Education: How can we improve?

There are kids all around the world going to school but not all of them are learning the same way. They are learning at different paces, have different kinds of teachers, systems, budgets, and more. There are many contributing factors to how well a school does. They each have their own way of teaching at their public schools and that results in how well they do in school.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) is a test run by the OECD that has been given to schools in over 70 countries around the world. It provides the rankings of 15-year-old students around the world in reading, math, and science. Singapore, being the top country, along with other Eastern countries following have been at the top seemingly forever.

Almost all kids agree that school is stressful and they would rather not have to do school work. But do they realize that we have the best of both worlds? Some countries have either a close to non-existent education or are extremely high demanding.

According to BBC news, Asian countries continue to dominate with their test scores. Students in Singapore as well as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Finland are or close to the top-ranked countries in education. The students in these countries have done so well for so long.

But what makes these students exceedingly “smarter” than all other countries around the world? It has to do with their education system. The major factor is the completely different teaching style used by these countries. According to The Conversation, their education is logical, consistent, and orderly. It’s based on memorization, textbooks, worksheets, drills, and lectures.

Although the students are very successful these scores come with a price. According to Amy Choi with TED, the students are put under immense pressure to perform. Their country believes in hard work and diligence above all other courses and there are no excuses for failure. Because of this, students must study year-round and almost always require tutors at a night school. They also survive on close to no sleep. Students are constantly falling asleep in class resulting in staff hired to help students stay awake. The stakes are definitely much higher.

Recent studies have been done in the US about a fairly new kind of learning. The first school to use this method was in 1996 and this now has just recently begun to spread to more schools.

It’s meant to prepare students for life after school allowing students to figure out real-life problems for themselves. It helps the need for lifelong learning and is meant to enable those students to adapt, use creativity, develop their own theories, and potentially come up with their own way of thinking.

If this way of teaching spreads to all public and private schools it could possibly be what we have been looking for to help our test scores without placing too much pressure on the students to use memorization and tests that determine how smart they are.

Another high scorer is Canada. They performed almost as well as the top-ranked countries. According to Canada International, Canada does so well because education is focused on a multicultural environment for elementary and secondary students where teachers provide support for their students both born citizens and international. Children from countries all over the world go to Canada because of their multicultural-friendly environment.

According to US news, Schleicher sees hope from the lower scoring countries have succeeded at all. He says, “All countries can improve their students’ performance, given the right policies and the will to implement them.”