Why U.S. Schools Should Not Be Like Shanghai!

I haven’t written much for the last couple of months as the school year comes to an end.  Besides being very busy with my students, I have continued to work behind the scenes, meeting with the SMUHSD Superintendent and others about important local school issues.  I will write more on those topics in the near future when exams are over.

However, today, while researching a different topic mentioned on Diane Ravitch’s blog, I stumbled upon a speech by a professor of education from the University of Kansas named Dr. Yong Zhao who also has a website at http://zhaolearning.com.

Professor Zhao’s speech available via this link is not only very humorous and entertaining, it focuses on many key issues confronting our schools and country today, including the focus on test scores and the long-term consequences of this movement.  A significant majority of my tutoring clients are Chinese-American, and I would be interested in hearing their response to Dr. Zhao’s comments.

The talk is about 55 minutes long, so, instead of watching TV tonight, grab some popcorn and curl up with Professor Zhao.  He hits on some particularly important points in minutes 39 – 46 of the video.  You should particularly stop the video and study the slide at 42:00.

I guarantee that you will not only be entertained, but also educated; it will be well worth your time!!

Author: David Kristofferson

Retired Ph.D. scientist, teacher (after retiring from industry, taught in private and public high schools and then worked a decade in my own private tutoring business), bioinformatician (managed both the NIH-funded GenBank National Nucleic Acid Sequence Databank and the BIONET National Computer Resource for Molecular Biology), IT director at Eos and Raven Biotechnologies, software product manager, AAAS Fellow, avid cyclist, and backpacker! View all posts by David Kristofferson