Top Test Scores from Shanghai Stun Educators

Friend sent an article today entitled "Top Test Scores from Shanghai Stun Educators" (full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=1)

I found my own email response to her rather amusing and telling. Here was my email in response:

Thanks for this.  But I'm super cynical about the whole performance culture of the Chinese. I've known and know too many casualties. Children and adults who are emotionally and socially scarred and know nothing of love outside of love that is earned from performing well. Thank God I wasn't raised by parents like that!!

Obviously, I'm not against training up my kids to achieve in academics and other areas, but I just have such an aversion to (what I've seen), is often such a narrow perspective of life.

Here's the Excerpt: 

Top Test Scores From Shanghai Stun Educators

By SAM DILLON

Published: December 7, 2010

With China’s debut in international standardized testing, students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in math and science, according to the results of a respected exam.

Sherwin/European Pressphoto Agency

Pupils studying English at a school in Shanghai, a city that has become a magnet for many of the best students in China.

ROOM FOR DEBATE

American officials and Europeans involved in administering the test in about 65 countries acknowledged that the scores from Shanghai — an industrial powerhouse with some 20 million residents and scores of modern universities that is a magnet for the best students in the country — are by no means representative of all of China.

 

Comments

[shanti dickson]

i guess i'm wondering why anyone is surprised that chinese students would score well on standardized tests, when they LIVE at school...the question is, what is it worth? for example, the government is currently trying to deal with a crisis brought up by multi-national HR folks: out of the millions of "qualified" graduates churning out of Chinese universities each year, these global companies are not able to find acceptable candidates to hire in China.

so what's missing in those test scores?