The smartest kids in the world:And how they got that way
2013年 08月 23日
The Smartest kids in the world:And how they got that way.
Authour Amanda Ripley.
Simon and Schuseter 320pages.
From Book customer reviews
How Do Other Countries Create “Smarter” Kids?
In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they’ve never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.
What is it like to be a child in the world’s new education superpowers?
In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans embedded in these countries for one year. Kim, fifteen, raises $10,000 so she can move from Oklahoma to Finland; Eric, eighteen, exchanges a high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea; and Tom, seventeen, leaves a historic Pennsylvania village for Poland.
Through these young informants, Ripley meets battle-scarred reformers, sleep-deprived zombie students, and a teacher who earns $4 million a year. Their stories, along with groundbreaking research into learning in other cultures, reveal a pattern of startling transformation: none of these countries had many “smart” kids a few decades ago. Things had changed. Teaching had become more rigorous; parents had focused on things that mattered; and children had bought into the promise of education.
A journalistic tour de force, The Smartest Kids in the World is a book about building resilience in a new world—as told by the young Americans who have the most at stake.
The Smartest Kids in the Worold
Simon & Schuster |
320 pages |
ISBN 9781451654424 |
August 2013
Before buying, you may read the article related this book.
The Economist August 17th 2013 P65
Books and Arts Education standard Best and bright
Only a few countries are teaching children how to think
Nyfiken: It is very important to teach children how to think rather than just memorizing.
I agree with The economist's view. Especially this part.
"America's classrooms do not fare well in this book. Against these examples of academic achievement, the country's expensive mistakes look all the more foolish. For example, unlikenthe schools in Finland, which channel more resources to the neediest kids, America funds its schools through property taxes, ensuring the most disadvantaged students are warehoused together in the worst school.......... America, she observes, may soon reach a similar moment. She cites the World Economic Forum's most recent ranking of global competitiveness, which placed America seventh, marking its third consecutive year of decline. Meanwhile Finland that small, remote Nordic country with few resources, has been steadily moving up this ladder, and now sits comfortably in third place."