I'm posting an article and its coinciding video about a documentary that follows 2 American public school students, 2 Indian students and 2 Chinese students throughout high school. The documentary is titled 2 million minutes which is how many minutes students spend in 4 years of high school. The article and video is about how the students in each country spend those 2 million minutes and why based on that American students are not able to compete with students from India and China. The filmmaker goes on to say that the differences have to do with culture rather than academics. Students in India and China have higher expectations. The schools in both countries have a stronger foundation on Math, Science and Technology which are where most jobs are in the 21st century which is why the film asks can American students compete with their foreign counterparts. American schools provide a more diverse education which not only encourages math and science but also language arts and other subjects. In some of our earlier classes we discussed why people no longer have faith in the school system and why there is such a great deal of importance placed on testing. It has as much to do with our school systems rank in the world and its competitiveness with the world. Whether that is a good reason or not is really up to the individual.
I am an American born Indian thankful that I'm wasn't educated in India because my math and science skills would be an embarrassment to the nation. :)
Here are the links: They work this time
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=4313028&page=1
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/251.7/popup/index.php?cl=6523002
http://www.2mminutes.com/
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Hmmm. . . this is the second time this film has been brought up (see Angie's post from January 26th). Maybe I should get a hold of this thing to show it.
Don't be afraid to take a position here with these posts. Is international competitiveness a good reason to reform education?
Good post.
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