America needs more nerds. More tryhards. More of those no-lifers who dedicate themselves to the pursuit of knowledge and achievement. Ever since the Cold War ended, America has been toying with the erroneous idea that we are the sole superpower of the world and no one can change that. With this notion polluting the mind of every student K through 12, we've interpreted "satisfactory" and "excellent" to be synonymous.
Two Million Minutes demonstrates that Americans barely put forth half the effort in school as Indian or Chinese students. We see school as a time to meet up with friends and talk about our date last night while the teacher mumbles on about the American Revolution. Most Americans don't want to try because even people with negative IQs can get into college if they play a sport. Additionally, people in America are satisfied with being "good enough;" being middle class is the American Dream. In India and China, school is a way to escape poverty; most Americans have no such worries (perhaps the economic downturn is good for something: giving us a reason to seek higher education).
In the Cold War, education was seen as a public good and as a way to defeat the communist menace. Those seeking education were heroes and domestic soldiers. Since we haven't yet perceived the economic threat of the BRIC (Brasil, Russia, India, China) or the destructive threat of emerging nuclear powers, students haven't been as encouraged. The previous generation worked hard to save their country, and they're now reaping the benefits. Generation Y, however, can only feed off of Generation X's success. If only we could have another Cold War.
Finally, C material does NOT deserve an A. Bio X should require work suiting an honors class(and maybe experience in Honors 9th Science, WHS is finally starting to fix this) and APUSH is not a class you take because you miss a friend who took Euro. America's students need to commit to education. Until everyone does, our best will rival China's worst.
well I disagree with a lot of this Ryan... there are parts that are factual but most of this... nuh uh. First of all the movie Two Million Minutes is extremely biased against US students. They even portrayed the male who earned a full ride to Purdue as a slacker student.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while there are many foreign students who are very smart and are competing in the global market, there are also lots of American students who are able to compete as well.
I agree with your notion of the Cold War. The Space Race was amazing, and the another Space Race would be amazing. I am personally hoping that China steps up it's game in the space department so that we can possibly get another space program going, and get to Mars. It's not only competition that kept America from stopping the science-train, as much as it is the fear of getting bombed. Or BRIC'd. Ha. Haha. Hahahaa...
ReplyDeleteI like how Eric hops on my bandwagon. I agree with you Ryan, we need more nerds; I need more friends.
ReplyDeleteAnd BioX is a joke.