Rachel Stagg

IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way

Education in the United States has been declining for many years, while in other
countries it continues to reach new heights and push more boundaries. Since 2000, education has
been measured worldwide by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores.
Amanda Ripley, in her book The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way, not
only takes the PISA test for herself, but discusses PISA and education both in the United States
and also the countries Finland, Poland and South Korea. From Amandas own experience, she
tells hers readers, PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate
the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with
information. It is sad that American teenagers cannot perform up to par on a test devoted to
critical thinking. Critical thinking is important to every job, as well to everyday life; thinking is
fundamental to every decision a person will make in their life, and who wouldnt want to make
the best possible decisions for their families and for themselves? As Ripley points out, the United
States is lacking in many important areas: education is not a priority to most parents and
students, teachers are not trained to the proper standards, and most parents feel that self-esteem is
more important than education and learning about failure.
In each country that Ripley thoroughly researched, she found a culture and belief
surrounding education that is not seen in the United States. Parents, students, and teachers found
education to be at the core of their countries beliefs and standings in the global scheme. In
Korea, for example, each person interviewed claimed that school was the most important thing to
their culture, and that they were never satisfied with their education status. This comes as a
shock, seeing as how South Korea is at the top of the world in education. Unlike the United
States though, Korea sees that there is always room for improvement, and second best is not
good enough for them. When talking to Koreas education minister, Ripley asked how he felt
about Obamas glowing recommendation of their educational system. He sadly answered, You
Americans see a bright side of the Korean education system, but Koreans are not happy with it
(Ripley, 2013). Then, when the foreign exchange student, Eric, talked about Korea, he
acknowledged that he felt suffocated. Korean students spent more than twelve hours in school
Rachel Stagg
IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

each day, and attended school more than two months longer than Eric and his classmates in
Minnesota. Koreans attend school almost their entire young lives, yet their country is still
unhappy with their education standings. Finland is another country that Amanda Ripley
examined where education is a belief every student, parent and teacher shares; it is a vital part of
their culture which is evident from their PISA scores. In Finland, Ripley conveys some
differences that Kim, the foreign exchange student who visited Finland, saw when she went into
her classes each day. Every classroom had different types of kids: the popular kids, the stoners,
the nerds, etc. But the difference between these kids and the same stereotypes in the United
States is that each and every one of the students was still performing excellently and receiving
high grades; they came to class, they took notes, and they respected their teachers. In the United
States, this does not occur. The reason for this is simple: education is not at the core of our
culture, or even the core of our schools sometimes. Sports, clubs, even drugs can become more
central to students than their education, thus causing their learning to suffer. Neither Finland nor
Korea let trivial pastimes such as sports and education come between their youngest generations
and their education.
One of the most important differences between the United States and Finland, Poland and
Korea is the educational requirements of teachers. In Finland, one of the highest ranking
countries in PISA scores, getting into a teacher-training program was as prestigious as getting
into a medicals school in the United States (Ripley, 2013). Teachers are required to attend 6
years of study at their university, with the last two years consisting of the teacher-training
program. In these two years of laborious teacher training, the students learn what they are doing
wrong, and find methods to fix their shortcomings. Up-and-coming teachers also were required
to write thesis papers relating to their specific teaching areas. In the United States, not only are
there far more teacher-training institutions, they are a piece of cake to gain acceptance into. An
aspiring teacher can easily be accepted into a University with lower standardized test scores than
the national average. Kims math teacher in the United States became a math teacher so that he
could coach school sports as well. In Finland and Korea, this idea is unheard of: teachers are
educated to the highest of standards and sports are not even a part of the high school culture. In
Korea, the elementary school teachers and the hagwon professors are the most educated groups
Rachel Stagg
IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

of teachers in the country. There is one professor at a Hagwon in Korea that makes over four
million dollars each year because of his talent as a professor. Parents fight hard to get their
children into these hagwons with well-known professors because they know their children will
succeed. This teacher is paid so well because of his success rates, his education, and his devoted
work to education. An education professional is the United States would never make this much
money, no matter how hard they worked, but in Korea it is not as outlandish an idea as here.
Another huge difference between the U.S. and countries abroad is the involvement of
parents in student life. In the United States, parents often find themselves to be in the position of
a cheerleader, encouraging their children constantly that they are so smart and they can do
anything they want. Parents in other countries tend to not follow this belief system that children
need constant positive reinforcement even when they are struggling through school and learning.
This is one of the reasons that other countries parents, and even their teachers, tend to be seen as
coaches, not as cheerleaders. In the United States, many parents want their children to believe in
themselves, and to have the opportunity to never experience failure. This logic is extremely
unrealistic, and essentially setting the child up for failure, which is the opposite of its intent. In
Korea and Poland, children know failure from a very young age; tests are hard and many
children do not pass them. To make the situation infinitely more humiliating, test grades are read
aloud on countless occasions in many different classrooms. In the United States, if a child was
humiliated in class publicly in this manner, parents would stampede the school demanding a
teacher fired for such a heinous practice. The parents survey portion of the PISA exam revealed
that, many American parents treated their children as if they were delicate flowers they
thought they needed to praise their childrens intelligence in order to assure them they were
smart (Ripley, 2013). American students have such high self-esteem, that, American 15-year-
olds were more likely than kids in thirty-seven other countries to say they got good math grades
(Ripley, 2013). In reality, the United States places around thirty-sixth in the world in math. How
is that for a reality check? On the opposite spectrum, children in Korea are pushed so rigorously
by their parents, that one young boy killed his own mother so that she would not find out about
his poor grades. Interestingly enough, many Koreans found that they could sympathize more
with the son in this story than the mother; this is how much pressure these children live under on
Rachel Stagg
IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

a constant basis. In Finland, unlike Korea, parents did not coach their children to high standards;
they gave them freedom to do as they pleased, because they knew that their child valued their
own education. This goes back to education being at the core of Finlands beliefs. Perhaps if
parents in the United States would teach their children that education is very important, but
failure is necessary to life, then our children would realize self-esteem isnt everything, but
knowledge truly is power.
Due to the increased education standards that came about from globalization, the job
markets worldwide are changing, and many young people in the United States will find
themselves struggling very hard to find a job soon. Bama Companies, which is called an
Oklahoma institution, found the United States education standards troubling, and the owner,
Paula Marshall, decided to move a factory from the United States to Poland, in hopes of finding
smarter employees. When asked about the move to Poland, she said, We hear that educated
people are plentiful (Ripley, 2013). In America, she did not feel the same optimism that she had
encountered in Poland. Marshall, while still in America, realized that many employees came
looking for factory work without basic math or reading skills; she needed maintenance techs who
could not only run the machines, but also read blueprints, test problems, and fix solutions if
necessary (Ripley, 2013). This is not only happening in Bama Companies factories, this is
becoming an epidemic in the United States. If the United States cannot even send employees to
fill basic factory maintenance jobs, then we need to look at our standards and seriously consider
making some hefty changes in the next couple years.
From this book, differences in the education standards can clearly be seen between the
United States and the highly-ranked PISA countries in the developed world. In the 2012 PISA
ranking, we placed thirty-sixth globally in math, while Korea, Finland and Poland were all in the
top fifteen countries, with Korea being number five (OECD, 2013). Because the United States
schools place more value on sports and clubs, education suffers. In Finland, Korea and Poland,
children and parents alike know how important education is to their country and strive every day
to be the best they can. Where the parenting styles of the United States are more relaxed about
education and encouraging self-esteem, the parenting styles of the other countries are more
pressured. Parents in Korea and Finland expect more of their children, but they know that failure
Rachel Stagg
IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

only helps their children learn and push themselves harder. I believe that parents in the U.S. need
to realize that, or our future adults will be entitled humans who dont know what failure is, or
how to learn from it and move on. Teaching is also a big part of this: if we continue to see
ourselves as a society where teaching is not highly revered, then our teachers will not be
respected and will not be able to teach their students to the best of their abilities. It is my opinion
that teachers should not be hired to a high school based on the fact that they can also throw a
mean spiral and would make a great football coach. Education can be changed, as Poland
realized a decade ago. Poland, with their high PISA scores that emerged seemingly out of thin
air, proved that, even troubled countries could do better for their children in just a few years.
Rigor could be cultivated Expectations could be raised (Ripley, 2013). The United Sates
could learn a myriad of lessons from Poland, and start expecting more from our teachers and
from our youngest generations; we do not have to be the country that spends the most money on
education and sees the least return value.

Rachel Stagg
IDC 201-201
April 16, 2013
Ripley Book Reflection

References
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2013). PISA 2012 Results
in Focus. Retrieved from Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development website: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/
pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf
Ripley, A. (2013). The smartest kids in the world and how they got that way. New York, NY:
Simon & Schuster.