DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... What Students in Europe Learn That Americans Don't

interesting read. all the educators on this board, would love you guys input as well as everyone else.




http://www.vice.com/read/what-students-in-europe-learn-that-americans-dont

Thanks to the teen melodrama boom of the early 90s, everyone knows what an American high school looks like: glamorous, fashionable teens smoking Virginia Slims out of bathroom windows, 40-minute passing periods where someone gets stuffed into a locker, crotchety teachers threatening to keep students in detention all summer.

In reality, of course, the American public school system is a bureaucracy devoted to teaching kids how to game standardized tests in order to secure more government funding to then teach kids how to score even higher on those tests. The focus of American education is often not on preparing students for the future, but on forcing them memorize useless information like "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell." The result, according to some education experts, is that American students basically learn nothing.

European high schools may not have the same pop cultural cachet, but it's generally known that whatever goes on inside them, they're better in many ways than their American counterparts. Schools in countries like Finland, for example, have effectively given up on the repetitive learning style, which might be why those countries regularly outpace American education scores. Even Poland, where one in six children live in relative poverty, continually beats the US in math, science, and reading.

"European countries put greater premium on rigor, focus and coherence in their instructional systems," says Andreas Schleicher, the Paris-based director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Curricula in the United States, by contrast, "run a mile wide but only an inch deep."

Of course, it's hard to compare the United States, a country with over 300 million people, to Europe, a continent with a population of more than 700 million. But there are some clear-cut differences, so keeping in mind that education can vary wildly at the local level, I tried to find out what kids in Europe learn in school that American kids do not.

MANY EUROPEANS ACTUALLY LEARN HOW TO HAVE SEX



Still from 'Mean Girls'

In America, sex education usually boils down to that line from Mean Girls: "If you touch each other, you will get chlamydia. And die." At best, American students are treated to a PowerPoint slideshow of sexually transmitted diseases and maybe a demonstration of how to put a condom on a piece of fruit. At worst, teens are stuck in abstinence-only classrooms, where everyone pretends like they're not going to have sex until they're married. As recently as 2008, according to the Guttmacher Institute, one-third of American kids ages 15 to 19 weren't taught anything about contraceptives in school. Meanwhile, states that have embraced abstinence-only education have the highest teen pregnancy rates.

Conversely, sex education—the kind that acknowledges teens might have sex—is mandatory throughout much of Western and Northern Europe (the Catholic stronghold of Italy is one exception). In many of these countries, sex ed is more practical, and less strictly biological, than it is in America.

The reasons for this might be chalked up to relaxed continental attitudes toward sex. In a 2011 paper on advancing sex education in developing countries, Heather D. Boonstra, the public policy director at the Guttmacher Institute, pointed out that in Western Europe, "sex among adolescents is generally accepted, with little to no societal pressure to remain abstinent. But with that acceptance comes strong cultural norms that emphasize that young people who are having sex should take actions to protect themselves and their partners from pregnancy and STIs."

In Germany, for example, my friend Laura says she learned about sex as early as age eight from a picture book in school. (A similar picture book recently made headlines for being used in a Berlin classroom full of five-year-olds.) German schools teach everything from the biology of reproduction to how to properly use contraception to how to reach orgasm. In the Scandinavian countries—Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland—sex education starts as early as preschool and continues through high school, often including graphic videos that explain how to masturbate, among other topics.

Countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Slovakia, France, and Luxembourg have sex ed curricula that emphasize things like sexual consent, navigating relationships, and communication, according to a 2013 report on sex education from European Parliament. A friend of mine who has cousins in the Netherlands says they remember learning how to put condoms on dildos in the dark.

The closest thing Europe has to the prudish Americans sex education system is probably found in the UK, which has been criticized for skirting around important sex-related matters in school, and which had the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe as of 2014.

EUROPEANS CAN LOCATE STUFF ON A MAP



Photo via Flickr user Jessica Alexander
It's a running joke that Americans are so ignorant of geography that they'd have trouble pointing out any country but their own on a map. Actually, about one in ten Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can't find the US on a map, according to a 2002 survey by National Geographic. In that survey of young people in nine developed countries—including Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and the US— the US came in second-to-last in geographic literacy, beating only Mexico.

A Finnish woman I know tells me that, as children, Finns are expected to not only memorize all the world countries, but also their capitals, any major cities, rivers, mountain ranges, deserts, and other important geographical features. In one stress-inducing childhood experience, she had to name 100 obscure rivers on a map in front of the whole class. Personally, I can't name 100 of anything, other than Pokémon or jelly bean flavors.

"Geography is often thought to help students understand different cultures and social systems in Europe, and to see the world through different lenses, appreciate different perspectives and values," the OECD's Schleicher tells me. "That being said, geography in Europe is often taught in a rather Eurocentric way" that places Europe at the center of the universe and privileges European narratives over others, he adds.

Watch: Another way the United States pales in comparison to Europe: maternity leave.



EUROPEANS LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH, AND OFTEN ANOTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGE

It's easy to take for granted that English is the international language of commerce and politics when it's your mother tongue. In the US, there is no national requirement for students to learn a second language. Although many individual schools make kids take a few foreign language classes in high school, that rarely amounts to more than ¿Cómo estás? and a few foreign swear words.

Not only do almost all European children have to learn English as a second language, but 20 European countries also require students to learn a second foreign language. Students in Austria, Cyrpus, Malta, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, and Portugal all start learning their first foreign language by age six; in Belgium kids start learning at age three, according to 2015 data from the Pew Research Center.

In America, by the end of high school the average graduate had taken less than two years of a foreign language—about enough to order from a restaurant, if that—according to research from John H. Bishop, a former Cornell University professor who's authored multiple papers comparing American and European education. By contrast, a quarter of all Europeans can hold a conversation in two or more foreign languages, and half of all Europeans can speak at least one language other than their native tongue.

ONLY AMERICANS ARE OBSESSED WITH SCHOOL SPORTS



Still from 'Friday Night Lights'

One of the largest differences between European and American schools has nothing to do with what goes on inside classrooms. It's the sports teams that dominate massive amounts of money and attention high schools across the US. Europeans take part in PE but their schools don't have the single-minded focus on athletic achievement that is common in America.

Schleicher tells me that when he first visited the US from Germany as a teenager, he was "surprised that the first thing [I saw] entering a school were all the sports trophies. Sometimes I asked myself how the children who were good at math would feel their interests were valued."

Bishop explains that this stark difference stems from the fact that in Europe, sports are more clearly delineated as a career early on. Kids who show athletic promise often end up in secondary schools where they're trained to enter professional sports or to compete in the Olympics, placing them somewhat outside the ordinary teenage experience. As a blockbuster 2013 article in The Atlantic on the subject pointed out, in places like Finland and Germany, "many kids play club sports in their local towns—outside of school. Most schools do not staff, manage, transport, insure, or glorify sports teams, because, well, why would they?"

Even European PE classes are less focused on competition. Kids in Spain learn how to dance; in Nordic countries, they learn to make maps and orient themselves in nature as part of school. Lithuania and Hungary include correct posture and breathing exercises in their PE curricula, according to a 2012 European Commission report.

There is, however, one area where Americans beat the Europeans: It's anecdotal, but kids in American schools seem to have more fun. Rifle through any number of blogs from foreign exchange students studying in the US (like this one or this one or this one) and they all highlight the American high school experience: football games, cheerleaders, eating chicken nuggets every day for lunch, playing pranks, homecoming, prom. Sure, they might be bored in the classroom, but everyone knows class is the least important part of the American high school experience.

They hit the nail right on the head. I can attest this is fact, and it drives me crazy. Learning, especially engaging all styles of learning, is much more than a test. These tests analyze one way of learning instead of multiple ways of learning.



Yes. This is true.
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More thoughts to add later. This article is spot on. I love Vice.

word, yea i wanna know more about what you think of this when you have time.

We can't afford public education we're bigger than those socialist countries! This is Murica, lift yourself up and go get a job stupid kids! TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP!

smdh

Still feeling the burn, eh? LOL

Given the state of government schools in this country, it baffles me how people think more government is the answer.

Don't be mean, bleeding out of your eyes or whatever mean... TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP!

smh

education is a government matter.

unless you want to privatize education, of course.

but then they'll just outsource the classrooms overseas.

if the kids want an high school education, they better join the military!! that's how they get their free high school diploma!!!

Trumps education plan = from grades k-8 you learn to measure, cut and sew ties in the Trump sweatshop, were we make GREAT ties. Grades 9-12 kids get to apprentice in other industry sweatshops to learn advanced skills.

At 18 all kids from poor family will be conscripted in to the TRUMP Militia which is much better than the old military, much better. Here they learn wall building, how to kill or die, the fact that their lives don't matter and that it's all for Trump The Great. Trump the HUGE.

After they get their BS (free college by-the-way !), then they get to live their shorter life spans serving the Plutos in the slave economy of Murica, the Great Again!

All this will be possible by lifting all regulations and labor laws, doing away with minimum wage, and build infrastructure like alleys, curbs, and camps for people to sleep in. TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP!

smh

The US already spends more than almost every other country on earth on primary and secondary education. There are, IIRC, 4 countries in the world that spend more, and they are all rather tiny countries.

The problem is not that we are not spending enough money.

The Youngstown City Schools spend more money per student that suburban schools that are far more highly ranked in every educational regard. Austintown, Boardman, Lowellville, Poland, Struthers, Niles, and many other suburban schools spend $1000-$2000 per student less per year than Youngstown. They also are much, much more highly regarded, and produce much better results.

The problem is that Youngstown tries to recover students from families that often do not teach children prior to beginning school, and in which education is often not valued. This is not true for every family, and I have been privileged to know some very strong mothers and fathers who wanted the best education for their children, and who made sure their kids did their homework every night, studied their textbooks, and so on. Unfortunately, this is rare in the inner cities compared to the suburbs.

Money is not the end all, be all, of education. We spend a lot of money on primary and secondary education. The problem is that we don't always spend it wisely, and we have too many children stuck in failed social norms.

That's my $0.02 worth on the matter.

Education is valued, YTown. What isn't valued is an education that stressed rote memorization, treats students like cogs in a giant machine, and the innate message that to be successful you need to fit a mold that loses your individuality.

Families end up aggravated due to an education system that fails to listen to their concerns. Trust me...I've seen it with my own eyes across different cultures and areas throughout this nation.

Don't get me started on money. An inordinate amount of per pupil funding gets pushed towards these tests that Swish's article mentioned.

Although, I'm not sure this thread will go well. Prove me wrong, guys.

I strongly disagree.

The last restaurant I managed was located on the South side of Youngstown. I saw a bunch of kids come through my doors, and I spoke to a lot of their parents.

Some kids had parents who actually came into my restaurant and said "I want my kid's hours cut, because they are neglecting their studies." I would always do as they requested, because that was their right.

Other kids could not have cared less about their grades if you paid them to be. They simply were not important to them. Oh, they might go to school, and might do just enough to pass, but they saw no value in getting an education, and performing to the best of their abilities.

I saw girls get pregnant and drop out of school. I saw kids who had dropped out of school struggle to get through a Life Skills program. I saw smart kids just refuse to apply themselves. They saw no value in getting an education, and didn't care, in many cases, beyond just doing enough to graduate, and nothing more.

It is not a case of memorization vs learning in these cases. It is a case of parents having dropped out of school, or struggled their ways through to a c- average. (or worse) It is about parents being unable to help their kids with their homework. It is a societal failure, that says that it's not important to stay in school, and to get an education. The inner city drop out rate is appalling, and frightening. How can a kid get ahead if they can't even make simple change? How can they get ahead if they are unable to read to a level that allows them to follow instructions .... or to even fill out an application. I had people come in to apply for a job who had to bring someone with them to fill out the application for them. Even in a fast food restaurant, if you can't read the computer screen, you can't wok. You need to be able to understand math, at least to a basic level, knowing that 2 doubles and a triple are going to take 7 pieces of hamburger meat. Many kids (and more shockingly, adults) are completely able to function even at this simple and basic level.

This isn't about different learning styles. This is about a person who is unwilling to stay in school and learn even the basics. Business is notoriously unforgiving when someone cannot learn the things they need to learn. I had labor goals that I needed to reach each and every week, and I did not have time to teach someone how to count, add, or read. This is unfortunate, but true.

The inner city values a lot of things, but the kid who puts his head down, and studies hard every day, is valued to a lesser degree than a kid who can run like the wind, or dunk a basketball, or spin a rhyme. Too many kids have this idea that they will be able to get by on these talents, so they don't need to get an education. zToo many kids get pregnant, because of the "stuff" they can get when they have a child or 3. I have spent a lot of time with kids from the inner city, and I have heard them talk about this stuff. Education is not that important to a lot of kids.

I agree that there is some validity to different learning styles, but I truly believe .... no, I know, that this is well down the list of problems in the inner city schools. I have spend too much time with kids who attend these schools, as well as too many people who just dropped out.

I dont disagree with anything you just said. But the original post wasnt about our inner city schools falling behind, it is ALL of our educational system falling behind the rest of the world. The suburbs and rural areas too.

I refuse to blame them. There's fault on both sides.

Why do they make these choices? What adversity do they face, and what impacts this to happen.

Sorry YTown, we're going to disagree here. I look at a bigger picture.

Columbus and I were talking about this a few days ago. Underlying causes contribute to these problems, and until we're honest about it nothing will happen. Call me out on "you're blaming white people for everything" like some do, but many others hold blame in why our education system, along with the inner-city, is the way it is. Scapegoating parents, blaming the victims, and similar tactics get us nowhere.

There's fault all over the place. I see it every single day where I live and work. You can't tell me that I'm not seeing what I see.

Likewise, ignoring the impact parents have on their children's education, and the lack of emphasis so many parents place on education, gets us nowhere.

I had a girl who worked for me, and she was just brilliant. She was an excellent student, and she got a full ride to OSU. She was also a great worker. (probably no coincidence) Her mother came in one day, after the girl left for college, and introduced herself. She said that I had had a big impact on her daughter. I thanked her, bit she really didn't work for me for that long, and she must have done really well before I came along, because of the kind of scholarship she received. I also told the mother that she must have done a great job raising her. She almost cried. She told me that it wasn't easy, but she worked 2, and sometimes 3 jobs, and still managed to put in the time going over her daughter's homework, making sure it was done, and done right. She made sure that her daughter had the means to improve herself through an education. Her daughter needed a letter of reference for a job at school, and asked her mom to ask me if I would write one for her. I told her mom that I was proud of her daughter, and that it would be my honor, and she almost busted out in tears.

I had another girl working for me, who decided to drop out of school at 17. She wanted to live with her boyfriend, and have a baby. She was out of school for about 6 months. She got pregnant. She tried Life Skills, but failed out of that program as well. Her boyfriend threw her out shortly after she got pregnant. She wound up on assistance, housing, food, medical, and whatever else she could get. I often heard the kids talking about how and where to get free stuff, and it was no different with her. She was fired shortly after I had to leave my position at the restaurant. I know that she is heading to a life of dependency. She was, at the very least, a moderately smart girl, but she simply did not want to put in the work necessary in school.

I get that different kids have different needs and styles of learning. I had to teach different kids in different ways in training them to work in my restaurants throughout the years. However, if there is not a willingness to work hard, then it doesn't matter what kind of style of learning they have. If a kid has parents that don't care about their children's education, then it doesn't matter what the school does. If education is not important to the kid, then you can try to mold it to whatever their particular style is, but it still won't matter. Education has to matter to kids, and the school really is a smaller part of that equation that home, friends, and society.

First off I don't think they even teach the basics in school any more. Second what they do try to teach looks nothing like math

I find it odd that the purpose is to bash American schools and two of the 3 points made are about teaching sex and playing sports..

So let's talk about the one section that actually matters... education. So European countries are giving up on the repetitive learning style.. then they brag about being forced to memorize the name of every country and the capital and a million rivers... how did they memorize them if not through repetitive learning?

Second, I'm not going to defend the United States, but if I lived in a country where I could drive 8 hours in any direction and be in a different country, it would seem far more beneficial to me to learn things about those countries and learn other languages... if you live more than 1000 miles from the nearest neighboring country, it seems less important Especially when one of those countries basically speaks the same language you do.

Some folks might be impressed that somebody could name 100 rivers around the world and the names of all the countries and their capitals.. other than that being a neat bar room trick, what good does it do you?

What the US needs to focus on is creative problem solving. I don't care if a person I employ can find the Colorado river on a map or tell me the capital of Zimbabwe.....You can find that information in 20 seconds with Google.. or if they can say good morning in 7 languages or if they know the best masturbation techniques... what I want is somebody who doesn't shy away from a problem, somebody who isn't afraid to take a chance and come up with a creative way to resolve that problem.... and somebody who has the people skills to work within a team concept either as the leader or the worker to implement the solution to that problem.

That is a pretty common trend.

Think North Ridgeville, Solon, Hudson, North Royalton, Brecksville-Broadview Heights, Strongsville, etc. are spending more per student than Cleveland schools? LOL, yeah right.

The cold hard truth is that the former group has more talented students. No amount of spending or educational approach that I'm aware of will bridge that gap.

But, the inner city schools falling behind is the BIG reason that the entire public school system has fallen behind too. Governments didn't want "bad" school districts to fail, so they started pouring more money into those failing districts to try and solve the problem. But the problem wasn't really the schools, it was more the fact that the kids didn't want to learn, and the parents didn't want to help them.

But the government was seeing all this money spent and nothing to show for it. Which is why they came up with standardized testing. They wanted a way to determine teacher performance and that was the only way they could think of to do that. Money would then be given to those who had the best test scores. So now, rather than get bad grades for something that really isn't their fault, teacher prep students for nothing more than to pass tests. You can't really blame them.

So you see ... we've already thrown more money and more government at the problem, and that's exactly WHY we have what we have now. I don't know what the easy solution is either. If you have kids that don't want to learn, and parents that don't want the schools for anything more than a daycare, they are going to drag every other student around them down with them. Do we separate those who want to learn from those who don't? How do you determine that? Are we leaving those other kids "behind"? Which do you prefer? Leaving kids behind or reducing the whole to the least common denominator?

And I hate when Europeans develop their little-brother system and try to compare their situation to ours. Like DC says, it's a lot easier for them to know 3 languages and the geography of Europe, when their continent is the size of our country.

good to know swish gotta sit here and watch an education thread once again go to "us inner city kids are screw ups". gotta sit here and take it, but the moment i fire back, it'll be a war again.

I mean damn, Haus. We aren't talented? jeez...

disagree with pretty much all of that.

If you gave every kid in a United States elementary school a global map and made it mandatory that they could identify every country in the world on that map and knew the capital of that country... a reasonable number of kids could do it. But we all know the group of kids that WOULDN'T do it and if they were failed because of it, well that would be unfair and there would be 1000 reasons why that was stupid and why the affluent suburban kids were able to do it and the poorer and minority kids couldn't do it.

So instead of setting expectations at a very high level like that we have set our level of expectations to make sure the bottom 20% of kids can at least pass and not feel bad about themselves... so what we have ended up with is really 3 groups of kids... those kids who have that motivation to achieve great things despite not being pushed by the school system, a large group in the middle who aren't pushed and mastered the art of just getting by with very low expectations, and a group at the bottom that doesn't even really care if it gets by but seems to continue to passed through the system anyway.

You disagree that learning problem solving skills is more important than knowing the capital of hundreds of countries you are likely to never interact with? Okay.

i disagree with your idea that this sort of stuff doesn't matter.

your simplistic views on education is unfortunately held around the country, which is exactly why our kids are stupid compared to everyone else.

that sort of stuff is important because the world is just bigger than one country, no matter if you live in the US or not.

THAT'S why i disagree with you. you defending this nonsense is exactly why we as americans lack massive perspective on countries and cultures around the world.

and yes, that does tie into the education level, and why we lack far behind other places.

It's not even just that, it's that the schools have to spend 75% of their time trying to get that bottom tier of students up to the "passing" level of the rest of the kids. So rather than teaching everyone and getting more out of the better students, the majority of the time is spent just trying to get kids that don't even care to pass.

And I wouldn't even say it's restricted to kids that don't want to learn. Here in San Diego, you have a lot of public schools that have kids whose first language isn't English. And rather than the parents pushing for the kids to learn English, they just expect the schools to accommodate the other languages. So you could have the best teachers in the world at those schools, but they've got to dedicate their time to trying to explain things to kids that don't understand what they are talking about. Or the school itself has to spend resources on getting bilingual teachers and materials for those students, when that money could be spent on things that broaden the learning experience for everyone.

I'm not sure you get what he's saying. In Europe, it's pretty crucial that you know more than one language because you can't travel more than three hours in any direction without running into a place where a different language is spoken. Geography is just as crucial, because major countries are the size of states over there. If we broke the United States up into 50 autonomous countries, then would Europeans suddenly be stupid because they wouldn't be able to name more than a dozen of them? Would they be dumb because they couldn't tell the difference between Cajun, Southern California, New England and Midwest cultures? Or would it not really matter to them, because they don't really have to deal with any more than a handful of states?

I understand completely with what he is saying. I just don't agree.

Geography isn't a valid excuse for not having a basic understanding of different cultures around the world.

Also, regardless of living in the states or not, the way the market has become, we are doing a major disservice to our kids by not pushing them to learn a language in elementary.

We aren't teaching kids to learn. We are teaching kids to pass a standardized test.

Our kids are lacking perspective on a wide range of issues.

And your statement would hold water if it wasn't forced he fact that these European countries also learn a lot about the United States.

Which doesn't fit your narrative of geography, since we aren't merely 3 hours away.

I feel like our education system across the board doesn't teach our kids about the world as in detailed as they should be. And this is yet another reason from a long list of reasons why foreigners come over here and absolutely dominant. But the vise Versa doesn't happen nearly as much.

I've been in the parent teacher conferences, I've gone on field trips with my kids where I've spent a long time talking to the teachers on the bus, I have friends who are teachers, my sister is a teacher... and across the board they all have the same complaint. They spend 90% of their time trying to get the bottom 20% to pass rather than spending the bulk of their time trying to get the top 30% to excel... and that doesn't even contain the time they spend babysitting a bunch of disrespectful kids who won't listen and are generally disruptive.

We are fighting as hard as we can to achieve mediocrity for everybody.

Well that is the opinion of all the teachers I know who are over the age of 30. Take that for whatever it's worth. Obviously there are brilliant students in bad schools just like there are slower learners in good schools. But speaking in averages/trends/generalities, what I wrote is accurate.

I love these horrible common core examples. Common core is an approach, there's not set way, though some teachers probably teach it that way.

I look at that as 50+30+3+7 if I'm doing that in my head...

The fact is, common core math works for a lot of kids that wouldn't get math otherwise. There are those who are just fine learning by the old way too.

j\c How would the liberals ever be elected in inner cities if they had well educated and highly motivated students. Its the liberal policies that are suppressing these kids,and that is Shameful

The problem is, rather than throwing out both methods and letting kids choose whichever works best for them to get the right answer ... schools are REQUIRING students to know both methods. So rather than having two possible tools which could help kids learn, they are forcing kids to confuse the crap out of themselves.

And this is what we mean by teaching to the lowest common denominator. Most kids get the "old" way of doing addition, but there is a small subset that find the common core math way easier. So rather than letting students pick the way that works best for them, we have to force everyone to learn all ways and kids that should be moving on to more advanced math, are now learning a second, more confusing way to do the same exact thing instead.

They're a huge part of the problem, along with administrators who are complicit in the same views.

I witnessed much of this when I observed teachers during my days college days in the Toledo Public Schools.

Many told me how much these students aren't capable, they're a mess because of their environment, and little hope remains for them.

A year and a half later many of the students from that school came to a charter school I was teaching at. Guess what? They put out some incredible work. Were there road bumps? Of course, but at the end of the day I gave them their space, and they respected me for all I did.

Why make the children work that hard? They need to just let them pick up their iPhone and ask, "SIRI, what is 53 + 37?. Then if they need to show their work they can just take a screen shot of their phone and text it to the teacher.

Could it be because English is the primary language used to conduct international business? Or because the dollar is most popular currency to use for international business?


You have, in the past, talked about kids in the hood can't even see life outside of their own neighborhood.. how they are trapped and stuck and see no purpose in even learning the basic fundamentals required to make progress in their education... so seriously, how much do you think they are going to care when you start talking about cultures on the other side of the world?

I will agree with you that there are things our education system is lacking... I think it should be much more challenging... Less repetitive homework, more critical thinking... as for cultures, I think a good place to start would be hammering home how OUR OWN GOVERNMENT works before we start pushing them to learn about other cultures. I think we sell our kids woefully short in what we expect from them from a very young age... and I think we do it because we try to make everything fun and we try to do it in such a way that nobody fails or feels bad about themselves...

I am a 'show me' kind of guy. I have a hard time just taking anything at face value. Call it a character flaw if you want, but I have always been the type to analyze things and I tend to judge things on their own merits. I think there are a lot of popular opinions out there that are dubious at best.

So with that being said, I have to go by what I see. That is, we are (collectively) spending most of our time, money, and energy into bringing up to speed the worst schools and worst students and yet they still lag terribly behind. Is that a fair and accurate assessment? Like if you gave *all* students the same treatment in terms of time and money, the gap between suburbs and inner-city would actually grow, not shrink.

As it stands now, I need to see tangible results. Once that happens-- once it is no longer a foregone conclusion that all of the communities I stated above will blow Cleveland schools out of the water in terms of testing and performance, I will change my mind. But I have to see that change first.

I'm just using the Cleveland area as it's the one I'm most familiar with but it's really just an example. I have to think that whatever is working in the suburbs but isn't working in the city will eventually change. The educators and administrators will figure it out and then I will happily admit that I was wrong.

I've done it before on here. For example, I was almost positive that LeBron James would not sign with the Cavs in 2014. I was so wrong that it actually amuses me looking back on it. And I look forward to hopefully doing the same on this topic in the future.

That is a good point about English. Native English speakers are actually quite fortunate as it is a sort of bridge language for so many different cultures. It is the most commonly learned second language in the world and extremely helpful for many careers.

not really. my wife learned english in elementary school. it has nothing do with the international trade. in elementary school english or some other language is requirement.

for example, my brother in law learned russian. it isn't a language commonly used for trade, but it is a language for UN type stuff.

they could choose pretty much any language they wanted that was offered. but it was required to learn a language, in general.

coming from someone who was an inner city kid, i think you're once again selling us woefully short about what we experience.

hell yea we felt trapped, that's why a lot of us loved when we learned about certain countries. it's captivating learning how other countries operate. it made us think if the grass was greener on the other side.

but im not surprised that you sell us short, especially after your comment about "We should focus on progressing the top percentage of kids".

so we should only focus on the kids that are doing well? you do realize that will only worsen the problem, right? as then we'll have a ton of below average kids just so we can a few top notch ones, once again worsening our world rankings in math and science.

Like I said, we don't have the same experiences.. perhaps I misinterpreted what you have said in the past. If so, my bad.


Even poorer performing schools have a top percentage of kids that should be challenged to excel to greater things. I'm not selling any ethnic or income group short.

When I was in school, if you were a great reader, they put you in a reading group with other great readers.. if you were a struggling reader, they put you in a reading group with other kids on that level.. so that everybody could learn at a pace that they could manage. My daughter was in a 4th grade class a few years ago that had 4 reading groups, the really good and really poor reading kids were dispersed among the groups. So you know what happened? Every group progressed at the pace of the slowest kid. But hey, nobody had the "stigma" of being in the poorer reading group.

The kids in the poorer school districts, the kids who could really achieve great things, are probably held back significantly WORSE the they are in the better school districts. I want them challenged to excel.. I want the other kids challenged too but brought along at a pace they can manage.

You seem to think my opinions are some code for white kids vs black kids or rich kids vs poor kids.... and it's not. I want every kid pushed to achieve the absolute most they can achieve, and right now, that's not what I see. I see everybody working at the pace and the level of the slowest kids in the room.