mentioned about Poland in the article.

peteretep• 13 years ago

I have also memorised the formulas for d/s/t and f/a/p but struggle to see how these translate in to academic excellence of any type, or even why giving them to someone is encouraging mediocrity.

There is (imho) nothing of value in memorizing simple formulas, and everything in the value of knowing how and when to apply those formulas, or where to Google for them.

tixocloud• 13 years ago

It's the same sort of situation in Malaysia. There was a stark contrast in terms of educational methods after I moved to Canada. I was used to memorizing a lot of facts so thinking critically and asking questions was a big leap for me. I did well in high school tests because I was used to all the standardized exams back in Malaysia but I had to really pluck up my courage to raise my hands, be more outspoken and develop my own viewpoints.

mhurron2• 13 years ago

Apparently the kids are given the formulas in exams now.

I don't see a problem with that. Memorizing formula is as useful as memorizing anything else, it's not very useful and not a measure of knowledge. Knowing how to use the formula, how to manipulate them, are what they are supposed to be being taught.

speeder• 13 years ago

I also think the article to be terrible.

The article believes making more children have more shit on their head is the way to go...

No, seriously, that is not "learning to think" that is learning formulas and other random shit that you will never use on your life with few exceptions.

Learning to think is when you allow kids to learn on their own, what they are curious about, when curiosity drives learning, THEN people learn to think, because they have to.

When you just hammer random facts on someone head, you just fill that someone head with random facts... And the only need for that, is to hammer those random facts on someone else head.

zanny• 13 years ago

This. I don't think a single education system in the world gets this right, because it is so diametrically opposed to being able to gauge performance or have metrics to evaluate aptitude. You basically have to sit down and have a conversation with the person whenever you want to profile their progress, but nobody wants to put that time in with children, and it isn't something you could rate on a scale or regurgitate into teachers brains on how to perform. It requires critical thinking to see critical thinking.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

My 2 cents... Being able to question your education system is a sign that you're doing something right. I hated my (good public) high school. I could write pages and pages of things they did wrong.

Then I went to college. Most of the people praised their high schools. I really felt that my school must have been at the bottom of the heap. As soon as the first set of grades started coming out, I realized how much better prepared I was than everyone else. The people pushed through "Rah Rah, aren't we great!" factories lacked critical thinking. But their schools did have great basketball teams and marching bands.

When someone pitches how awesome their educational was, I wonder where their critical thinking is.

JackFr• 13 years ago

Critical thinking is important, but only in so far as you know something. Its extraordinarily disappointing to be engaging someone in a discussion and while their logic and rhetoric are solid, he doesn't know that (1) Japan is an island; (2) the US and the Soviet Union were allies in WWII;

[Note -- those were two different people in two different conversations.]

ye• 13 years ago

I think you are confusing "how to think" with "what to think".

"How to think" shouldn't interfere with thinking for themselves.

zeidrich• 13 years ago

It's a poor article, I'd be skeptical about the book too. It talked very little about teaching critical thinking skills, and instead talked about different resource distribution between a few different country's schools.

I think that thinking is not something that can be taught, more that it's something that can be encouraged to be learned. In fact, I think overbearing instruction can encourage kids that they don't need to think for themselves. They will be provided the answer, and if they come to a different conclusion, the person with more authority is right.

I remember having a math test graded incorrectly. I knew I was right, I challenged the teacher. I was told that it was still wrong, but the teacher couldn't explain why, the teacher didn't really understand what they were teaching. I brought it home to my parents who also agreed that I was right, but the test wasn't worth enough to get into a fight over.

That experience was one that, if it were repeated, would have hurt my willingness to think critically.

IsTom• 13 years ago

Perhaps this is about how nobody here (in Poland) actually expects that school will teach you important things. Everyone who actually wanted to learn something did it on their own, sometimes with help of the teachers outside of educational system. The only positive experience I had was cooperation of my liceum with local university.

oppositelock• 13 years ago

Agreed. I went to some school in Poland before the reforms mentioned in the article, but have much family who went afterward. I don't think it's the school that teaches critical thought, it's society.

Poland has been through a lot of BS. There was constant government propaganda for generations and you never knew who you could trust, so people learned to use their brains to keep themselves safe. Until communism fell, it was a poor country with shortages of pretty much everything, so people had to learn to fix and tinker with things, because they couldn't go out to buy new ones. Kids played differently than they do in the US, with little in the way of toys and lots of imagination and in mixed age groups.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the differences are cultural, and maybe that hardship breeds more critical thought than plenty. I'm not advocating hardship by any means, but I think it's very important to teach kids to play creatively and hopefully, this will carry on through school. It's disingenuous to say that school reform and funding are responsible for critical thought.

herge• 13 years ago

By that measure, Africa must be a hot-bed of critical thought!

yeellow• 13 years ago

This article is really funny for somebody living in Poland. It is totally opposite to what you hear in Poland about our educational system. I am really worried about other countries if Poland works as an example in education. The reform mentioned in the article has a very bad reputation here and most experts, citizens and politicians would like to take back the changes. Education standards declined rapidly as it become more egalitarian. I am laughing at the level of mathematics when I compare it to what I learned at school (in late 80s) and back than it was already a joke comparing to 70s. The most often repeated argument is that our schools do not teach pupils how to think. I don't really want to go further as it is somehow nice that The Economist, being so wrong, is giving us so much undeserved credit.

lucraft• 13 years ago

Slightly ominous headline, perhaps?

pavlov• 13 years ago

My opinion and anecdotal experience is that the first priority in teaching children should be foreign languages. The younger you start, the easier it is to learn to speak and think in a foreign language. Almost everything else of any relevance can be taught basically as a side effect of language immersion.

I'm Finnish and went to a French-speaking school. I didn't understand any French going in, but at the age of 6, you pick it up quickly as long as it's a friendly environment. Later during the standard 12-year education, I had English as a third language, then Swedish (it's obligatory in Finland) and also German.

All the other stuff taught in school is such that a reasonably smart kid can learn it on her own as needed. But foreign languages are not like that. Thanks to computer games, I was somewhat fluent in reading English even before the classes started in school, but I couldn't speak a word -- you just don't learn pronounciation and conversation from games and TV shows, you need to have a real teacher.

TausAmmer• 13 years ago

Does smart child earns a lot of money and stupid one does not?

Semaphor• 13 years ago

2 anecdotes:

We had a guy from Poland living with us in Germany for 6 months. I think it was around 2003/2004 when I was still in school. His math skills were absolutely impressive but he still had to study a lot to keep up (he was living in Germany due to some excellency initiative, so this is a slightly skewed sample). When he showed me some of their lessons it was way beyond what we had to do in school.

In 9th grade I took part in an exchange program with the UK. As they lacked exchange partners , I got matched up with a guy from 10th or 11th grade (can't remember). The school was supposedly one of the better ones. I wasn't very good in math (usually hovered around grade 3 [1 - 6 with 1 being the best grade and 4.0 the worst passing grade]) but I was pretty much the best in their class. Wasn't very impressed by them.

rustynails77• 13 years ago

This year, I've engaged schools at length to discuss computer based systems. There are a few recurring threads that I have seen that would support this article.

* Real-world examples are not favoured. I'd go as far to say they are unpopular. There is an over emphasis on theory and rote learning, without providing context. This may be a result of "stove piping" mathematics to be "pure math only", rather than having "real-world applications".

* Children are shoe-horned and given little opportunity to pace themselves and their learning. The theory may be that kids that progress quickly may become bored.

* Technology is praised/shunned in the wrong ways. Tablets are generally praised, and in my view, offer limited opportunity and creativity. PCs are shunned, or treated as "toys".

* Over emphasis on rewards. There seems to be a common thread that kids continually need to be bribed. Avatars/humourous or cute animations/etc. There may be a good reason for this, but I find that it actually distracts students rather than helps.

I could list other things that have concerned me, but these are the first ones that come to mind.

Edited to add comments about "rewards".

Joakal• 13 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori ?

sloth0000• 13 years ago

I was born in Poland and lived there until I turned 24 (I am 35 now). Now living in Australia and having previously lived in other countries, mainly US , contrary to others who comment on the quality of Polish education, I can confirm that thanks to the fact I received it in Poland I am much better off compared to my peers in AU or US. I work in IT now but previously got a teaching degree here in AU and worked in education (high schools) for 3 years. To put it in a nutshell, AU education (probably along with other westernized countries) is an utter joke compared to Polish. What AU kids do at school, irrespective of the level they are in is 3-4 years behind Europe. AU is going strong thanks to its migrants coming mainly from Asia who are slowly replacing typical Australians in high paying white collar jobs. Any kid educated in Asia can run circles around top students here and that is particularly evident during students exchange programs where newcomers cannot believe that learning about fractions and watching cartoons to write compositions or essays is a standard curricular approach. The reason I do not work in education anymore is precisely because I could not stand myself to watch how AU curriculum with a plethora of mickey mouse subjects is dumbbing this generations down (and probably others before it). I am not saying that Polish education was the highlight of my youth and that as a student I didn't hate every day of my life while at school, spent cramming Math and English and many other, seemingly useless subjects. However, seeing what I see now, in hindsight I am so grateful for the fact that it was so bloody hard to be even average student at my school and now that I have 2 kids on my own I feel sorry for the fact that unless I pay premium from the start for a private school, they will never have the same opportunity as I did.

yeukhon• 13 years ago

I disagree the norm that we don't teach kids to think or our American education sucks. I want to stop comparing education with other countries if possible, but we do this every day anyway. We do teach kids think. I am a Chinese immigrant. I came to US when I was 12 and I am 22 now. I have to say that the American education is quite liberal and most classes I take do ask students to think more critically.

The thing about American classroom is that overall classroom interaction is more decentralized than the Chinese's. In China (specifically HK), you sit in the same classroom with 30-40 people for many years. For example, I can sit with 80% of the people for 6 years during my elementary school (in China, elementary school is 6 years, age 6 to age 12). So you build a strong friendship with a lot of people. You work like a team and solve things like a team for many years. Usually with team effort and strong friendship, students are more likely to produce something interesting - everyone can be honest to each other. You are not shy to tell others your opinion.

This is quite true for school up to junior high in America as one spends every day with students in their homeroom. When you enter HS, you usually don't have that kind of classroom model anymore. You usually see different people in different classes; it's like a college experience to me. For a school with 3000 students, 20/30 people will not appear in my next class.

Now you can still do teamwork, except, team work is with different group of people each time. This has an advantage though: you hear more different opinions. Except people can be shy and skeptical so it's harder to work with.

To me, education is not about score. Sure Russian and Chinese are scoring 98% and Americans are scoring 50%. So what? I don't go to MIT and people around me are genius in their own way. I can't make a good joke and people I know can. Every one has their own strength and own creativity. Teaching children how to think is like making everyone to do the same thing: get 100 on your next math competition.

That's stupid. If you make fewer exams and more on spreading knowledge, let students have more time to rest and play, eventually students will happier and will have more time to think.

When you put emphasis on testing knowledge, you stress students out. I am not saying you don't stress them from time to time - you know, because stress can produce new ideas (think agile and get shit done), but we need to put less on scores. This is why group activity is important. Students in group competitions like sports and robotics (FIRST) are happier. This is why we should go back to HS and help students to organize clubs and events. Or mentor people to do things.

Eventually, kids will figure out. Each of us can come up with some crazy ideas for the next biggest startup. It is just a matter of time.

Inventions don't come in a day. It takes idea, time, dedication, group effort and knowledge.

dancecodes• 13 years ago

Smarter kids where good education and good relations and good social communicate but it not fifth element and it is insufficient. Kids everywhere are smart but env may stop evolution. Lets kids thinking. Kids needs in protect always.

casca• 13 years ago

For a more detailed understanding of the PISA system, there was a recent Econtalk podcast - http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/08/hanushek_on_edu_3.h...

Ras_• 13 years ago

History proves some interesting insight to education.

Take for example literacy. There are Finnish/Swedish parochial records/church examination registries dating back to 17th century down to a level of individual families. This is important due to Charles XI's Swedish Church Law of 1686 stating that everyone had to be able to read bible. So you can follow how that emergent Lutheran essence actually turned into literacy. From an individual perspective it was necessary to learn because you weren't allowed to take holy communion, be confirmed and later wed without reading ability. By 1750 some parishes started to have 90% reading ability. What is surprising is the writing ability. It achieved same levels only around 1900 (1920 in Finland). So that is clearly connected to industrial reform rather than spirit of protestantism. At least my initial assumption that reading/writing go hand in hand was proven wrong. In light of this long history of literacy in Nordic countries I tend to value the South Korean jump in literacy from previous generation more highly, even if it was achieved through “culture of educational masochism”.

Book about this: Understanding Literacy in Its Historical Contexts: Socio-cultural History and the Legacy of Egil Johansson.

Take a look at pg. 47 at Google Books and see how incredibly detailed those church examination registries in 1688-91 could be (pg. 56 has a nice graph differentiating the development of reading and writing ability): http://books.google.fi/books?id=WBLOVq4ocLEC&printsec=frontc...

gambiting• 13 years ago

As a Pole, I find it unbelivable. The system is incredibly strict, there is absolutely no place for free-thinking, I have never seen their archaic methods applied to real-world usage in a classroom, and all universities have very low funding,which means that most experiments are ran on ancient machines. There is no budget for buying tools or documentation. My girlfriend was told in front of the class by the professor that she should not be studying engineering because it's not an industry for women. It would be completely unacceptable at a university in the UK or in the States. In Poland she went to see the head of the university and was told that "she probably misunderstood what the professor meant". Obviously every one knows that that these two people are good friends so it's impossible to do anything about the situation.

If the Polish education system taught me anything, it is that free thinking is a bad thing,and you are punished for it on every step of your education.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

The review of Amanda Ripley's new book Smartest Kids in the World by Annie Murphy Paul in the New York Times[1] is a good reality check on the review from The Economist kindly posted here. The book is in hot demand in my county library system, so my request for the book hasn't been filled yet. The other excerpts from the book I have seen online have been very good.

I have lived overseas and observed the effect of another school system, and indeed education reform is the issue that drew me to participate here on Hacker News,[2] so I am always interested in discussing education policy here. Based on the different country I have observed, I think the book's account is largely correct. Americans underestimate how much young people can learn. School programs in the United States, according to federal sample surveys, are so underchallenging that many school pupils, not just the "gifted" pupils, find school too easy and boring.[3] Mathematics lessons in the United States are especially notorious for emphasizing the mechanical aspects of calculation--thus expecting students to bring electronic calculators to class--and underemphasizing the thinking involved in mathematical problem-solving.[4]

Let's discuss what makes sense in education policy on the basis of facts from more than one place. It's significant that we are discussing education policy around the world here in English, as very few Americans could discuss education policy in Korean, Polish, or Finnish, the languages of the countries profiled in the new book. (I could discuss education policy in Chinese, the language I learned as a second language, but that is not the usual experience of Americans.) The new book's encouragement to do that is a good contribution to better education policy.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/books/review/amanda-ripley...

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4728123

[3] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-...

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/z_Personal/G...

[4] http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?pa...

Jd2• 13 years ago

I don't see why Americans should be able to discuss education policy in Polish. Seems a non sequitur. I don't think the author of the book claimed to be able to do such anyways.

As for technological over-reliance, I take that as given.

I'm surprised that you agree w/ the conclusion of the review that segregating talent into higher and lower achieving groups is bad. To me this is one of the strengths of the US system. Even if the high achieving groups are not stimulating enough for high achievers, it seems to provide some sort of positive stimulus that otherwise would be lacking in the system.

smtddr2• 13 years ago

I'm surprised that you agree w/ the conclusion of the review that segregating talent into higher and lower achieving groups is bad.

I think it's bad too, and here's why: The teachers & staff in charge of the less-performers will do less to help them. Won't push them as hard. Generally just not care(as much). I think it's better for the under-performers to see the strong-performers and understand those kids are not magically-smarter, they just work hard and it's completely possible for the under-performers to be like them if they try to mimic their study habits.

Once you divide a group between the "desired" and "non-desired" traits, there's no way the less desired people will get the same quality attention as the desired. It pretty much will turn into: Group them all together, then systematically eliminate them, condemn them or make them irrelevant. Basically, that segregation will become the solution itself:

"We need to get class-A performance up to get more funding or raise our GPA average so our Class-A looks better to those affluent parents to send their kids to! Hmm, billy & mandy aren't too bright and are lowering the average. We could help them to be better, or we could just move them to the Class-C group; thus eliminating their scores from Class-A's GPA average."

consultant23522• 13 years ago

I'm an American so I'm probably biased.. but what I've found is that in most school districts you can get as good of an education as you want. I grew up in South Carolina and went to high/secondary school in Florida.. two states with relatively poor education records.

However, by staying on the "right" path I was able to get in advanced programs, programs for students with high IQs that taught critical thinking skills.. I graduated high school with over 30 college credit hours and had completed Physics 1, Calc 1, 2, and 3, and a hand full of other electives... all in high school.

Other students in the same exact schools I attended had equal and opposite educational experiences/success.

hawkharris• 13 years ago

In this article the journalist associates critical thinking with economic abilities. In other words, the local factory can't find laborers because children in the area lack reading and math skills. The author then goes on to argue that standardized testing is partially to blame for this phenomenon.

While journalists commonly make this leap, it's not necessarily an accurate one. In other words, standardized testing is not always at odds with critical thinking.

For example, South Korea, a nation with a very strong emphasis on standardized testing, consistently ranks in the world's top 5 universities, according to Pearson. Its students have strong reading and math skills, which prepare them to meet the challenges of many jobs.

We should question the myth that standardized testing always harms critical thinking. In some cases, I think, this argument is used as an excuse to justify American children's increasingly awful test scores.

lists• 13 years ago

>Yet international rankings now put the country’s students well ahead of America’s in science and maths (the strongest predictor of future earnings), even as the country spends far less per pupil.<<

This sentence is exemplary of most, if not all, of the discussion about education reform. Another cue are the explicit goals of the Common Core standards, expressly designed to further economic competitiveness of America's youth.

But what about our children's ability to make informed decisions using qualified evidence?

This is different from so-called 'critical thinking', which is so vaguely defined whenever it comes up, or 'creativity', which lacks a rigorous method to appreciate its application.

These informed decisions I'm talking about not only affect our youth's ability to make decisions about their own lives (because no matter your education system, practical experience is other than doing well in school), but also their ability to make decisions about the state we live in collectively. There's little out there teaching people how to make informed decisions about areas they have no expertise in, and yet, must make a decision.

Politicians are voted in for dubious populism rather than the sensibility of their policy programme. Most responses to social issues continue to spiral around ideology and prejudice. America needs a lot more than just an effective STEM education regime.

Surio2• 13 years ago

The argument about knowing how and when to apply formulas misses the fact that practice in applying those formulas is essential to competence.

I am coming late to this topic, and I wanted to make exactly this point that @kaitai made in a thread, in one of the many threads about memorisation vs. critical understanding.... This is the (moot) point that people seem to be missing here, which is surprising, because most of us here do seem to think highly about "code katas" or the "10,000 hour rule" or "immersion into code/algorithms" which is all about the above.

Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

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