The Learning Gap

For the 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge

I am just finishing up a book called The Learning Gap.   By the way, have you noticed that 21st century sociological and psychological books written for the layman almost always have near-book-length subtitles just like Victorian novels?   This one has the subtitle:

Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education

The book turns out not to be a polemic, though, even though it might seem so from that thesis.

Apparently the authors are researchers, both Doctors of Psychology.   They went to representative classrooms in Japan and China and the US (Cleveland, Ohio, to be exact) and recorded lots of classroom observations and also statistically crunched lots of information apparently taken from surveys and questionnaires to compare, in detail, the differences in practice between elementary classrooms in Cleveland, Beijing and Sendai.    The focus is on 1st and 5th grade. 

At the beginning of the book they compare the level of academic success in US schools to that of Asian schools.  As we are all vaguely aware, Asian schools tend to produce far more impressive results in typical tests that compare students across international boundaries.  Especially in math, where there is easier grounds for comparing, the US scores relatively low compared to most other developed countries.   They score lower in actual achievement, but higher in how satisfied they feel with their accomplishment, which to many observers seems like a bit of a problem. 

So if you agree that these scores have significance and that consequently Asian classrooms are doing better than American ones in preparing students for whatever high math and other scores are meant to demonstrate that they are prepared for, then you can easily read the rest of the book as "how American schools should be different so they can be more like Chinese and Japanese ones."   You might notice my vague skepticism in my phrasing.  I have a theory that America's fixation upon quantifiable measurements of outcome is part of their problem and that these international comparisons only make us see things through this peculiarly Cartesian filter. 

But if you are just reading for the compare and contrast, then the book is good reading because the tone of the book is very calm and research-oriented.   Its format is simple -- in one area after another, the authors describe what American schools do, then what Japanese and Chinese schools tend to do in the same area.    The authors mentioned that it is difficult to pinpoint distinctive characteristics of American schools without going outside the schools.   Homeschooling, of course, offers a comparison with typical classrooms within national boundaries, but many educational researchers don't know how to treat homeschooling because it is individual and organic and resists normal classroom observation.   So researching other cultures can shed light upon our own.  

To take a couple of examples, math teachers in Beijing and especially in Sendai are far more likely than those in Cleveland to use manipulatives in a math lesson, even in fifth grade.    They are also far more likely to start the class with a difficult problem, get the students' input on how it could be solved, and work through carefully and inductively.  American teachers are much more likely to start a lesson by defining terms and giving a paradigm on how to solve a type of problem, then keep the second part of the lesson for independent seatwork based on the same concept.

Asian teachers are far more likely to stay with one topic during the whole lesson, whereas American teachers are more likely to skip through several topics within a lesson.    They both acknowledge the need for variety to keep the student engaged, but Asians will focus on a variety of ways to approach the single topic.  The pace is slower in an Asian classroom, but it is also more organized with a clearcut beginning, middle and end, where an American lesson is something like a smorgasboard.  

There are some things you would expect --- Asians respect academics and achievement far more than the average American.  And some things are surprising -- though Asian children have a longer school day and a longer school year (240 days instead of 180).  they have far more frequent recesses, so the amount of hours in a class is more comparable than you might have thought.

If you are reading the book from the perspective of a homeschooler, it is interesting, because you can pick and choose how you want to teach.    So you can reflect on some of your own educational experiences and realize that the conventional American mode isn't the only one possible. 

The authors have done a good job not leaping to quick conclusions about what the studies show about the differences.   Rather, they lay it out and admit there is probably more to be learned.  For example, the preschool years are examined briefly but not in depth.   So you get some clues about how Asian parents raise their children, but probably not in enough depth to gain a complete understanding.     Asian parents think of early childhood as an Age of Innocence, according to the book, and do little academic preparation in the home, unlike American parents who buy educational games and manipulatives for their small children.  But once school starts, Asian parents become very involved in academics and in supporting the school discipline, whereas Americans tend to back off at this point and leave a lot of the academic content and discipline to the schools. 

This book isn't exactly one of the page-turning non-fiction ones full of real-life anecdotes with names changed to protect privacy, or interesting personal narratives that keep you reading.  It is about statistics and averages.  But because it divides up and compares so many different elements of elementary education in such a simple, clear format, it's easy to understand and readable, and also easy to look back through.