by LaDonna Hatfield

Created on: November 15, 2008

Amen to Rachel Thompson's article giving a teen's viewpoint on this topic. She did her research and pointed out that Oriental countries have students who spend 6 hours a night on homework and attend educational cramming schools that stretch far past the regular school day in America. Additionally, it should be pointed out just how the educational system in Japan, China and other Oriental countries works. Those countries designate top students to continue their education with a super-rigorous curriculum designed to push students to excel in math and sciences the way top athletes are pushed to excel in world competitions. Now, those students who are athletes do not also attend those rigorous curriculum schools. They receive a "normal" education because their focus is on gymnastics or swimming or whatever sport they have been chosen to represent. Children in these countries are taken away from their homes and sent to their destinations to be the most competitive at math, science, athletics, or whatever domain the government has chosen for them based on natural abilities. Are we willing to have the government determine for us where our children are, what they study, how long they study, how long they practice the piano or balance beam? Parents would be outraged in America. Yet, American society is bombarded with these unreliable statistics showing how much better students from Japan score in Math and Science than American children score in those subjects.

When did education in America become a competition against the rest of the world's brightest students? When did teaching students the value of learning how to learn independently lose ground to scoring the best score on a test? How did our country deceive itself into believing that American schools fail to provide students with a good education based on a test score in math? Why are we no longer focused on developing the individual student's aptitudes and abilities in favor of competing with the world's smartest kids on a test? Why are we opting to spread this hogwash in the media instead of lobbying for more vocational programs and specialized curricula that will help our students achieve their goals in life? Why is have we lost our focus on helping indivdual young people grow up to be citizens who contribute to society in a variety of ways and instead are concentrating on making every student's goal to score better than a kid halfway across the world in another culture? If I knew how write this so that the reader

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