Simon & Schuster The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

This is a great book. Easy to read and communicates some good ideas / analysis. A good source of inspiration for me on how to evaluate the education programs around us and how to guide my own children to effective learning.

Education and Healthcare system is a soft target is for any opposition in most parts of the world. Focus in this book is Education: we all know it needs overhaul, some know what's wrong with it, but nobody knows how to fix it? There are isolated incidents of some brilliant, passionate and energetic educators taking up the challenge and successfully improve the scores and sometimes, lives of the students.Ripley uses PISA scores to identify countries either consistently performing well or showing considerable improvement on this scale. She compares the American schools with South Korean, Polish and Finnish schools. From there on wards, she works with students who have studies in one of the three countries AND American schools. The reasons for selection are completely unrelated:i. South Korea: Pressure cooker situation, kids have to clear one exam that'll define their future. On the day of the exam, all offices are closed, there are policemen to help students reach the test centers. Study methods, personal tutors and expectations of parents are tedious as well as overwhelming but the results are sweet.ii. Finland: Teaching is the most respected and sought after profession in Finland. Is it money? Yes, but that's not all. To become a Teacher in Finland needs passion and focus equivalent of becoming a Surgeon or may be slightly more. The criteria, the tests, thesis and evaluation for Teacher's exam is exhaustive. The outcome is engaged and high quality students.iii. Poland: No one would have thought that Bureaucrats wish to impact, to say the least, improve education system. Poland is a story that's shocking and more like a fable. Professor turned Politician studies all the schools, identifies the good practices from schools outclassing its peers with meager resources and applied those ideas across the country. The academic system is unified under one goal - PISA score improvement and irrespective of it's impact on students' or country's morale, Polish decide to pursue it and its works wonder.I looked up the PISA scores and wonder why Japan was not included as I see it's higher than all other countries studied in the book.Nevertheless, it's a good read if you want to study best practices of schooling across the globe. How much of those ideas you can inculcate in your own system, that's a big question? Because underlying each success story, there is culture of competitiveness and that takes drastic measures or long time to develop.For my other reviews, visit skillvinci dot com.

*A full executive summary of this book is available at newbooksinbrief dot com.The main argument: In the recent past the K-12 public education system in the United States has been lackluster at best (some might say deplorable). Not that the various levels of government have not put in a great deal of effort (and money) to try and fix the problem; indeed, numerous attempts at education reform have been tried over the past 20 years or so, and the US currently spends more on public education per student than any other nation. Still, all of these good intentions (and boatloads of money) have achieved relatively little in terms of results. When compared with other developed nations, for example, American high school students currently rank 12th in reading, 17th in science, and a paltry 26th in math. These numbers would be concerning even at the best of times, but with the nation currently struggling through a seemingly endless economic slow-down, and with the global economy becoming increasingly competitive (and modern jobs requiring more and more advanced cognitive skills all the time), these numbers are very troubling indeed.All is not lost, though. Other nations have shown that they are able to achieve far better academic results using far less money, and thus we may deem it high time that we investigate just what the leading nations are doing different that has allowed them to be so successful. It is this very project that journalist Amanda Ripley sets for herself in her new book 'The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way'.Ripley focuses her attention on the education systems of 3 countries in particular: South Korea, Finland and Poland. South Korea and Finland are chosen due to their being on top of the world when it comes to academic results, while Poland is chosen since it has recently been able to improve academic outcomes greatly despite the fact that the country faces many of the same challenges as the US—including especially a high rate of child poverty.When it comes to the author’s approach in the book, it is very much that of the investigative journalist: Ripley relies heavily on interviews with specific players in the education systems of the various countries at play (including students, teachers, principals, and politicians); and her main sources are 3 American exchange students (Eric, Kim and Tom) who spend a year immersed in the education systems of the respective countries.When it comes to South Korea, we find that this country’s edge in education has to do mainly with the very intense motivation and hard work on the part of the students. This is a culture where it is no exaggeration to say that most students spend every waking minute on school work: students spend all day at school, eat dinner at school, and then proceed from there to private tutoring schools (called hagwons), where they study right up until bed-time (and often beyond it). The reason for this intense focus on education is that there is very fierce competition to be accepted into one of the few best universities in the country, and only those who score in the top 2% on a single test at the end of high school are allowed in (a set of circumstances that most Koreans actually resent, but which they nonetheless feel compelled to play along with).In Finland we find that academic outcomes are on par with those in South Korea, but that the students here have achieved these results without the same level of acute devotion displayed in South Korea. Indeed, Finland’s edge in education appears to derive not so much from excessive studying, but from its very high quality of teachers—which begins with Finland’s exceptional teachers’ colleges. Specifically, the country’s few accredited teachers’ colleges are very selective in terms of who they accept, and the teacher education programs in Finland are themselves very lengthy and rigorous.In Poland we find that the country’s improvements in academic outcomes as of late may be attributed to a host of recent reforms. These include the ratcheting up of the country’s education curriculum and standards; the awarding of more funds to vocational schools and schools that under-perform in terms of academic outcomes; and the delaying of the streaming of students (i.e., separating students into academic and vocational classes).Beyond their peculiarities, we find that there is one thing that all 3 countries have in common (which is also shared by all nations that perform well when it comes to academics); and that is that they all maintain very high educational expectations and standards, and these standards are consistently tested in a way that holds real consequences for the students and their future prospects.The good thing about Ripley's approach is that it gives us an insider's look into the education systems of the various countries discussed. This approach is particularly good at unearthing specific insights with regards to effective educational practices. However, the approach does have its drawbacks compared with one that is more scientific in nature, and broader in scope. Ideally, it would have been nice to see Ripley combine the two approaches in her book. Still, Ripley has done very well with the approach that she has chosen, and there are many important insights here. A full executive summary of the book is available at newbooksinbrief dot com; a podcast discussion of the book will be available soon.

This is a very well written narrative on why certain countries' students perform so well scholastically. Amanda Ripley is a journalist, and her writing style is captivating.The book focuses on why Finland, South Korea, and Poland do so well in terms of student scores on a test (PISA) that measures creative and critical thinking. Page 3 features a chart that co9mpares a number of different countries on their students' performance, based on results from a number of tests. The United States does not distinguish itself here, being in the lower tier of 15 societies.Ripley examines why different countries score differently (primarily using PISA). Her method is odd, albeit seemingly persuasive. She follows three American AFS students, in a foreign exchange program. They come from Oklahoma (Kim), Pennsylvania (Tom), and Minnesota (Eric). Each goes to a different country--South Korea, Poland, and Finland--each of which features students scoring very high on PISA. Ripley follows them throughout the year, uses them as informants about education, interviews staff in the American and foreign high schools, and so on. The end result is a set of conclusions as to why these three countries do so much better than the United States.A central conclusion by Ripley (Page 193): "To give our kids the kind of education they deserved, we had to first agree that rigor mattered most of all; that school existed to help kids to learn to think, to work hard, and yes, to fail." She observes that sports is much more important in American high schools than in the three other countries studied--probably at the expense of a focus on academics.So far, so good. Emphasizing academics and expecting hard--and good--work do go with better student performance, as data suggest. However, Ripley depends more on her three informants than on data. And that is an issue to me. Are these three students typical? Are their experiences typical? Can we develop hard conclusions about what works and what doesn't based on a sample size of three? If one looks to this as a source of suggestions about why students fare better in some countries rather than others, the book works well. If one depend on this as a powerful source of knowledge about what yields success, there would be a problem.Still and all, this is a fascinating book that gets the reader to thinking--and that is a positive contribution of this volume.

The book is well designed and, the use of the 3 protagonists/ students keeps it engaging. It also brings into perspective the expectations from school in USA vis a vis Poland, Korea and Finland, and the role played by the expectations.However, it is designed as a general read, and hunting for further reading on specific topics is a pain, in the absence of foot/end notes.