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Best reading scores | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6082 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 1 of 25 08 December 2010 at 6:54am | IP Logged | ||
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The New York Times and and others have posted articles about the latest PISA Test results.
Here. Interesting to see that the Shanghai students did so well in reading. Best in the world. Seems Chinese characters aren't an insurmountable barrier to public education. Oh, looks like they beat everyone in math and science too. Overachievers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5437 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 25 08 December 2010 at 11:21am | IP Logged | ||
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This is further proof that the U.S. has to change its education system. Either adopt the Asian system (very unlikely) or the European system (almost as unlikely.)
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| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5838 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 3 of 25 08 December 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Chinese doing well on standardized tests isn't that shocking to me, it would be shocking if they didn't. East Asians have been pummeling the US for years in standardized tests. It seems that this is has been made big story because the media love to rabble-rouse the US public about a looming Chinese threat.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6491 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 25 08 December 2010 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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The minister for education here in Denmark is very worried about the constant fall in the ratings for Danish school children, this time to a dismal 18. place in the lists. But at the same time the ministry of education has contemplated removing the upper limit for the number of pupils in a class. They also suggest that all children learn at least French or German in school (in addition to English) while watching passively that language teaching at the university level is collapsing, and politicians urge people to leave their children in the public system while putting their own kids in private schools. On top of this confusion a sizeable fraction of the Danish teachers (including the leader of their Union) emphasize that our kids are very independent and social and that the only real problem is too few teachers and too little money (we already spend more than most other countries!). Luckily I haven't got any children, but from hearsay it seems that most pupils spend more time on reading Facebook messages at school than on studying or listening to the teacher.
The evil heritage of the 68's still looms heavily over the Danish school system, and the signals from the powers that be are somewhat contradictory. Edited by Iversen on 08 December 2010 at 4:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6234 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 5 of 25 08 December 2010 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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This doesn't really surprise me at all, but it is a decent reminder that we in the U.S. need to start changing our education system. I've read before that East Asian students will put in huge amounts of study time outside of school. While I've not read anything about U.S. students' study habits, I have a fair number of nephews and nieces in their teens, and judging by them, U.S. students are doing well to even do the required homework, let alone study for three or four hours every evening. As Iversen said, they're more likely to be checking Facebook every 5 minutes rather than doing what they're supposed to be doing. I also know from talking to teachers that texting in school has gotten way out of hand.
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| Marikki Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5283 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German | Message 6 of 25 08 December 2010 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
I think it should be quality over quantity also when it comes to the amount of study time. What works in Shanghai doesn't necessarily work in different cultures. Finland has always scored well in Pisa in every area although Finnish schoolchildren aged 7 to 15 years have the shortest schooldays in OECD. When kids go to school at the age of 7 the average schoolday is less than 4 hours and for the 12 year olds it is 5 hours. School holidays are also relatively long, 14-15 weeks every year. Finnish school is not competitive and children have many outside school hobbies. The most believable explanation I have heard is that in the top countries teaching is considered a high prestige profession and it thus attracts the right kind of people to become techers. In Finland even primary school teachers have a master's degree. It is little worrying though that also in Finland children's reading skills have slightly deteriorated during the last ten years. And the amount of pupils having severe behavior problems has increased considerably. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5437 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 25 08 December 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is just from what I've seen and experienced, so just take it as it is.
In high school, it's easy to "get along" with Bs and Cs by just showing up to class and taking the tests. Most of the school work in in-class work, and people usually buddy up, so people usually copy off of a few people. When I was in high school, 10-15 minutes of cramming was all I needed for the most part for tests. They were usually easy. For exams, I'd spend more time, but it was still cramming. I also spent a lot of time in the hallways and/or the principal's office, and even sleeping and still got good grades in school. Out (The U.S.) K-12 education is a joke. And the teacher position isn't the most respected position in the U.S. Parents get tired of how much teachers get paid when they only work 2/3 of the year. As I said earlier, either the Scandinavian or the East Asian system works. Both get the desired results. But I don't see either one of them being implemented in the U.S. at any point in time. Edited by The Real CZ on 08 December 2010 at 7:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Desacrator48 Groupie United States Joined 5096 days ago 93 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 8 of 25 08 December 2010 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems we are comparing apples to oranges here. Why are we comparing one city in China (Shanghai), and then using that city as indicative of all Chinese students and comparing that to the national average of other countries in the world?
I also read that article yesterday when it was published, but something it does not point and something we need to figure out concretely is whether our students in America test poorely because of a bad education system and/or a lack of dedication. We might have a competent education system in place on a state by state basis, and if the students are dedicated/motivated enough to put in their own time to study and learn at home, maybe we would rank higher. In the same paper, the Times also had an article saying how unfortunately the job market in that country is such that even with a higher education, college grads are only making a small amount more than migrant workers. In the US, we still have the best university system in the world (no matter grade school education), and if you are motivated/dedicated enough to learn you will succeed. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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