Last Updated August 15, 2020

<aside> 💡 In order for America's public education system to work: kids actually have to buy into the promise of education (learning to think; not just getting results)

They have to believe that they are actively earning a better life / they have personal agency / they can come back from failure !!!

How do we get them to believe that? Cultivate an environment where students go in knowing they'll be challenged & that people believe they are going to learn & achieve.

</aside>

• Where education works (in countries like South Korea and Finland), it is seen as rigorous and demanding and important!!!

• In America, school is seen as something you just go through:

  • a social rite of passage; this is where you go to make friends

  • everyone complains that school doesn't teach you anything "actually" useful

    → should it actually be vocational?

    → if the idea is that it should be teaching us necessary building blocks and various modes of "how to think", is it effective? i think it depends on what school you go to & also how your peers feel about school

• You see the international "education should be hard" mindset in tiger parents (made infamous in Asian American households) and immigrant households in general

  • there is a sense of work your ass off to get results (which is what America needs more of)
  • considerations:
    • having everything ride on one test / rat race proves incredibly harmful to student mental health
    • america prides itself on creativity & individuality (standardized testing is honestly the antithesis to this culture so comparing nations' academic achievements based off of PISA results is skewed) —> cultural differences!
    • do we want to get better at standardized testing? is this the ultimate aim? would this make us feel better?

• Teachers should be seen as valuable ( + controversial point: you should make it harder to become a teacher; the lowest standards should not be given to your future children)

  <aside> ❓ ok so... As a society / culture, how do we make teachers a "prestigious" job?

  We saw everyone coming to terms with this in COVID — what now? The pay is still not comparable to industries like finance/big tech. How do we both increase / qualify the candidate pipeline?

  They need more autonomy / responsibility. We need to trust them to do their jobs (and not constantly chase test metrics and worry about XYZ). Strong teacher unions correlate to high student achievement.

  </aside>

• America gives out TOO MANY PARTICIPATION TROPHIES so we don't learn resilience

  • we fail one test & no longer believe we are capable anymore of learning this subject (how do we ever adult like this??? must stifle innovation for sure)
    • related to Math Anxiety (re: Learning Disabilities)

• CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST: have high expectations for your students/kids; they are curious and capable of great things!

  • expectations are correlated with whether or not they'll achieve —> not necessarily class size/technology use/$