Recently, I was talking to someone about education and he said most people in Third World countries are quite uneducated and if they are educated, their education is not that good. However, I completely disagree. First of all, most Westerners who hold this nation have probably never been to a Third World country or has family in a Third World country. They rely upon statistics from the media and embellished news reports. I dare these people to actually visit a Third World country to see if your preconceived notion is indeed true. I am not saying that there are not Third World countries who do not fit this view for indeed there are some. But not all have horrible education.
Personally speaking, my parents are from Jamaica. And let me tell you something. I don't care what any newspaper or magazine or website tells you, a Jamaican education is quite demanding and difficult. It is rigorous and definitely prepares their students for the world. When my relatives came to this country, all of them were placed in advanced classes in college. Why? Because they went throught an arduous Jamaican education and were very smart indeed. Many of them were twice as smart as the American children at their respective institutions of higher education. Many Americans are surprised that they went to school in a Third World country and yet can be so smart, smarter than most of the American-born children at that. My cousins in Jamaica are doing much more advanced work than I was doing at their age. One of my cousins for example is in second grade and learning things that I myself did not learn until 4th grade. I truly think that more people need to take time to educate themselves about Third World countries by not only reading the newspapers but also by actually researching them. Also, talk to people who are from the country themselves and maybe even visiting the country (not just being a tourist and looking around but actually study the history and economies and educations of these countries). Then, one can truly formulate an opinion.
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American education is not as high on the worlds list of beat educated (meaning secondary school, college, etc), funny how we can be the richest country but we can't really compete with kids in other countries overall.
~Peace, Life, and Love~
I completely agree we can't rely completely on the media to inform us, sometimes a person just needs to go out in the world and explore it themself.
AMERiCANS' GROWING UP HAS ALWAYS REVOLVED AROUND EDUCATION...
BUT iN OTHER PLACES, THEiR CULTURES AND WAYS ARE DiFFERENT
MAYBE CULTURE iS ALL THEY KNOW, AND FOR THEM, AN EDUCATION iS USLESS WiH THE WAY THE LiVE THEiR LiFES.
SOME PEOPLE SEE THAT AS WEirD, BUT iT iS BEACAUSE THEY HAVE
BEEN TAUGHT TO HAVE AN EDUCATION IS NEEDED...
BUT PEOPLE DO NOT REALiZE THAT NOT EVERYONE HA THE EXACT
SAME SYSTEM, STYLE, AND WAY OF LIViNG AS US AMERiCANS.
i AGREE THAT PEOPLE SHOULD ViSiT THOSE COUNTRiES, SO THAT
THEY CAN SEE FOR THEMSELVES HOW IN THOSE COUNTRIES, STATiSTiCS ARE PROOVED WRONG!!!
i HAVE MANY FRiENDS FROM BELGiUM && THEY ARE VERY YOUNG, AND YET THEY ARE TAKIN THE COURSES FOR SENiORS, DURING THEIR SOPHOMORE YEAR!!!
-->God BLesS
American education is not famous for being challenging. Some immigrants came to this country for education, not because the quality of the education in their country is poor, but because the competition there is tough. Everyone here can pretty much go to college even if they did poorly in high school provided they have some financial support, but colleges in some countries accept only students with high grades. The only way a student with a poor grade can sneak in is if their parents are really rich.
What immigrant parents like about American education is that it teaches students to think. In their countries students listen passively and engage in memorizing facts, which is why they seem to be "smart". I have even heard that some students had to memorize the periodic table for their chemistry test. But in here, students interact with each other and with their teachers, and if they don't have to memorize the periodic table or obscure formulas, it's because we're more concerned about applying knowledge in real situations, not about getting good grades so we could get into a prestigious college. In theory that is.
But it's not unreasonable to assume that students from third world countries know less than we do. I also have met some people who said instead of dissecting a frog they had to learn from a picture on the chalk board because their school can't afford the equipment. There is something about looking at a real life frog that is different than looking at a chalk board sketch.
This is insightful. There are also differences we have to account for in the American education system. I went to a seminar in "futurism" which isn't seeing into the future, but a prediction using the events of the past and seeing a pattern. What was interesting was that I saw a comparison with Chinese college students versus American students. One picture was of the senior class (in one particular college of the university) of Colorado University, where these students had huge smiles, girls were flashing the camera, people were being silly and whatnot. The other picture was of students in China, their picture was of "quiet determination" as it was put. And to put things into perspective, we were shown a picture of the senior class of our university and they look much like the Chinese class. Hm. Interesting.