+OK 10384 octets Received: from smtp00.nwnexus.com (smtp00.nwnexus.com [192.135.191.25]) by mail3.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA11353 for ; Wed, 20 Oct 1999 08:40:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailgw00.execpc.com (sendmail@mailgw00.execpc.com [169.207.1.78]) by smtp00.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA24550 for ; Wed, 20 Oct 1999 08:39:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [169.207.128.214] (ferengal-2-86.mdm.mke.execpc.com [169.207.128.214]) by mailgw00.execpc.com (8.9.1) id KAA08490; Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:38:48 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: leontodd@mail.execpc.com Message-Id: Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:41:43 -0500 To: Loop:; From: Dennis Redovich (by way of Leon Todd) Subject: Re: The learning gap: Areas for a law suit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by mail3.halcyon.com id IAA11353 Status: Leon I got back from China on Tuesday morning after visiting schools in 5 Chinese cities. The Learning Gap is "absolute" nonsense. Most of the suggested so-called solutions are of questionable value. In recent years I have met other educators from Taiwan and Asia. They do not have any secrets in education. The schools of the world are becomng more and more like American schools while the U.S. stupidly creates a "manufactured crisis" in education. What did you do with my Inane is too mild a term piece? Dennis leontodd@mail.execpc.com wrote: The Learning Gap Foreword: The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education by Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler. Simon & Schuster, 1992, ISBN 0-671-88076-4 This paper is a review of The Learning Gap. It was written for the Technology and Learning class. ---------- Abstract: During the late 80s and early 90s, realizing that its education system is in crisis, Americans began to look for ways to reform the system. Countless reports and books were generated on this topic. President Bush's education summit with the nation's governors offered <http://www.ed.gov/index.html>6 goals for improving American schools by the year 2000. The authors, based on their in depth <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/ins t5931/erikas.htm>surveys conducted during the 70s and the 80s in Japan, China, Taiwan and US, pointed out the differences between Asian and American education environment and suggested solutions to improve the American schooling. Review: What are the Problems The book reports the results of the surveys and defines the schooling problems in the following aspects: * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika1.htm>Academic Achievement * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika2.htm>Children's Lives * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika3.htm>Socialization and Achievement * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika4.htm>Effort and Ability * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika5.htm>Satisfactions and Expectations * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika6.htm>The Organization of Schooling * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika7.htm>The Profession of Teaching * <http://inst.cl.uh.edu/inst 5931/erika8.htm>The Practice of Teaching What are the Solutions Indeed, education is a complicated problem. Is there ONE thing we can do to make it better? The authors said "No!". Many things have to change to make this big body of "education" operate effectively. The following changes are recommended to make learning a more exciting quest for all children: * What Schools Can Do * Free Teachers The first thing is to decrease the teaching load of American elementary teachers so that they'd have enough time redovich@execpc.com Re: The learning gap: Areas for a law suit Pass this onto the loop, this is one of the leading "we're getting killed by the Asians" books, but they say that we should be doing less, not more rote learning when the Asians do rote like nobody's business, they also miss the point that Bracey agrees with me that if you look at Asians in American schools, they do about as well as Asians in the best Asian schools, even with the supposedly inferior American shorter school year, and curriculum. This is also one of the few studies that claims there is no IQ difference between whites and Asians, evidently the result of looking at schools that in fact are NOT representative of national norms. No mention in this book of strict discipline that few Americans would put up with, school on Saturday, worship of rank order test scores, or huge class sizes. Or the problem of teen prostitition in low -status Japanese high schools. On 1999-10-20 redovich@execpc.com said: >Leon I got back from China on Tuesday morning after visiting >schools in 5 Chinese cities. The Learning Gap is "absolute" >nonsense. Most of the suggested so-called solutions are of >questionable value. In recent years I have met other educators from >Taiwan and Asia. They do not have any secrets in education. The >schools of the world are becomng more and more like American >schools while the U.S. stupidly creates a "manufactured crisis" in >education. What did you do with my Inane is too mild a term piece? >Dennis >leontodd@mail.execpc.com wrote: >>The Learning Gap >>Foreword: >>The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn >>from Japanese and Chinese Education by Harold W. Stevenson and >>James W. Stigler. Simon & Schuster, 1992, ISBN 0-671-88076-4 >>This paper is a review of The Learning Gap. It was written for the >>Technology and Learning class. >>---------- >>Abstract: >>During the late 80s and early 90s, realizing that its education >>system is in crisis, Americans began to look for ways to reform the >>system. Countless reports and books were generated on this topic. >>President Bush's education summit with the nation's governors Arthur Hu "Fairness in Diversity" Kirkland WA http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/ Net-Tamer V 1.11P - Registered fredb001@stargate23.com/CC 71524.2205@compuserve.com, rdyarrow@elnet.com The learning gap: China vs. US What sort of a school is this? What you find in all nations is that there are very good high schools, and very bad ones. If you visit a very good high school, chances are there's an evil twin lurking about as its opposite. I know the Japanese do a very thorough job of segregating the dogs from the stars, I can assume the Chinese do similarly. The Americans tend to do this either by income (rich neighborhoods) or by test scores (examination schools) There's a huge contrast between the 85th-90th percentile performance level of the best US high schools, the 50th percentile average, and the 25th percentile average of the worst schools. The average Chinese adult has not made it past elementary school, the average child can expect to complete his/education in middle school. By contrast, the average African American child can expect to complete high school and 2 years of college, afford a 1000 sq ft apartment with utilities, TV, microwave, a car. Compare this to the average Chinese citizen. That's what kills me about the racial IQ comparisons between Asians and African Americans, the average ASIAN is a Chinese peasant, the Chinese you see this side of the pond are the very top sliver that made it out of that place. It's better to be #1 than #2, but by world class standards, the Chinese have a heck of a long way to go. Chinese Americans have made a very big dent in high tech, but it's still very much dominated by those "miseducated" American educated mostly European kids. On 1999-10-22 fredb001@stargate23.com said: >I wanted to comment because your observations are so different from >those of my brother-in-law. He also has been to China several times >during the past four years. His experience after spending time in >Chinese schools has been shock ...and concern....at the difference >between the student's skills there and those of his own teenage >children and their friends. Since the schools there are core to the >community, visits for business purposes inevitably include time Arthur Hu "Fairness in Diversity" Kirkland WA http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/ Net-Tamer V 1.11P - Registered