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THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD

Name: THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD
Author: Amanda Ripley
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5442-4

AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY

by Amanda Ripley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2013

A compelling, instructive account regarding education in America, where the arguments have become “so nasty, provincial, and...

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Chronicle of a journalist’s global travels to visit schools, interviewing educators and talking with students and their families in order to answer the question, “Why were some kids learning so much—and others so very little?”

Ripley (The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why, 2008) examines why there is a disparity in performance on tests of mathematical and scientific competence between American students and their global counterparts, even when factors such as poverty and discrimination are taken into account. She explains that America's poor showing translates into lost jobs for Americans, who cannot compete with foreign labor even in semiskilled jobs. Many of the arguments about American education fail to address the real issues behind the competitive failure of American schools compared to Finnish and South Korean schools (where students are in the top tier on international tests), as well as Poland, where the rate of improvement is remarkable. Ripley builds her narrative around the experience of three American teenagers, each of whom spent a year abroad as exchange students—in Finland, South Korea and Poland, respectively. The author describes a political consensus in each of the three countries that nearly guarantees the creation and maintenance of a highly educated workforce, from top to bottom. The importance of education is a reflection of national consensus on the respect for teachers. A large portion of their education budgets go to teachers’ salaries, and the instructors are chosen from the top third of their graduating classes and must meet high professional standards on a par with engineers. Per capita, America spends more money on education, but the money is allocated differently—e.g., to sports teams and programs that provide students with laptops, iPads and interactive whiteboards.

A compelling, instructive account regarding education in America, where the arguments have become “so nasty, provincial, and redundant that they no longer lead anywhere worth going."

Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4516-5442-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 21, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013

Categories:

EDUCATION

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BEHIND THE PLAYDOUGH CURTAIN

A YEAR IN MY LIFE AS A PRESCHOOL TEACHER

by Patti Greenberg Wollman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1994

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An endearing and lively account of what one teacher encountered in a year with a private nursery school ``class from hell'' on Manhattan's educationally progressive Upper West Side. A preschool teacher for 20 years, Wollman had decided to keep a detailed journal of a recent school year before she knew that her class of 13 three- and four-year-olds would have more than its share of problems. True, there was an unusual number of unruly and immature children (one youngster was still in diapers). But affecting the behavior of the class even more was a procession of tragic events, including deaths and illnesses in almost every child's family, putting extraordinary demands on Wollman and her assistant, Cathy. For, as Wollman says, ``preschool teachers do a lot more than play games and bandage scraped knees.'' They socialize and civilize, give the children a safe place to learn how to identify emotions and express them verbally, and work (carefully) with parents to detect and correct problems. The children come to life: Harris, who struggles to overcome the scars left by a babysitter who hit and screamed at him; Jeremy, who's blaming himself for the baby sibling who died at birth; Sharon, who had a difficult ear operation early in the school year; and the other ten enchanting, frustrating, bright youngsters (names are changed). Though Wollman is often exhausted, troubled, and challenged by her charges, nevertheless, year's end finds the class and its teachers a tightly knit, productive group and the parents rightly grateful to have found a nurturing haven for their children. Wollman writes, ``[We] felt victorious...We had enriched the lives of thirteen families who would never be the same.'' A year's adventures in the world of collage, cubbies, and time-out, told with wit and humanity. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-684-19665-4

Page Count: 280

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994

Categories:

EDUCATION

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CITY ON A HILL

TESTING THE AMERICAN DREAM AT CITY COLLEGE

by James Traub ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1994

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Eschewing hand-wringing and political rhetoric for close, critical observation, freelance journalist Traub (Too Good to Be True, 1990) delineates a unique—and uniquely representative- -institution: New York's City College. Traub spent a year observing classes at City College's Gothic Revival campus, which sits atop a hill in Harlem. Founded in 1849 as an egalitarian experiment, tuition-free City College came into its own when the great turn-of-the-century tide of Jewish migration provided it with cohorts of driven students. Their legendary successes—a record number of Nobelists and intellectuals such as Irving Howe—made it a beacon of educational possibility for the nation. A confluence of social and political upheavals, however, brought radical changes in the 1960s, key among them guaranteed admission for graduates of New York City high schools to the City University of New York, of which City College is a part. An exploration of the drastic results of this ``open admissions'' policy constitutes the main part of Traub's book. After limning the ideological conflicts that still continue among the faculty and in the press, he introduces us to its ramifications in City College's classrooms. We meet a range of teachers, from dedicated idealists, struggling to reach woefully under-prepared students while maintaining some semblance of academic standards, to the controversial Afrocentrist professor Leonard Jeffries, whose authoritarian anti-intellectualism Traub exposes as he captures the human, even tragic dimension of Jeffries's sway over uninformed followers. Empathetic portraits of City College students stand at the book's center. Many flounder in remedial courses; difficult family situations and looming financial disaster burden most; the dedication of contemporary immigrants provides some hope. But Traub's ultimate accomplishment is to reveal the consequences for one legendary college of the inadequacy of our urban high schools and vocational training, and our general devaluation of learning. The crisis continues—and as goes New York's City on a hill, so goes the nation. Exemplary reportage, essential for all those debating the future of American college education.