<p>USA Today:</p>
<p>[Film</a> raises troubling questions about U.S. students - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-02-17-2-million-minutes_N.htm]Film”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-02-17-2-million-minutes_N.htm)</p>
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<p>Has anyone seen this documentary?</p>
<p>To answer your question, No. TV non-functioning at the moment, & I don’t always get decent video on my computer. What is their (or your) point? That US kids are under-educated vs. the competition? That we should worry because we have out-of-control immigration policies? (Which we do, btw).</p>
<p>My family has talked about this topic quite a bit in recent months because my daughter spent the fall semester in Beijing and we visited China for a touring vacation/business trip (for my husband) when her semester ended. We even discussed it with our friends in Shanghai, who are my husband’s Chinese colleague and his wife who have a 14 year old daughter, when they invited us to their home for dinner. </p>
<p>I am definitely not a total expert on the subject, but I will relate my impressions here. In China, students usually attend their local middle school (based on where they live), but high school placement and college admission/placement depend totally on one huge test. For this reason, everything in school is geared to studying for “the test” - it’s like No Child Left Behind on steroids. The students spend longer hours in the classroom than our students, but are pretty much only taught what is on the test, so there is not much room for creativity and original thinking in the curriculum. For example, until recently, only reading and writing were included on the English portion of the tests, so many educated Chinese people can read and write English well but are weak at speaking English. The Chinese educators are realizing this weakness, so now have decided to include speaking on the test, and thus it will be taught. Also, Chinese students do not have the opportunity to participate in ECs the way kids here do. So high achieving students here spend as many or more hours on school-related activities if they participate in sports, music, theatre, etc. - it is just not the same number of hours on drill in the classroom. And in both countries, students who have spent long hours at school (in class, in China, or at marching band (in my D’s case) or some other activity, here) come home to long hours of hw at night. Finally, my daughter’s impression (and I am pretty sure that it is true) is that motivated Chinese students work harder in high school than similarly high-achieving students do here, but once they get to college, the workload in China is easier than the college workload here and American students, in general, work harder in college.</p>
<p>Chinese parents have the same concerns that we have about pressure and balance. Our Shanghai friends chose to send their daughter to a smaller more local high school where she can get a good education but still have more personal attention and get involved in some school activities (student government, it sounded like to me) instead of a huge prestigious academic powerhouse high school that her entrance scores qualified her to attend, and the daughter takes art classes privately on weekends (like my daughter did here in the U.S., interestingly). The wife, who coincidentally has a background in early childhood education, was very interested in hearing from my daughter about all of the things she did in high school, like marching band, Model UN, World Affairs Club, Future Problem Solving, art lessons. She told my D that she was lucky she had so many opportunities, and sounded like she regretted sad that her own daughter couldn’t do all those things. (As an aside, she also asked me if I thought it was “normal” that her 14 year old daughter was starting to argue with her and give her a hard time on some issues 
… I guess certain things are universal 
) Other Chinese friends of ours here in the U.S. are debating a career move back to China, but one of their concerns is that that they don’t want their child to be educated in the pressure-filled study-for-the-test Chinese system. </p>
<p>Also, I apologize if this is obvious to everyone reading this, but everyone in China is not a math/science whiz. Since my husband is a chemical engineer, his colleagues that we met are all chemists or engineers (Duh!) , but the husband of one of them works at a publishing house and our tour guides majored in History, English, or Tour Guide. (Being a Tour Guide is a profession in China and one has to pass a difficult test to be licensed.) </p>
<p>I don’t think the Chinese engineers, scientists, and programmers are smarter or more well educated than their counterparts here. The reason that the jobs are going to China and India is because the salaries for the same level of professionals are much lower than the salaries here. It really irritates my husband and me to read quotes in the media from CEOs of huge companies here complaining that American students don’t want to go into science, engineering, math, etc. These are the same companies that are moving many jobs overseas to countries such as China and India to save money, including high level research centers, while our research centers are being decimated or shut down. They are being very hypocritical when they make those statements in the media.</p>
<p>Finally, FWIW, my kids did not watch TV a lot during the week in high school - they did not have time. They spent several hours each night on hw, on average, with the TV turned off. I am sure that this is also true for most of the kids of the other parents who post on CC.</p>
<p>I wanted to add one last thing to the above post, but it was too late to edit:</p>
<p>I know that there are other parents on CC who are familiar with the educational system in China, including some who grew up in China, and I would be very interested in hearing their opinions on this topic.</p>
<p>My kids did watch more TV than I would have liked. Still do, even in college. It’s part of their lives in a way I wish it weren’t.</p>
<p>However, of their AP Govt. class, they were the only 4’s and very few kids got 3’s, mostly 2’s (no 5’s.) The school offered only a half year course and the teacher refused to teach to the test. Both my kids said their knowledge came from West Wing. Both chaired their Mock Trial Teams. Said their knowledge came from Law & Order. S captained a successful, number 1 in the county Academic Team (Quiz Bowl type of thing.) </p>
<p>So, I had to give up. </p>
<p>Their culture will never be as book centered as mine is/was, though both like to read and have read a fair amount.</p>
<p>MythMom - The TV is just a side issue to the whole topic. In China everyone has a TV at home just like here. All the young people know all of the American movies and culture. We visited 6 cities in China and had a different tour guide in each city, ranging in age from 24 years old to (I guess) mid-30s. Their English (with one exception) ranged from very good to fantastic. The one who had the best English and used all kinds of idioms and popular expressions perfectly had never visited an English-speaking country and had majored in “Tour Guide” (as opposed to some of the others who majored in English). We asked her how she had developed such great English speaking skills (obviously, she had a natural talent for it) and she told us she watches a lot of American movies and TV shows. </p>
<p>Who knows if Chinese h.s. students watch TV while they do hw? Maybe some of them do. Our friends’ 14 year old excused herself to do hw after dinner, and her dad turned the TV on and put on an English language channel for all of us adults to watch. FWIW, my daughter did the same thing, excused herself after dinner to do hw, five years ago when she was 15 and we had one of my husband’s Chinese colleague (a young woman) at our house for dinner on a weeknight. It was really funny because she was surprised that we told our D to go do hw. The Chinese stereotype of Americans is that they don’t study, and it made a big impression on her that when she visited an American home, the parents told the kid to go do her hw. Then she asked to look at my daugher’s books (Chemistry and Algebra 2) and she said that it was the same stuff she had studied when she was 15.</p>
<p>MotherOfTwo: Thanks for the clarification. Certainly, lots of homework done here.</p>
<p>The only reason I mentioned the TV at all was that in the linked article, it said that the scene that got the audiences the most worked up was of hs students watching Grey’s Anatomy on TV while they studied.</p>
<p>While important, book learning only does so much. Being creative and able to communicate well with others goes a long way in the real world. I don’t worry that much about people lacking super high math skills–you can hire that for fairly cheap.</p>
<p>MotherOfTwo, your posts are very informative and eye opening, thanks:-)
However, I believe that we can’t compare the general college bound population with those present on CC. We have a very specific crowd here.</p>
<p>Taken from the movies site:
</p>
<p>You can look up more and order the movie here:
[2MM</a> :: A GLOBAL EXAMINATION](<a href=“http://www.2mminutes.com/]2MM”>http://www.2mminutes.com/)</p>
<p>Is it going to be shown on PBS any time soon???</p>
<p>You are right that the CC population is not typical of all students but I am not sure how typical the Chinese and Indian students profiled in the film are. Obviously, the film-makers were trying to make a point. The two American students in the film were put forth as typical of high achieving students at one of the best US high schools, but we all know that many high achieving US students do spend a lot of time studying and are not airheads, unlike the two students featured in the film. I would like to hear from some unbiased people who are actually familiar with the range of high school students in China and India as far as their curriculum and dedication to studies, so we can accurately compare them to the range of high school students here.</p>
<p>I think that this thread has a bad title, that is why it is not drawing attention. Otherwise, I would have thought this to be a highly debatable topic here on CC.
Can we change the title/heading somehow or should we start another thread with a more “catchy” one, and then merge the two? Any moderators reading this?</p>
<p>I agree, someone else started another thread with a similar title this morning on the regular Parents section, and it has not received any attention either. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/463817-two-milion-minutes-film-education.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/463817-two-milion-minutes-film-education.html</a></p>
<p>I posted this when I was connected to my hotel’s WiFi which lost its last bar by the time I decided to add to my post. Apparently, the movie has been screened at several venues around the country, including Harvard, but no PBS showing has been scheduled yet. Just as the person who started the other thread, I was curious if anyone has seen it at one of those screenings, and if it was worth shelling out $25 for the DVD.</p>
<p>This is an interesting several part documentary on BBC which is focusing on China right now. I don’t know how you could watch it. It may come out online.</p>
<p>[BBC</a> World - Inside China - Chinese School](<a href=“http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/ProgrammeFeature.aspx?id=154&FeatureID=560]BBC”>http://www.bbcworld.com/Pages/ProgrammeFeature.aspx?id=154&FeatureID=560)</p>