[3flp]

You guys in the US & friends probably don't see it as clearly. The US focus on self esteem - justified or not - and the vague post-modern concern with various shallow attributes, like gender, background etc., is actually quite stunning to me. I've grown up in a progressive part of the eastern bloc. The schooling in science and math there has traditionally been focused on tangible results.

From the year 1 onwards. Unannounced in-class tests used to be common. If you solved the math problem you got good marks, if you didn't you get poor marks. There was nothing judgmental about it. And you could not move into higher education if you didn't have good marks.

Let me give you an analogy. Have you met the wacky person on a party who is an awful dancer, but doesn't realise it? You know, like Elaine from Seinfeld. Embarasing, obnoxious and feeling good about it. If it were a child, the US&friends school system would tend to encourage them and telling them how awesome they are, lest their feelings get hurt. An eastern block school would just give them bad marks and let them move on...

(And in soviet russia, the party embarasses you!)

[ewanmcteagle]

We don't fully understand what the best approach is. Yes, we can see that a lot of US education is poor but the US also generates a huge amount of creative output and invention and it isn't all from immigrants. It's also not clear that it would be good to penalize students so strongly (by not allowing them higher education) if they did poorly in school. There are a lot of developmental reasons why someone might do poorly in school and be successful later in life. One of the strengths of the US system is that a person can go onto higher education in one way or another or even go back to school when old. It's possible that the US (by accident) may be doing something right. Maybe it could be better but too much "better" may also cost something else. Comparisons of education system based on academic achievement risk leaving something out of their analysis.

[jacobolus]

Teaching people that getting the answer wrong results in negative consequences isn’t the best way to help them understand a subject. Schools should encourage “fail early, fail often,” and emphasize learning from mistakes, rather than merely penalizing them.