“The Smartest Kids in the World”- Book Review

My summer has been very busy with lots of reading! [See my previous post on “Real Talk for Real Teachers” by Rafe Esquith]

Yesterday I finished this great book: “The Smartest Kids in the World” by Amanda Ripley. It caught my attention in the “education” section of a local bookstore because of my current work with so-called “bright” students. The part of the title that made me pick up the book was “and how they got that way.” As an elementary school teacher, I wanted to know what else I could be doing to challenge my gifted learners so that they could continue to be successful both in and outside the classroom. I was especially interested in how I could help students become more globally competitive and I thought that this book might shed some light on just how to do that!

The author, Amanda Ripley, was interested in the educational system of the US and how it fared in comparison to the world. She was well aware that we are not on the top of the list for test scores or achievements when comparing students across the globe. As a journalist, she set out on a search to find out what the magic equation might be that our current educational system is lacking that could help us catch up with the rest of the world.

Amanda followed several American exchange students abroad to countries such as Poland, Korea and Finland. Hearing the research on foreign educational systems was eye-opening, but hearing the account of the personal stories from the exchange students is what was really captivating about this story. Check out video interview with the students here!

The best chapter of this book was Chapter 9, entitled “the $4 million teacher.” Because this chapter is my favorite and caused me to be astonished, I won’t share much except to say YOU GOTTA READ THIS BOOK, especially this chapter!

Don’t forget to read the appendix where Amanda Ripley gives you 5 ways to “spot a world-class education.” She is accurate and bold in her statements. Each characteristic is not earth shattering, but it is essential. America can make these possible changes, we just must all share the same vision and do our part of the process well.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• “You cannot measure what counts in education- the human qualities.” father of Andreas Schleicher (German scientists who helped create the PISA test that helped compare the educational performance of students in various countries)
• “Spending on education did not make kids smarter. Everything- everything- depended on what teachers parents and students did with those investments.” Amanda Ripley
• “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.” Andreas Schleicher
• “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Korean policymaker
• “Kids who had high expectations for themselves, who planned to finish school and go to college, were significantly more likely to graduate high school.” Amanda Ripley

A few sad truths about the United States from Amanda Ripley:

• (Reference: college admission standards for the field of education) “To educate our children, we invited anyone- no matter how poorly educated they were- to give it a try. The irony was revealing, a bit like recruiting flight instructors who had never successfully landed a plane, then wondering why so many planes were crashing.”
• “The United States produced nearly two and a half times the numbers of teachers it needed each year.”
• “Once it became harder to be a teacher, it could also become more attractive. More people might want to do it, and fewer established teachers might leave the profession.”
• “Incredibly, at some U.S. colleges, students had to meet higher academic standards to play football than to become teachers.”
• “Less than 1/2 of American high-school math teachers majored in math. Almost a third did not even minor in math.”
• “American kids didn’t study much because, well, they didn’t have to.” (low requirements and demand of showcasing knowledge)
• “Combined with less rigorous material, higher rates of child poverty and lower levels of teacher selectivity and training, the glorification of sports chipped away at the academic drive among US kids.”

Thank you to Amanda…This is why I love Finland:

• “Finland had the smartest kids in the world.”
•  “Teenagers in Finland did less homework than Americans, but scored at the top of the world on international tests.”
•  “Being a teacher in Finland was prestigious, like being a doctor here.”
•  “The Finns rebooted their teacher training colleges, forcing them to become much more selective and rigorous.”
•  “The only way to get serious about education was to select highly educated teachers, the best and brightest of each generation, and train them rigorously.”
•  “Now that teachers had been carefully chosen and trained, they were trusted to help develop a national core curriculum, to run their own classrooms, and to choose their own textbooks. They were trained the way teachers should be trained and treated the way teachers should be treated.”
•  ” School leaders and teachers were free to write their own lesson plans, engineer experiments within their schools to find out what worked, and generally design a more creative system than any centralized authority ever could.”
•  “The government conducted standardized testing of targeted samples of students” instead of every student in every school like the U.S.
• “Without highly educated and well-trained teachers and principals, kids could make only limited progress each year.”

Amanda helped paint this picture about Finland : Selective teacher colleges –> more time spent on rigorous instruction instead of catching up and attending training –> stable teachers who are unlikely to leave the profession —> larger class sizes –>  pay decently –> turn out successful students. Well I can see the domino effect here. If we start by having rigorous standards who who becomes a teacher, then hire the cream of the crop, of course they can dive in to rigorous instruction because they are prepared to do so. We can spend our money on salaries instead of on professional development. This book has shown that the US spends more than other countries per pupil and the results are lacking. That tells me we are not making the right choice in what we pour money into- put it into the talent, the teachers!

I am so glad I did not grow up in Korea:

Students spend most of their days learning. It is such a problem, that the country had to put a curfew in place to cut students off from studying. Law enforcement patrols the study centers to ensure students are released and not hiding in a corner with a flashlight studying. I cannot even wrap my head around this! Students are so tired from the long days of study that they sleep through most of the regular school day (and mentioned those teachers are boring), helped clean up the school after hours, and then reported to a study center to continue the learning. Here the teachers are paid by the parents and make a really nice living. They are invested and creative. No sleeping in these classes. Students are in school until 10 pm daily. I cannot imagine learning for that amount of time in one single day. My brain would be on overload. I don’t blame them for sleeping in class! “Korean parents saw themselves as coaches, while American parents tended to act more like cheerleaders.” I can see how this is true as the Korean parents told their children how they can do something better and continue to achieve to be better where American parents are applauding for participation and a good smile. This educationally hyper focused society, also referred to as having “education fever,”  has been nicknamed “the pressure cooker,” and I can surely see why!

Cool Facts: 

No matter what country you come from. “When children were young, parents who read to them every day or almost every day had kids who performed much better in reading.” “Parents who discussed movies, books, and current affairs with their kids had teenagers who performed better in reading.” Amanda Ripley

Jelani Mandara from Northwestern University shares his research on the different parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, neglectful and authoritative). It revealed that “Kids with authoritative parents had higher academic achievement levels fever symptoms of depression, and fewer problems with aggression, disobedience, and other antisocial behaviors.” “Authoritative parents trained their kids to be resilient, and it seemed to work.”

This book does a great job of making you think. What are your thoughts on what I presented or what you have read yourself on the topic of the quality of education around the world?