The 2016 Year in Review Video

Final Exam  

  

“The Smartest Kids In the World”

         By Amanda Ripley

          

            Education around the world is very different and the book “The Smartest kids in the World” by Amanda Huxley has great individual life experiences to show that aspect. In my opinion the book was written to show how America could better our education because we care about many other things rather then what’s important, the education we receive. Considering other countries and the way they focus on their education may persuade all the readers reading the novel to change society and care more about where we stand education wise in the world. I believe it’s true we don’t focus much on receiving the knowledge we need, we care more about where we stand in life not from what we know but on what we can do and stay satisfied with it. And the way this book provides three teenagers to express their journeys on traveling to study abroad is I think the perfect way to enhance the readers to captivate that we as in America need to focus more on education not all these other distractions around us. Tom, Eric and Kim where the names of the teenagers going from where they live to another country having their own journeys from being able to go there to actually studying there.

             Starting with Tom he was seventeen living in a village in Pennsylvania, left to travel to Poland. Tom had most trouble in the math classes in Poland because he was used to being able to use a calculator in the U.S. that in the Poland math classes all they had was their brain to solve the math problems. He explains that it made it seem like they had a fluent language in their head to know how to not need the calculator. Their ability of knowing how to use their knowledge in their minds explains how they received high scores on the PISA test. I think knowing and having all that in your brain not having to waste time calculating it on a calculator is a trait they need to be taught at a smaller age. Being taught things from the start has a big impact because you use that ability all throughout your education.

             Kim was a fifteen year old teenager with the ability to raise $100,000 just to leave Oklahoma and travel to Finland and explore the education there. Finland is not exactly what she expects. Despite its reputation as being the best school system in the world, she finds simple no-frills classrooms. They had no high-tech whiteboards or other gadgets that have become common in American schools. Students also have plenty of free time and independence. There were no regularly scheduled parent-teacher conferences. A teacher would just meet with a student to resolve problems rather than bringing in the parents. The students in America would have something rather than just education as in Poland they would all with the exceptions of some would just focus on school and their knowledge they get from it.

             Ending with Eric, eighteen, trades his high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea. That country has some of the highest average test scores in the world. He had assumed that every high school class would be really aware of the class, all eyes on the teacher, no goofing off. Instead, during his first day in he’s sociology class, attention was not coming from everyone about a third of the students were asleep. They were recovering from their evening tutoring academies called “hagwons.” South Korea’s reputation for academics began to look to Eric more corrosive than inspiring.

               The book uses those three teenagers experiences to justify that we need to change the way our society is built and how we don’t really pay attention to what we know as in our knowledge but what we can do as in sports, music artistry etc. Ripley’s way of explaining the PISA test and how the test scores can tell so much about a person makes the book a very good book to know and learn to pay more attention to what we you have knowledge about, its importance. America can improve and this book was written so we could know that we need to improve.

My Animoto

Books Study, Part 1- The Smartest Kids in the World

What did you think about what you read?
- Ripley's characters know how to make clear that all their experience are all facts that guide them to their conclusions. Its also very interesting how they present the test and teach us how the test measures our abilities.


Which of the three students do you most relate to? Explain why and how you view this? What was significant to you about this student?
- The experience of Tom, Toms U.S. math classes, everyone used calculators. In Toms classroom in Poland, everyone did math in their head, to the point that it seems like they were fluent in a language he was not. I can relate to this because for myself its hard for me to do a mathematical problem without a calculator if you're used to having one at all times.


What was your opinion of the different types of schools in the three countries?
- All around the world children are learning to make arguments and problems they have never seen before, they're learning to think. Kim as a fifteen year old raises $10,000 so she can move from Oklahoma, to Finland; Eric, eighteen, trades his high-achieving Minnesota suburb for a booming city in South Korea; and Tom, seventeen, leaves Pennsylvania village for Poland.

This is our live Binder over our websites.
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Perot Field Trip

On March 8, 2016, we visited the Perot Museum.

Philosophy of teaching