The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way
A summary of the book by Amanda Ripley
I recently read the brilliant book The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley, a journalist who writes for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. In this book, she focuses on why students from other countries outperform U.S. students and what they are doing differently. Even though the book is written from a U.S. perspective, there are broad lessons applicable everywhere in the world. Ripley follows three U.S foreign exchange students in Finland, Poland, and South Korea and provides an in-depth account of their experiences. Before we get into the details, it is important to understand PISA rankings, the metric used to compare the performance of students from different countries
PISA Rankings
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study done every 3 years. PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics, and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. PISA uses a robust scoring mechanism that standardizes the scores and prevents bias. PISA rankings are accepted worldwide and Ripley uses PISA rankings as a metric throughout the book.
Before we get into the general learnings presented by Ripley, I want to emphasize some points about the three countries covered in the book.
South Korea
South Korea, while being one of the top performers in the PISA tests, provides a great example of how not to approach education. Below are noteworthy points
- Korean teenagers spent more time studying than U.S. kids spent awake
- They spent more than 12 hours in class every day and they already went to school almost 2 months longer than U.S. students
- U.S. students spent double the amount of time playing sports as Koreans
- Most of the studying for Korean students happens in hagwons (private institutes for supplementary education) after school hours. Due to this, students sleeping in school classes is a common sight
Poland
Poland provides a testimonial to the argument that student outcomes can be turned around through robust policy decisions, as evident by its growth in PISA rankings. Much of this is attributable to the reforms brought in by the former minister of national education, Mirosław Handke. His reforms injected rigor into the system and also accountability. He also mandated standardized tests at regular intervals throughout the schooling.
Finland
Finland’s education system is a marvel as it produces top-performing students without subjecting them to a high-pressure system like South Korea. The main factor responsible for this is the quality of teachers. In Finland, teachers go through a very selective application process and rigorous training. Also, teachers are given more autonomy which provides them much better job satisfaction. Finland provides a great example to learn from for most developed nations in the world.
Learnings
Common learnings from Ripley’s travels are summarized below
- Quality of Teachers: If there is one factor that is common among the high-performing countries, it is the quality of their teachers. Teaching has to be a prestigious profession with a selective application process, rigorous training, and attractive rewards. This will create a virtuous cycle and there are no shortcuts here.
- Rigor: High-performing countries expect a great deal from their students, regardless of their background. U.S. parents tend to act more like cheerleaders while parents in other countries act like coaches. When these students become adults, they will need rigorous high-order thinking to thrive in their jobs. By not instilling rigor and critical thinking in their education, we are setting them up for failure.
- Sports in schools: Sports are not an important part of the schools in most of the high-performing countries. They benefit only a minority of the students. U.S. schools put too much importance on sports while they treat academics with kid gloves.
- Parents as coaches: Parents have an important role to play in education but not in the way they are involved in PTA or school sports. Studies have shown that parents being involved in the school (PTA, sports, etc.) does not benefit children academically. They should rather involve with kids in their academics at home, coaching them.
- Students and Parents complain even in the best places: Even in the highest performing nations, parents and students are still not fully satisfied with the education policies, workload, expectations, etc. They fail to understand that they are getting the best possible education in the world and find faults in the system. In a way, this is good because it leads to further improvements. But their satisfaction cannot be taken as the ultimate goal of education policies. The goal should always be the performance of students and their ability to do critical thinking while avoiding a high-stress scenario for the kids.
Thoughts
Ripley’s book gives a broader perspective on how kids are educated around the world. I do not completely agree with taking PISA ranking as the ground truth for student performance, as it has its own issues. Still, the points she makes are valid and the importance of quality and rigor is applicable globally.
