Significant Insights of Amanda Ripley on Education Cultures

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Significant Insights from Amanda Ripley
“The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way” is a book by Amanda Ripley that looks at the US education system compared to other actions. Ripley seeks to spark a school reform debate by pointing out that the United States is being left behind. This essay analyzes the book, the significance of her perspective, and parallels between the US and Chinese education cultures.
Ripley’s critical issues in the book stem from some children are learning so much and others tiny CITATION Ama13 \l 1033 (Ripley). Her perspective has been shaped by the disparities in what children knew in private schools, public schools, low, rich, black, and white backgrounds. She finds it nonsensical that this gap exists, and everyone is focused on the same narratives of money, race, or ethnicity. However, according to her, children are not allowed to challenge their young minds. She narrates the experience of walking in a classroom where children are bored out of their young minds from being fed hours of nothingness. Compared to other countries, she saw America’s education as average. She explains that an American child is average compared to children in New Zealand, Japan, or South Korea. The disparities occur because despite having some of the wealthiest schools in the world, Americans memorize facts while other countries teach their children to solve problems and adapt. Her critique of China comes as a surprise because its teenagers have been dominant in math, critical thinking, and science compared to other teenagers in the world. However, she does not consider it to be among the smartest countries in the world. She argues that the population being showcased as smart are the minorities as millions of Chinese children don’t have access to decent educationCITATION Rip13 \l 1033 (Ripley, Reality Check China).
Ripley’s approach to education is different; however, it addresses the root of the problem: American education has stagnated. The American Association of University Professors hailed critical thinking as the backbone of American education. It was meant to create thinking citizens to usher the nation to a free society. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has showcased this strategy’s failures, consequently making it difficult to escape the conclusion that taxpayer’s money and students’ time are being squandered. The US students ranked twenty-sixth in math, seventeenth in science, and twelfth i...