Obama, je ne suis pas d'accord

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).




I read this article on yahoo news. It is frustrating to me in a few ways:

First of all, American kids spend more hours in school than kids in asian countries. Since I live in Japan and teach here, I'm only going to say what I've seen. I know that most of my students go to juku- basically after school subject tutoring. Some of my students go 2 hours a week, some everyday for 2 hours. During vacation times, they can go all day. So, technically some kids in Japan spend a lot of time in "school"- all day in school then go to their club, then go to this tutoring, then go to english classes or other things. I'll admit, my students are good at math (maybe obama should make us take abacus classes as children, like lots of kids in japan do). But I'll tell you what, I have many many many students who are incapable of using their brain, learning abstract things or thinking for themselves.


I'd say the majority of my students are burnt out and just plain tired of studying by the time they are in junior high. Starting their day early and finishing at 9pm is not a great habit to get into. But I'm always surprised by how many students really have a day to day schedule like this.

Parents have to pay for school here. There are about 40 students in a class. Teachers work horrible hours. Kids clean the school.


So basically if Obama wants American kids to go to school longer, just to keep up with math and science scores, he's gonna have to change a lot more than just the hours. Who's going to pay for the extra time the teachers work? What about the kids who don't come from well off families and need to have a part time job? What if the above average kids keep staying above average and the below average students just stay below average? what was accomplished?


Sure, tests can be good, but do we really have to focus so much on state tests, nationwide tests, and worldwide standards? What about the things that cant be tested? What about kids who aren't good test takers? What about teaching kids real life things? Letting kids be kids. Once they get older, they won't have a summer vacation.



Just because kids get better math and science scores in other countries, doesn't mean that they don't have any weaknesses.